Madison’s windshield TV superimposed the spectacle over the traffic. ‘News on the hour. The President, whose assassination is said to be at a delicate stage, has described his hourly, bare-knuckle efforts to “stay clean” after being discovered in flagrante with a four foot squid. The squid is a carnivorous marine mollusc with a streamlined body and shell reduced to an internal cartilaginous rod. “My enemies would love to use this regrettable impulse against me. I believe this says more about their sickness than mine.” Tomorrow’s Presidential visit to Beerlight City amid the continuing breakup of states is widely viewed as a carnage opportunity.
‘Mobster Harry Fiasco has been convicted of psychological damage and condemned to the chair on the three strikes longcon after destroying the City Brain Facility. “I’d like to thank my mom, my dad, my girlfriend Kitty, my parole officer and all the victims who made this possible. This execution’s for you.” But the execution has been postponed for the purpose of publicity. On the steps of the court Attorney Harpoon Specter commented “You’ll notice I’m grimacing. All the muscles in my face have contracted due to the terrific velocity of these proceedings. Indeed the trial was so swift I had very little airtime. I aim to stay this execution for at least sixteen hours. Beauty surrounds me. Outta my way.” When asked why he turned Fiasco in, mob boss Eddie Thermidor was evasive. “Didn’t seem significant at the time.”
‘And in response to the production of Dead Barbie, a grey doll with no eyes, parents have complained that the product is otherwise indistinguishable from other Barbies. Manufacturers were adamant. “The notion that we’re simply saving paint is nonsense. We want to instruct kids about mortality. The new Barbie has a casket, cadaver make-up, bugs. Alive she is not.” That was the news and bother - this is the number one video - “What’s With the Knife” by Septal Erosion.’
Madison drew up at the state pen. Fiasco had been sentenced in a court resembling a third world bazaar. As the jury entered they were garrotted by the rigging. ‘Correct the offender forever,’ the judge told them, ‘or the impulse to imitate will overwhelm.’ It was hard to tell which side Harpoon Specter was on. ‘Nothing could be said about Harry Fiasco which has not been said before,’ he declared. ‘Feisty in every department of life, he has stamped his personality on my face and those of many gathered here. He’s so brave his balls are a threat to us all.’ Auto-Rhino’s explosive termination a few years back had put an end to the killing jar - Harry was headed for the Rosenberg rocker.
Beyond the glass of the gawper’s room was a chamber side-slapped with migraine bars. Fiasco was brought over all decked out in electrolock manacles and dropped opposite. Despite the pen gear, the flip-up contacts and bulletproof tan made him an easy mark for a fashion prefab. He frowned at the visitor - there were raindrops on her coatcollar, on the brim of her hat. ‘Told me I had a visit I thought it was Kitty. Where’d I see you before?’
‘You know Taffy Atom to say hell to, Harry? You saw us at the Fort. I’m his partner.’
‘Atom. P.I. modality, right? And there was some story ’bout his daddy.’
‘Head clown at the circus. Killed in a miniature car pile-up. Went right over the hood. All four wheels came off. Taff never got over it.’
‘Tough break. So you’re Drowner. Say, how do I look?’
‘Underdone. But you’re gonna look like a dorito, honey.’
‘Dead-on balls accurate.’
‘So the end won’t be tepid.’
‘My style. You know me and Kitty used to have taser sex.’
‘She doesn’t say much for you.’
‘She’s a reserved lady.’
‘So much so,’ Madison put a shock absorber between her lips and lit it, ‘she aint there.’
‘No recoil on a remote - she’s the perfect crime.’
‘Nobody’s perfect, Harry. You shoulda left town when you had the chance.’
‘My ethics were in development hell. I never done nuthin’ like that before.’
‘Like what.’
‘Goin’ freelance. I figured someday me and Kitty’d be livin’ in a twenty mile house havin’ foodfights with beluga, you know? What, I meant to stay at that job till I put my fist through it? Easy as fallin’ in line, sure. But when I took a swatch at that squasher ...’
‘You knew it had to be valuable, right? The gent went to that much trouble.’
‘Not right off.’ Fiasco looked abashed. ‘Guess I consider alertness a sorta insecurity. Delivered the brain to the Candyman, but after, I started gettin’ like an intuition. Some feel a twinge in the leg with a change o’ weather - I feel it in my shirt. Get a real anchor in my pants. So I go back the next day and boost the brain, take a good blink at that baby. Looks like a tree disease and feels like a softboiled egg. Then I realise, I don’t know where to sell a squasher. Don’t even know why it’s such a big deal. By now I got a head o’ steam worked up. I can’t fence it, can’t go back to the gent, so I figure maybe I pitch it to Thermidor, tell him I happen to see a good thing and pursue it like on his behalf, nobody’s any the wiser as usual. But by now a little time’s passed, I don’t know what reception I’ll get, if I’ll have to run for it, so ofcourse I don’t swan into the Fort with the goods up front. The easiest way to lose your mind’s to mail it.’
‘Deposit box?’
‘Beerlight Grand. Five-eight-nine. Mailed the key to Santa Claus.’
‘Funny.’
‘What?’
‘Why you spilling this, Harry? Me and Taff haven’t exactly helped you.’
‘Something’s turned around, Miss Drowner. That death sentence was like a declaration of love, you know? A few words and the whole world changed. Life kicked me hello.’
‘You get free, the mob’ll take you to pieces and lose the manual.’
‘I aint gettin’ out, miss - Blince stores resentment in his cheeks like a hamster. Guess I’ll pop like a bug on a hotplate, yeah.’
Madison stubbed the shock. ‘Well, it’s been good, Harry.’ She stood to go.
‘Hey miss, you see Kitty you tell her I love her. Tell her I’ll be waitin’ on the dry side.’
‘Sure, Harry.’
Madison started down the passage away from the gawping room.
‘Life shoots first, lady,’ Fiasco shouted after her.
As she neared the end of the passage, Henry Blince turned the corner coming the other way. ‘Well looky here. How long you known Scatterbrains, Miss Drowner?’
‘How long you been walking erect?’
‘Aw come on Maddy, you’re breakin’ my heart here.’
‘Break your own heart - I’m busy.’
She strode on, leaving him stunned with respect.
Nada Neck dropped by the hospital acting breezy. ‘Lookin’ good, Flea. Love the ears. Wanted to apologise for shootin’ you in the bar.’
‘Ah forget it.’ Flea kept eating a melon as Neck strolled past the bed to the window. ‘In fact you did me a favour. Seems I committed a crime that day - a new one. Caere Twins are in here to make a bleak assessment.’
‘Heard this place is goin’ down for some three strikes landfill. Yeah postage stamps’ll have skulls on ’em in this town. Which reminds me.’ Walking over, he dug from his pocket a drift of confetti bearing Atom’s likeness, and snowed them onto Flea’s bed. ‘I don’t know if this is gold dust or a swatted moth. Want to fill me in?’
‘I filled you in,’ said Flea, up and voluble. ‘Damn straight.’
‘Flea on the wall eh. How’s your chest.’
‘I’m on top of the weather.’ Flea put down a melon segment and wiped his hands on the sheet. ‘Okay. I once seen Atom dead-lift the front end of a ’69 Volkswagon Bug. He pulled his right shoulder and broke his back in three places. Quite a guy. Said he thought a chicken was a dove on stilts.’
‘We only got wit in this city to fool our mothers, Flea. You called Atom a shadowman.’
‘Yeah. Low key. Got a dog that’s inside-out. Uses its windpipe as a leash. Tells people he’s a house painter.
‘So he’s untrustworthy.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Flea.’ Neck lit a shock. ‘I’m a busy guy.’
‘Well okay. Okay, how can I put this. Let’s say he’s the sort who’d mail his appendix to a starving man.’
‘So what. Nobody cares about that part.’
‘He does. He loves it.’
‘He loves his appendix.’
‘That’s what I said. He kisses it all the time.’
Neck took an irritable pull at the gasper. ‘How can a man kiss his own appendix.’
‘He’ll do all kinds of things if you let him.’
‘Well, don’t. Don’t, if he’s taking those sorta chances. God almighty.’
‘Atom’s wounds run deep, Neck. You know that experiment where they give different drugs to spiders and see what kind of webs they weave? Speed makes a wreck, burgers make the ancient smiley and so on? Atom’s old man was an architect. Got bit by a tarantula. Started creating arthropodal buildings - octopolar, eight points to ’em, right? Tarantula venom’s a cerebro-spinal stimulant, alters the mind, used in gypsy brews to release what they call the “dark burning soul”. Permanently imprints the nervous system, so it’s not just a quest drug. These buildings were extradimensional - deep wings, open corners, corridors in impossible directions. The old man called the blueprints treasure maps. One day when Taff was a kid his Pa disappeared in one of them structures. Taff went into the study to get the blueprint - it was stuck flat on the wall, and floating in the air in the middle of the room was one of them crosses that mark the spot, already fading. By the time he’d called someone to look, it was gone. And he never saw his Pa again.’
In silence a while, Neck gave unfazed by scrutinising his cigarette, then appeared to remember Flea. ‘Flea, I hate to be one o’ those people, but ...’
‘I know how it sounds, Nada, believe me. You know the weird strip off Scanner, used to be Fall Street? Now there’s just a squirly dark, sorta makes you dizzy to go near? Atom discharged a gun there, gun to conjure with called a Glory Hand.’
‘Some kinda smart flaw?’
‘Suck gun. I hear it really wails.’
‘An etheric?’
‘Ethigraph gridpulse and all, what I heard, samples the victim’s deal and flips it, like them martial arts that dodge your thrust and carry you down with your own weight, you know? Enough venom in a scorpion to kill a scorpion.’
‘So he uses the enemy.’
‘This is Beerlight, Neck - situationism’s just a front.’
Neck had sucked the gasper to a stub. ‘First shock o’ the day’s the most intense.’ He flicked it away.
‘Hello blabber,’ called the Caere Twins brightly, sticking their heads round the door. They came in different as twilight and twilight and beamed at Nada Neck. ‘Hello straight-up.’
‘I was just leaving.’ Neck swayed to the door. ‘Swat you later, Roach.’
When Neck was gone, the Twins sat on either edge of Flea’s bed. Their silence made him apprehensive. ‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’
‘We don’t know how to tell you, Flea.’
‘What you drivin’ at?’
‘When beaker let rip with that M61 Persuader,’ said a Twin gently, ‘it forced an etheric sample of his intent to kill you, into the charm filter’s etheric bromide shield.’
‘We thought,’ the other Twin continued, ‘that the overlap of the two may have synthesised something new.’
‘Like what?’
‘A residue from the neutralised intent. Created between you at the raw level. It wasn’t a mere deflection because it affected base particles of Nada’s etheric.’
‘So break it to me, what’s the charge?’
‘Oh, poor Flea. It could have been “the infringement of another’s will at the soul source”. This would go beyond the known taxonomy of offence.’
‘But?’
‘Only the etheric fired at you was negated. Nada retained plenty within him.’
‘So? I went with intent to commit.’
‘No, Flea. You didn’t really know what the bib was - your manoeuvre was inadvertent. I’m so sorry.’
‘This can’t be right. I ... I drew the gunfire by being the target - metaphysical provocation, right? Inciting violence.’
‘Take care of yourself, Mr Lonza,’ said the Twins, standing.
‘Wait there’s laws on incitement, nuthin’ on this soul bullshit.’ Flea was frantic. ‘Don’t legislation qualify somethin’ for a crime?’
‘Oh no, Mr Lonza,’ they said. ‘Everyone knows what’s a real crime.’
‘I even commit an offence on paper?’
The Twins stopped at the door, looking back at Flea with profoundest pity. ‘Goodbye, flyboy.’
Alone, Flea gibbered. ‘I didn’t do anythin’ wrong?’
Walking down the corridor, the Twins stopped short, turning to one another big-eyed.
‘The infringement of another’s will at the soul source,’ whispered one.
‘Legislation,’ gasped the other.
With the advent of polymer flesh lacing a few years later the Twins would start souping up geneware to develop perplex, simple organic matter which could be programmed directly from whichever personality profile the cops favoured for a particular offence. Nearly a thousand red herringbone diversion puppets were set loose across the eastern seaboard to attract arrest. Only nineteen perps fulfilled their destiny, going to the chair without a thought in their fungal heads - the rest sat moulding in rented rooms or became tenured professors.