Slaughtermatic (18 page)

‘
I can’t,’ said Dante.

‘
I can but ain’t gonna,’ said Dante Two.

‘
Up yours, fatso,’ said Rosa.

Blince turned back to Geryon. ‘What she mean, “fatso”?’

Geryon coughed and tried to fold his face like a deckchair.

‘
Okay, fire when you’re ready, gentlemen. And take no prisoners - we can’t afford to house ’em.’

Dante Two flagged his arms. ‘Don’t shoot - it’s bad luck.. For me, I mean.’ Bullets flocked to him, tearing up the architecture as he ran and joined Rosa at the barricade desk. ‘Okay, honey?’

‘
Plea bargain?’ Rosa snapped, and slapped him round the face. ‘Why couldn’t you stick to your guns like Danny?’

‘
Because he
has
stuck to his guns,’ he protested, but was drowned out by his own rifle fire. Spent shells scattered like dragon’s teeth.

Pieces of the planted Dante were being blasted to smoke.

‘
Get in with the chestnut gun, Terry,’ Blince was saying as the bullets spackled around him, and he lumbered aside to reveal Terry Geryon rigged out with an Ouroboros flame thrower, a gasket on his back.

‘
Meet the monster, Danny boy,’ said Geryon. ‘Retaliation’ll be interpreted as an act of hostility.’

Dante smiled with a contempt so tight it could never be undone. Both cannons were already raised and began to whizz, the rotor barrels spinning - they blurred as he let rip. Cops were swatted to the floor, blotting like bugs. Denial shields splintered like busted wings. Soon they were all playing the fool with slamming to the wall, sputtering chest blood and other hey-watch-me antics. Dante kept on, the kick rattling his teeth out.

Then the firetrail leapt natural as lightning and Dante was weeping gasoline, a shrieking human torch, two guns blazing from the heart of the inferno.
This is living
, he thought, fire roaring through his mouth.

He clunked to his knees and the guns went out. Rustling like paper, he tipped sideways and scattered firefly embers into the air.

The pain went on, outraged at the escape attempt. Then he grasped at nothing, and snuffed out.

Something had been cut away. A surge of strength found Dante Two standing from behind the armoured counter and taking sure aim. What did the Kid always say? Be the target and you can’t miss. Dante Two was shooter, gun, bullet and victim. The round smacked through the Ouroboros gasket and Terry Geryon went nova, most of his flaming limbs hitting the ceiling and sticking there to burn.

Everyone persevered to manifest the idiosyncracies of bloody mayhem but the shooting was getting old - even Rosa’s mind was wandering as she fired a Heckler. What was this about again? ‘Ah, we’re back in the loop, Danny,’ she realized, exasperated. ‘Look at us. What is this? Why are we here?’ It was like quitting a habit - the city had dragged them right back in.

Dante Two’s composure evaporated. He got a vision of the city as a gigantic spider, its legs reaching around the world to clutch it like an egg. More spiders in the egg, the packed superdensity of which was the source of gravity. What else was there but the spiders in their circle? Maybe the habit isn’t in us, he thought. What if we’re a habit that the world doesn’t want to let go? Crazy thinking.

Blince aimed the bullhorn around a corner of the Malacoda hog tank. ‘Surrender now and I’ll forget I ever said this.’

Rosa and Dante Two were getting up to leave when the tank completed its proximity adjustment, swiveled the boast and let rip, filling the lobby with random, galling interference.

7

CLINGING ON

Clinging on to the cables and wall like a lizard, Harpoon Specter climbed the outer elevator of the Deal Highrise. The lawyer’s hydra-headed resentment lit his way and drove his body. Who was up there, scratching in the half-light?

Above the fourth floor, the shaft was locked solid. The elevator doors were part-way open, forced from inside. He slid silently through.

A warehouse of small spiders and big dolls. One of the big dolls was moving - a man stood by the far window. Tall and white-haired, he crouched down and picked something off the floor. A book done up in black vinyl. Specter drew a snub gun and advanced on him.

The hitman awoke in rubble. The hardened glass crust which covered him popped and exploded as he sat up. Running through his habitual wake-up inventory, he surveyed his surroundings. The tank. Cop bodies. Blince under a beam. Pieces of Geryon. Shadow of Danny. Where was Rosa?

He clambered through trash to the rear door, opening the tank-issue antishock jacket. Walking down a corridor, he assessed the damage. One round had penetrated, but this wasn’t the victory. He’d never let his principles slide for anyone - he wanted to show Rosa the anti-jacket like a trophy and tell her, ‘See here, Rosa Control, I wore beige for you.’ The corridor turned sharply and he slammed straight into her.

Something was very wrong. He looked down to find her steel-plated nails were buried in his chest. She shoved the claw further and a rib snapped directly over his heart. She was staring right into his face, her fingers buried to above the first joint. She pushed.

‘
Rosa,’ he said in a hurt tone.

‘
Leave it,’ someone said behind her. Parker looked to see it was good old Danny Cubit, who was bleeding from the nose, ears and spirit. ‘Moron doesn’t even work for himself. And getta loada the jacket.’

Parker didn’t dare move a muscle. He could see every pore in her face. Rosa clutched a little, looking him in the eyes. ‘Fuck off,’ she whispered, and gave him time to think about it. Then she let go - he dropped like a sack of garbage. She was already gone, with Danny.

‘
Going up,’ said the tall guy, and the glass elevator started to rise.

Specter saw armouries, plunge pools, computer rooms and forests full of monkeys slide on down as the tall guy spoke.

‘
Swank steamer - messy at close range, I think you’ll find. My name’s Gamete - Eddie Gamete. And you are?’

Specter said nothing.

‘
Beige pants. A lawyer, am I right?’

Specter blanked him, staring off a little in stony silence.

‘
Don’t be ashamed, there are worse professions. Those who mince cows and pee into the mix, for instance. Door-to-door merchants who won’t go away and force you to throttle them and undergo the trial of disposing of a gaseous cadaver. Death himself, rapping at the window with a bony knuckle when you’re at the point of orgasm. Met him once. Turned out to have a constant stupid smile on his face and a clapper in his chest - like in a bell. Of course his ribcage just clattered when it swung, didn’t ring ominously as it was intended. Felt sorry for the bastard. Dry, you see? Offered to line his inner wall with iron. Mythic resonance. Death-knell. Charged him thirty large. Hammered the pig ore myself in a forge bellowed by the screams of a hundred chefs. Those same chefs who were then being thrashed and tormented by midgets would later form an idiosyncratic religion in the unshakeable belief that they had visited hell - which in a sense they had. I came away from the experience with a new definition of myself and my abilities - I never laughed so much before or since. And of course I had the chest wall for the reaper, polished to perfection. What I never explained to him, however, was why I also knitted in a thick layer of wool which muffled the bell, the net result being that he was both heavier and angrier than before. Think of the frustration. So you’re better off than some, yes? Top floor. After you.’

The door slid open and Gamete gestured in deference, but Specter waved him through sharply with the gun. As Gamete walked out, the lawyer saw a scene of urbane luxury beyond. A dunce shot and it was his. He raised the gun at Gamete’s retreating back - stepping out of the elevator, he passed through the Zero Approach screen and flew to pieces like shit hitting a fan.

Back behind the big desk. Some boys coming back all laughs from the McKenna clean-up had helped him off with the fallen beam and later, wandering by and seeing he was still recumbent under gravity, helped him up. The villains of the piece looked to have made off in the hog tank, which was gone when he awoke, and Blince never felt better than after successfully resisting the clammy advances of a 155mm rocket shell. Once again he was the eyes and ears of chaos. Reports flooding in of hundreds of chimpanzees running berserk at the Deal crime scene. Scene boys taken totally by surprise. And a package arrives by the good old SS Mail in a shielded microtruck. Brown with blood and what’s inside but a bound thesaurus and a scrawled note:

Cubit’s book.

T. Garnishee

Could you beat that? Blince scrolled the volume. ‘Reward, deserts, proof of regard, shield.’ This stuff cracked him up. He’d jet it off to the Pentagon like he did the first one. Wouldn’t they get a bang out of it when they put them together and realized it wasn’t two copies of a book, but the same book duplicated by time shit?

‘
Well, well, well - whattya know.’ Blince pulled the Choke Chain file and flipped a photo. There it was - the doglike tenacity in those features. ‘Always knew you had it in you, Tredwell. There’s a mess o’ commendations comin’ at you full tilt.’ He propped the portrait against a coffee cup. ‘Look at you sittin’ proud. We understand each other, don’t we? Leave civilization to its own devices and it’s only a matter o’ time before it tosses its pacifier outta the buggy. You said a mouthful there. In an emergency they’re expendable, ain’t they? And ain’t these past two years been a state o’ national emergency? Bet your sweet life. Ah, you know me, Tred - danger rears its bright face and I’m a rip-lettin’ fool. Danny and them others ain’t wakin’ outta this one, you know why? Some nightmares you get hooked on like trash TV - gets behind your face. Attitude don’t count for zip - all we need’s a name. Hell, you think I’m playin’ devil’s apricot here? Looka that - trigger finger’s still got a dent. Guess all the book-learnin’s research, eh Chokey, takin’ your work home? Nuthin’ wrong with that, knew you hadda have your reasons. Yeah, there’s a reason for everythin’ but opera and guilt. I right?’

A bug stop-started across the desk - Blince slammed a palm at it, folded his hand and slapped the morsel into his mouth.

Hand on heart, Brute Parker wheeled through the Thruway and listened to the birdlike trill of tank armour ricochet - kids hung on the boast and molotov flare-pools bloomed like rose beds. Love sure burnt a layer off your expectations. ‘He who fights and runs away,’ he thought, ramming through a roadblock, ‘than never to have loved at all.’

‘
A lot can happen in a day,’ Rosa said. She’d never been in a real, hooked-up railcar before and couldn’t believe it was about to move. Hunkered down behind a conifer stand of dud and dusty Hellfire missiles, neither of them could get it through their heads that they were escaping. It was like waking from a dream of Charlie Chaplin to find yourself merely clinging to an aircraft escape door in the freezing Atlantic. Shame about the other Danny, though, thought Rosa. He’d seemed kind of mature at the end - a man you could get your teeth into. ‘I guess we’re in real trouble this time.’

The armoured train shoved, and started slowly to roll. Light and shadow passed over Dante Two’s bloodied face. ‘Rosa,’ he said, his voice slurred by the enigmatic shrapnel lodged in his brain, ‘are we nearly there.’

The copcar perched on the edge of nowhere.

Panacea - virtual escapee and erstwhile saviour - looked at the passenger door swinging loose in the wind, sand hailing through the shot-up cab. He’d done a fine job explaining how Benny was really the crook and he himself was the force of order. Such a fine job Benny had shot him through the lung, blasted the cuff chain and run panting into the wasteland.

Panacea was collapsed against the dash - he could see his own magenta blood glitter amid the glass bits on the floor. It was exactly as he remembered it.

Another clamp of pain and he was spluttering, laughing blood. Held been told there’d be a moment when life got better. The pain was real, even killing him - it was paradise.

And the Pentagon ignited, going up like a pirate flag.

E
nd

... Beerlight books in chronological order of events:

THE CRIME STUDIO

Some stories in TOXICOLOGY

ATOM

One story in SMITHEREENS

SLAUGHTERMATIC

NOVAHEAD

Steve Aylett is the author of
LINT
,
The Complete Accomplice, Rebel at the End
of Time
,
Toxicology
,
The Inflatable Volunteer
,
Atom
,
the Tao Te Jinx, The Crime Studio
,
Bigot Hall
,
Shamanspace
,
And Your Point Is?
,
Slaughtermatic
,
Fain the Sorcerer,
Smithereens and Novahead
. Also creator of the
Caterer
comic,
Get That Thing Away From Me
comic and
LINT THE MOVIE.