Remote (13 page)

“Thanks, but I still feel like a piece of shit.”

“Then you need another drink.”  She refilled his cup, then raised hers.  “To doing what we have to.”

He paused, then raised his own.

***

When Goliath woke up, everything was different.

He was still chained, but the helmet had vanished, replaced by a ballgag stuffed into his mouth.  He was inside some kind of metal box—a shipping container?  No, it was too small for that. 

He got to his feet groggily.  There was daylight at the end of the box, and a woman standing there. 

He stared at her, his thoughts fragmented and slow.  He relieved himself without thinking about it, a purely animal reflex.

He had done it.  He had beaten the Godfucker. 

There was a famous distorted quote taken from Psalm 24, the one that went, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for I am the meanest son-of-a-bitch in the valley.” 

Goliath had it tattooed on his back. 

It was a creed he’d always lived by, and even in the depths of methamphetamine and sleep deprivation psychosis, he had held fast to it.  Now, that single-minded determination had led him to one inescapable conclusion.

He had
become
the Godfucker.

It made perfect sense.  If the gods themselves could be destroyed by the Godfucker, then there had to be something bigger and badder that could take the Godfucker down—and replace him.

That something was Goliath.

The woman said something, but it was just a jumble of sounds that made no sense.  He’d figure it out later, when he understood his new status and what he should do with it. 

He stared at his chains for awhile, then put his head down and sank into a black, dreamless void.   He knew he was going to need his rest.

Because when he woke up, it would be time to start showing the whole goddamn world what its new owner was going to do to it.

***

The impact slammed into Jack like someone swinging a ballpeen hammer.  Pain exploded through his back, his legs went rubbery and he was thrown forward, barely managing to cushion his fall with his forearms.

His legs.  He couldn’t move his legs. 

Behind him, he heard the robot’s motor whir into life, the sound of an oversize children’s toy on its way to kill him.  Jack refused to believe it might be the last thing he ever heard.

“Stay down,” Remote said calmly.  “You’re not fatally injured, and I don’t want to kill you.”

The end of the hallway was only a few feet away.  Jack dragged himself forward with his arms, propelling him into the next room.

It was a library.  Bookshelves lined the walls, and there was a single white leather recliner in the middle of the room.  An upright pole lamp stood on one side of it, a small round table on the other.  Velvet drapes of a deep crimson lined a tall, barred window at the far end.

Feeling started to creep back into Jack’s legs.  He crawled forward, grabbed the table, and threw it into the hallway as hard as he could.

He heard a crash.  It was too much to hope he’d damaged the robot, but he might have blocked its path. 

“There’s nowhere to go,” Remote said.  “The technical specifications for that robot state it can drag up to one hundred and thirty pounds.  An end table isn’t going to do more than slow it down.”

Jack pulled himself to his hands and knees, looked back at the door.  No trail of blood.  What he did see was a white cloth bag, a little smaller than a golf ball, with a knot tied in it. 

Beanbag round.  Non-lethal.  He’s still trying to take me alive.

He grabbed the pole lamp.  It was made of lightweight plastic, with a small LED bulb on the end and a cone-shaped shade made of white paper.  Jack thought it would probably shatter if he tried to use it as a club, and he’d dropped the makeshift one he’d cobbled together in the kitchen.

He could hear the robot’s motor in the hall as it backed up, moved forward, then backed up again.  It sounded frustrated.

“You should be aware I have more than one kind of ammunition available.  If you attack my robot you’ll force me to use something considerably more lethal.”

Jack used the lamp and the chair to pull himself to his feet.  He looked around:  the room had no door, but it did have hundreds of books, any of which might be concealing a hidden camera lens.

He grabbed the recliner, shoved it forward as hard as he could.  It didn’t want to move on the heavy rug, but at least it wasn’t bolted down.

“That’s not big enough to block the whole doorway.  You can prevent my robot from entering, but I can still shoot you.”

Jack shoved the lounger into the doorway, keeping low in case Remote tried another shot.  Then he went to the nearest bookshelf, grabbed it as best he could, and yanked.  It didn’t budge.

Must be bolted to the wall.
  Jack’s options were narrowing.

A loud blast from the hall nearly deafened him, and suddenly the air was full of shredded white leather and upholstery stuffing.  Remote hadn’t been kidding about having more than one kind of ammo.

“Surrender.  Or I’ll be forced to cripple you for real.”

***

“Where were we?” Nikki said.

“Alibi,” Parkins replied.

“Right.  Alibi.” 

Nikki took another sip of tequila.  She wasn’t smashed, not by a long shot, but she was definitely feeling no pain.  Parkins seemed a little more drunk than she was, but that could be an act; if she were in his position, that’s what she’d be doing.  “Okay, how about this.  You went out for a drive.  You went to a bar you normally don’t go to, you had a drink.  That’s the last thing you remember until you woke up in a park.”

Parkins thought about it.  “You know how many bars have security cameras these days?  Plus, nobody will remember me being there.”

“True,” she admitted.  “How about someplace you actually went?  You go to a grocery store, anything like that, before we grabbed you?”

He frowned.  “I . . . yeah.  I went to a drugstore, bought some condoms.  Paid cash.”

“Well, that’s a road we’re trying to not go down, right?  We need a plausible reason you might have had a drink or some food with a complete stranger, out of the public eye.”

Parkins shook his head.  “Maybe I should just say I was kidnapped by little green men.  Aliens abducted me and all I remember is a bright light.  Woke up with a sore ass and amnesia.”

She laughed.  “Sorry.  You couldn’t afford what I charge for an anal probe.”

“Figures.”  He sighed.  “Guess I’m fucked.  And I didn’t even enjoy it.”

“No?  Not having even a little fun?”  She waggled the bottle of tequila at him.

He smiled.  “Well, maybe a little . . .”

***

The next time Goliath awoke, he knew exactly where he was.

He was still chained, of course.  Still in a metal box.  He could smell excrement and pine trees, and feel cold steel against his flesh. 

He was a prisoner of the Mantises.  He’d killed their God, replaced him, and now he had to be tested to see if he was worthy.  He could still hear the thrash metal playing in the back of his head, and he understood now that it was the prayers of the Mantises he was hearing, the chaotic insect screaming of their hate and worship.  He would have to learn to decode it, to figure out where it was coming from, who they had burrowed into.

And destroy them. 

He got to his feet, slowly, his muscles aching.  He was hungry and thirsty, but there was only a water bottle within reach.  He clumsily manipulated it until he could insert the straw past the ball-gag, then sucked the bottle dry. 

He studied his prison.  His brain was operating on two different levels, a disconnect so profound it was like being two people at the same time.  One of them was Goliath the survivor, the biker, ex-con and career criminal, evaluating the situation and how to exploit it; the other was a dysfunctional madman, convinced of his own divinity, with a seething hatred for the universe and everyone in it.  It was a combination that would have reduced most people to catatonia or screaming incoherence, but Goliath had a lifetime of surreal violence and overdose experiences to draw on; it gave him a highly unusual set of skills, ones that enabled his body to move and function while his conscious mind was almost completely irrational. 

He tugged at his chains, testing them.  They were attached to U-shaped bolts in the floor, which were still shiny-new.  The floor itself, though, was a lot thinner and older, speckled with rust and corrosion. 

When he shifted his weight, he could feel the floor rock.  He was in a trailer.  The chains were too short for him to reach the walls or the roof, though he could almost touch the wall with his shoulder when he leaned all the way to one side.  He could lift his feet all of six inches. 

What he could reach, just barely, was the plastic bucket in one corner.  It had a lid and looked like it could hold about five gallons. 

It would have to do.

***

Jack grabbed the lamp, yanked the power cord out of the wall. 

“That’s not going to help you,” Remote said.  “Even the base isn’t heavy enough to make a good bludgeon.”

Jack crouched behind the remains of the recliner. 
Camera has to be mounted so it has a good view of the door.  Up high.
  He kept his arms beneath his body, blocking probable line-of-sight, and fumbled with the lamp.  He could the robot’s motor on the other side of the door, getting closer. 
Must have cleared the table.

He positioned himself beside the door, the best spot to ambush the thing.  His back felt like he’d been run over by a truck, and every other injury he had was screaming in sympathy.

“That’s not going to work, either.  I can see you, remember?  And the shotgun’s mounted on a swivel, for exactly that reason.  You can’t win.”

Jack backed away from door, positioning himself closer to the center of the room.  He held the pole lamp over his shoulder like a baseball bat; it felt absurdly light. 

“I’ll make this quick,” Remote said.

The snout of the shotgun poked through the doorway.  Jack tensed, preparing himself.  He’d only have one chance.

The shotgun tracked to the left, targeting him.  Jack lunged forward, not swinging the lamp but thrusting with it like a rapier.  He wasn’t trying to hit the muzzle with it, though.

He was trying to snag the barrel with the loop he’d tied in the power cord. 

He thought Remote still planned to take him alive, which meant he’d use another beanbag round.  That required accuracy, which gave Jack the extra second he needed.  Add another half an instant for the element of surprise, and he had a halfway-decent chance before—

The gun fired. 

But Jack was already moving, throwing himself to the side.  The beanbag missed his head by mere inches, and then he was yanking on the cord with one hand while shoving the pole forward with the other. Snagging the shotgun wasn’t enough; he had to control it enough to keep it away from him, or all he’d be doing is helping it zero in on him

The loop at the very base of the pole tightened around the muzzle.  The barrel tried to swing Jack’s way and he fought it, servoelectric muscles straining against human ones.

The shotgun fired again, a deafening blast intended to shock Jack into letting go.  He refused, shoving the barrel as hard as he could to the side.  His bare feet slid against the carpet. 

The robot reversed, its treads trying to drag Jack over the recliner and into the killing zone of the hallway.  If Jack hung onto his improvised snare, he’d be pulled back into the line of fire. 

Jack let go and dove forward.

As soon as his fingers closed on the barrel of the shotgun he knew he’d won.  He wrenched it to the side with all his might even as it roared over and over—but Remote was the one running out of options, now.

The shotgun clicked on an empty chamber.  Jack took a firmer grip on the barrel, used it as leverage to jump over the recliner, then muscled the robot over on its side as its treads spun uselessly.

“Well done,” said Remote.  “You’ve disabled one of my tools.”

Jack, breathing heavily, didn’t respond.

“
One
,” said Remote. 

***

 “Okay, I got it,” Parkins said.  “Bender. 
Massive
bender.  Went to the liquor store, got a big old bottle of booze, stayed smashed for a few days.  Easy.”  His voice slurred, just a little.

Nikki grinned and shook her head, the veil in front of her eyes blurring Parkins face.  “That’s the tequila talking.  The only way that story plays is if you’re a die-hard alcoholic--or unless you’ve had some major stressor in your life lately.  Have you?”

“Yeah.  This crazy woman and her boyfriend kidnapped me.”

She laughed.  “Well, there is that.  Really prefer you keep us out of it, though.”

“Oh, right.”

“How about this?  You ever go hiking?”

“Uh—does taking long walks while camping count?”

“Sure.  How about this—you thought you’d go for a little walk in the woods.  Took a bottle along for company.  Forgot to eat dinner, so the booze hit you a little harder than you thought.  Wandered off the trail, got confused, sun went down.  Been lost from now until then. 

He thought about it.  “So instead of being an asshole, I’m just an idiot?”

“More or less.”

“Works for me.”

“Okay, then.  We have a plan.  We’ll dirty your clothes up a little, maybe find a patch of poison oak to give you a convincing rash.  Let you go with a compass half a mile from a trail.”  She finished her own drink, then got carefully to her feet.  “Just make sure you ditch the damn compass once you reach civilization, okay?”

“So—that’s it?”

“Yeah.  We sit tight until my partner gets back, then you turn into Clueless Nature Boy.  Hey, I’m hungry—Chinese okay with you?”

“Yeah, sure.”  He finished his own drink, then looked up at her.  “And, you know—thanks.”

“Least we can do.”  She climbed the basement steps a little unsteadily, making sure to lock the door behind her.