The giant man with his absurd snake-beard came into view. Apparently the codpiece was not made to actually retract the crotch whip after use, as the chain was now dragging uselessly behind him, scraping along the pavement as he walked.
He loomed over Zoey and said, “They’re not coming, by the way. Your people. If you were expecting them to show up at the last minute, you should know they’re being pursued in the other direction.”
“Sure. Hey, uh, I’m not gonna lie, I can’t stand up.”
He kneeled down over her. “Like a statue that has been toppled.”
“Dude, I just want to know if my mother is okay.”
He drew a knife.
“The challenge of our age,” he said, “is pulling this lost generation of men out of the fake wars you’ve given them to fight and convincing them to fight the real ones. You know they’re still celebrating killing your avatar? We will wake them up, one at a time. We are the children you sacrificed to your god, come back to have our vengeance.”
“I want you to know that while you’re making this speech, all I’m hearing is a series of fart noises coming out of your mouth.”
He smirked and wrapped a rough hand around Zoey’s chin. Holding her head still.
He brought the knife down and said, “First, an eye for an eye.”
When Zoey realized what he meant to do, the fight-or-flight mechanism in her brain finally kicked in and she found enough strength to get her hands up, to try to push him away, to grab at his face. Even without implants, he could have overpowered her without straining himself. Her thrashing around only added to his amusement.
A blade was moving steadily toward her right eye.
Then there was a sickening thud, and Dirk Vikerness’s head bounced forward.
He just stared for a brief moment. Then blood dripped down onto Zoey’s face. He reached back and felt his head, pulled away red fingers—
Another thud, then he slumped over on top of her. His body was twitching.
Someone was rolling the huge man off of her now. It was a very large, very drunk-looking woman probably in her fifties. Zoey didn’t recognize her costume—she was dressed in a tank top and suspenders with filthy jeans, a bandanna around her neck. She had a sledgehammer in each hand. They were apparently not plastic props, as one was now matted with blood and hair.
She nudged Dirk Vikerness with her foot and said, “Did I kill ’im?” She then looked at Zoey. “What’s goin’ on here?”
Other people were crowding around now. They didn’t seem to know what was happening, either. She heard one of them mutter her name.
Zoey said, “Get away from him!”
She scooted away from Vikerness, pushing backward on the pavement with her one working leg. He groaned and got up on hands and knees, blood streaking down his face. Grunting, growling. He raised a hand toward her. Zoey thought he was going to get up and grab a utility pole and smash her like he was swatting a fly, or unleash a bolt of lightning from his fist.
Instead, he hissed to the crowd around him, “You idiots, that is Zoey Ashe!”
He climbed to his feet and snatched his knife off the pavement, the blood running crimson zebra stripes across his face. He took a step toward Zoey—
He was tackled from behind. The woman with the hammers. He dropped the blade and another woman ran in and grabbed it.
“I’ve got his knife!”
Vikerness stood upright, the huge woman now clinging to him, the bloody man wearing her like a backpack.
“GET OFF ME!”
Someone from the crowd flew in and dove at his knees. Dirk went down. Someone else tried to get him in a headlock. People swarming in, strangers in costumes trying to gang-tackle the huge man like a fullback.
Vikerness snarled and flung everyone aside. One went flying, slamming into a storefront wall and going limp. This only inflamed the crowd. They closed in again, screaming curses at the enraged, bloody man. The big woman found one of her costume hammers on the sidewalk and smacked Dirk Vikerness in the back, and he fell to his hands and knees once more.
Then the woman who’d picked up the knife came running up, shouting, “He’s got those implant things! I know how to disable it!”
She started wildly stabbing Dirk Vikerness in the ass.
This did not dislodge the Raiden capacitor, but it definitely got the man’s attention. He spun on the woman and snatched her throat. The big woman with the hammer stepped up, screamed, and swung.
The impact of the hammer on Dirk Vikerness’s skull was a sound Zoey was pretty sure she’d never forget. The huge man flopped to the ground like a sack of meat. Then the woman screamed and hit him again. And again. Finally she stood over him, huge chest heaving. The gang who’d felled the giant gathered around, stunned at the turn their night had taken.
The big woman said, “Now is he dead? If not I’ll hit ’im with somethin’ bigger.”
She turned to Zoey, who’d never gotten up off the sidewalk.
“You all right, dear?”
“Yeah.”
“You know this turd?”
“Sort of. This is Titus Chobb’s right-hand man.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Rich guy, employs a lot of people with guns. He was the guy in the float back there—it doesn’t matter.”
Others were tending to the person who’d gotten flung into the wall—a young guy, who was sitting up but with a blank expression. A girl yelled for an ambulance. Work crews were rapidly trying to figure out how to get the shattered float out of the way so that the parade could continue. Nothing stops the party in Tabula Ra$a.
The large woman, who Zoey decided was probably not a medical professional by day because she didn’t seem to know the rule for not moving injured people, yanked Zoey to her feet like she was righting a knocked-over garden gnome. Zoey held on for support for a moment but found she could stand, sort of. Her left arm still didn’t work. Several women, friends of the hammer lady, were trying to talk to her.
“Are you okay? Oh my god is that guy dead? Jenny, look at his scars. Are you okay? You’ve got blood on the back of your shirt, did you hit your head? I think there’s an ambulance coming. Are you o—”
“Yeah, I’m okay, I think. Who, uh, are you people?”
“I’m Dani,” said one of them, “that’s Jenny, that’s Shonda.” The last one was the hammer lady.
“Hi. I’m, uh—”
“You’re Zoey! Obviously.”
A bystander said, “Who?”
Shonda said, “Oh, she’s the one who got them to run the buses out to my trailer park. She’s the only reason I can work in the city. And if you’ve ever used one of them free clinics, thank this girl right here.”
“Oh. Thank you,” said Zoey. “All that was … the very least we could do.”
Zoey looked around, nervously. Her life had been saved because she had apparently gotten attacked in front of the only handful of people in this city who actually liked her.
“In fact,” Zoey said, “I, uh, need to get out of here before the less-friendly people in the crowd find me.”
On cue, Zoey heard someone pushing through the gathering behind her. She turned and braced herself, very aware that even a small child could knock her over in her current state.
Several teenage girls popped out. They were bouncing with excitement.
“Zoey! Zoey! Oh my god, we watched it all. Are you okay? Can we get a picture? Real quick?”
On one hand, this seemed like a less lethal threat than she was anticipating. On the other, she was having primal high school flashbacks. The girl who was asking was wearing tights with cat ears and a tail. Zoey got a homecoming queen vibe from her and wondered who exactly she wanted to show the picture to.
Zoey said, “Do what you want, but I’m not going to do anything to entertain you. The blood on my face isn’t mine, if that’s what you were hoping for.”
The girl’s face fell. “Oh. I’m … oh god, I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to be rude. I’m a fan, if this is a bad time … I’m sorry. I just wanted to say thank you.”
“Oh. No, don’t be sorry. I was—I just got attacked by a guy who launched a thing from his crotch. I assumed you were being sarcastic, I don’t think I have fans.”
“Seriously? You went in and talked down that guy who was holding that girl hostage? I named my cat Zoey.”
Another of the teens, this one dressed as a nurse who’s about to get fired for violating the dress code, said, “You want a drink? There’s a vendor right over there.”
“No, I’ve got a thing, I have to, uh, meet my mother somewhere. Hopefully. Oh, you guys are already taking the picture—should I wipe off my face?”
“Nah, the blood is badass. Smile!”
The cat girl and the inappropriate nurse squeezed on either side of her and a pink buzzing gadfly dropped in and snapped the pic of all three.
A third woman dressed as a futuristic schoolgirl in a glowing pink wig, who Zoey eventually noticed was dressed as Naoko from My Hero Reo, said, “Can I have a hug, or is that weird?”
And so Zoey hugged her and then she was hugging everyone and the whole time she could hear people nearby talking about what to do with the apparently dead guy whose brains were splattered all over the pavement. The destroyed Zoey Bath float was now being dragged slowly down the street by a pair of trucks, someone having decided to just make the shattered wreckage part of the parade. The crowd gasped as a gigantic Cthulhu balloon passed overhead, the tentacles on its face rigged to reach down and snatch at the crowd as it passed. People shrieked and laughed.
Zoey tried to pry herself away from her fans and largely failed, then two serious-looking men in suits showed up. Large men, not brandishing weapons, because they didn’t have to. Behind them was a wall of yellow jackets, a whole swarm. Why hadn’t they intervened a moment ago? Maybe they were all hoping Dirk Vikerness’s demise would mean a spot had opened up for a promotion.
Shonda asked, “Who are these guys?”
“It’s fine, I was expecting them. Thank you. Really.”
One of the suited men said, “Ms. Ashe, we’d like to take you to your mother.”
“Where is she?”
The other man silently pointed up and behind Zoey, to the top of Freya’s Palace in the distance. Titus Chobb’s stupid black blimp was parked up there, visible only as an oval void in the stars.
“I’ll go, but you have to agree not to do anything to these people. They stopped that monster from killing me, that’s all. If you want to blame somebody for Dirk’s death, other than Dirk himself, then blame me.”
“Mr. Vikerness was not an employee at the time of his demise and his death is not our jurisdiction. This way.”
“You’ll have to help me walk.”