MILO AND HIS NEW YOUNGER brother disappeared down an alley, emerged by a refurbished brownstone, and from there came face to face with the hugest Starbucks the world has ever seen. The coffee scent frightened rats away for a block perimeter. On the other side of the six-lane avenue was what Milo was after, a seedy liquor store where dream books sold next to lottery tickets, a confluence both disturbing and frightening.
“Stay here,” said Milo.
“Understood. But as your lookout, what am I allowed and not allowed to do?”
“Do what comes natural.”
Warren, with a nod toward the group of young men drawing Milo’s attention, asked, “What are they?”
Milo ate a polish sausage so thick it dwarfed the bun. He ate very slowly to avoid disturbing the prayer mound of relish threatening at any moment to topple.
Warren hadn’t wanted one. Clones had no appreciation for New York dogs. “Coffee smells,” said Warren.
“I’m sure this isn’t the first time you’ve smelled it.”
“I’m trying to corroborate experiences.”
“I never talked this much,” said Milo. “And don’t act brand new.”
“There were thirteen of us. We aren’t stupid.”
“OK. But you were trained to kill me.”
Warren nodded.
“A touch awkward pretending status quo.”
Warren nodded that he understood.
“You nod too much.”
“You told me to be quiet.”
“What else can you do that I can’t?”
“I have no idea.”
“Foom told me I could trust you.” Milo took another slow, thoughtful bite, still studying the group in front of the store.
“Only to the extent that you can trust anyone,” said Warren. “I’ll try to be honest even when it doesn’t suit me.”
“Particularly then, if you don’t mind. Stay here.”
The Shiftless spotted him coming and didn’t move till he was right in front of them. There were five of them, each looking like a progressively pasty version of the other, their tangled blond Rasta braids creating straw halos. They surrounded him, identical in droopy shirts and sagging pants, dangling their hands at the hem of their visible underwear to indicate they were armed.
“Brothers,” said Milo, giving the nearest a slight nod. “Which one’s gonna be the first to say goodbye?” Simply a query of interest.
“No beefs,” said the de facto leader. Milo noted, however, that the circle did not stand down.
“Static free,” said Milo.
A tired woman with a frowning child exited the liquor/lottery store and walked straight through the ring, not even noticing the Shiftless and barely noting Milo’s presence due to the influence of those same Shiftless.
The oldest looked about thirty-three. “What up, Jumbo?” he said.
“The rest of you talk?” asked Milo. The Shiftless stared into, through and around him with that special disregard only Shiftless possess.
“Not to you out in the open,” the leader said. “Ain’t that right, niggas?”
“Fuck you, Jetstream.”
“Fuck you good,” another clarified, except he mumbled so much it might have been “fried poo, wood.”
Milo edged a corner of his lip upward. The sharp tooth showed. Vampires and Shiftless had an inbred dislike of each other.
Their talkative leader made the mistake of being slow to zip his surprise, and the others immediately tensed with fear.
Milo allowed the other side of his lip to stretch into a genuinely happy grin. He loved rattling Shiftless.
“No beef,” reiterated the leader.
“Tell me about the last time you saw your folks,” said Milo.
“We laughed, we cried, we hugged—what the fuck you think happened? Why you even joking about that?”
“Where was she?”
The Shiftless nodded in the general direction of out there. “And don’t ask me where he was ‘cause he wasn’t there.”
“They’re always together,” said Milo.
“Don’t mean you see ‘em. Look, man,” the Shiftless said, finishing the pronouncement with a rap shrug he’d seen on TV, hunching his shoulders and throwing his hands.
“Which one of y’all’s got the biggest piece now?” asked Milo.
The leader closed his eyes and caved even more into himself, causing his tee shirt to take on more of a deserted look. “Madrid,” he said immediately.
Milo shook his head. “Not good enough.”
“Don’t look that oily,” one said peering closely at Milo’s face. “And you’re out in the daylight. A lotta pain, brother.”
“Anybody catches word of Eve, pass it around that I’m looking for her.”
“Mom’s a myth, man.” The leader half-heartedly smirked.
“So am I,” said Milo.
The mumbler mumbled, “Taped for safety, clit,” which might have been, “This’s some weird shit.”
During the entire conversation the Shiftless, bit by bit, edged their circle and Milo toward the liquor store’s alley. As a spread-consciousness people, and with the lion’s share of that consciousness currently in Madrid, decision-making was always an iffy, shoddy enterprise, as evidenced by their thinking they could take Milo.
Milo spoke to the one directly behind him without turning his head. “If your fingers wrap around anything non-pliable, there will be trouble.”
The Shiftless backed his hand from the gun in his pants.
“Sun’s gotta be hitting you like a donkey fuck,” said the leader. “Alley’s cool and dry.”
“We’re concerned for you, Jetstream,” said the mumbler, suddenly lucid. “Jumbo Jetstream.”
“Milo Jambalaya,” said another.
The siren call of the Shiftless was unmistakable, channeling a lazy sibilance into the air between them.
“Points for trying, gentlemen,” said Milo. “But my associate and I have to leave.”
Where the other man came from, not one of them knew, but there he was just outside the circle as though he’d been there the whole time. And although, or maybe because of, the way he stood so casually looking around with his hands in his pockets, he gave off a distinct, forceful physical aura.
And looking so much like Milo Jetstream that each of the Shiftless lapsed into allowing an actual facial expression to cross their dull, placid facades.
“Talk to people,” said Milo. “Talk to non-people. I need Adam and Eve.”
“They’ll find you first, Jetstream,” said the leader.
“But they won’t reveal themselves. You know how the game is played,” said Milo. “They’ll let me find them if enough people say I’m looking for them.”
“I hope they whup your ass,” said Mumbles.
“I’ll make sure there’s enough left that I can come back to you,” Milo told him specifically.
“No beef,” the leader reminded him.
“Is this Mad Cow disease?” asked Warren, his first attempt at direct humor.
“Of a sort,” said Milo. He emerged through the group’s perimeter. Warren joined him in step. They walked down the block.
The silver bullet train whisked through the dark, subterranean tunnel:
“Nobody ever thought Nineteen-Eighty-Four would be taken as an instruction manual. But it has been,” said Buford, “So here we are.” He spoke solely to annoy. “Kichi begged him not to publish it but Orwell was one of those hell bent types—like all of them, really—one of the world must know brigade. That world included me, didn’t it.”
“And here we are. The architect of modern warfare,” Madam dubbed him. This time the silver and red hair played off forest green.
“Modern life,” he corrected. “Me.”
“That was understood, Buford.”
“Nothing’s understood till it’s expressed. God, you’re a beautiful woman! Why the hell are all the intriguing women mixed up with the Thoom? Ever see Bull Durham? There’s a Susan Sarandon-ness about you. Voraciously intoxicating.”
“One of my favorite movies.”
“I know. Give me some clothing. If you stop ogling me, we can accomplish things.”
“You never know when to pull back, do you?” said Madam. Idiotic Jetstreams had forced her to pull up roots. She’d grown fond of that space in Iowa.
“Pulling back is like pulling out,” said Buford, “which means the job ain’t done.” He directed his attention to the guard hulking at his shoulder. “In sex as in life, eh? This young man has never pulled out in his life,” said Buford, crow’s feet twinkling in camaraderie. “Ladies expect the full measure, don’t they, young man?”
The guard’s face remained expressionless. The tip of his weapon didn’t waver a smidge from neighboring Buford’s brain.
“The famed Blue Guard,” said Buford. “Ultra secret and answerable only to you.”
“I expect you know a lot about us, Buford,” said Madame.
“Have I disarmed you?”
“No.”
“Damn. At any rate, Cynthia—” which was her real name—“you have no logical reason for not allowing me clothing. I have no weapons. Got nothing you yourself are not personally aware of. I would have no problem attending my mother’s funeral exactly as I am, so I’m not humiliated.”
“I think you are.”
“Think so?”
She slapped him quicker than he’d thought she could move. “I hate equivocation. Obviously I think so. I just said it, didn’t I?”
With both his hands inside spherical manacles the sting had no choice but to fade on its own.
The train slowed. They came to another junction point. Buford deduced that there was no engineer and the train was set for random destination.
The computer’s algorithm swung left.
“You built these tunnels with my technology,” he said. “Nothing the Thoom bandies is its own.”
“Defiance is the first refuge of the desperate. I wish you’d stop thinking your penis fascinates me.”
“It can talk.”
“I imagine you’re a smash at board meetings.”
“Just until they find out I’m no ventriloquist. Whose idea was it to teach Milo teleportation?” He caught Cynthia’s annoyed nod at the guard. In a split-second the guard would attempt to club him. “Son, think hard,” said Buford and tipped his gaze toward the former Navy Seal. “There’s a reason there are six of you in this car,” he said. The guard froze, wishing the shake would come.
A slight stand-down shake did come. The guard relaxed.
“Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent,” said Buford, ignoring the guard and directing his glacial blues right at his captor.
“Violence saves time.”
“Do these men want to die for you?”
She put it to the car. “Does that matter to you gentlemen?”
“No, ma’am.”
“How much of real life have you experienced firsthand?” Buford put to her.
“You think Atlantis is any more intrinsically interesting than Prague? I’m part of the Thoom because it’s what’s right, not for notions of romantic mystery.”
Buford dismissed her. “What’s right has nothing to do with anybody but yourself.”
“What did you do to Milo’s parents?”
“Now that is what I’ve waited for. We can’t fall in love without some interest from you.”
An alarm chimed on a pad in her lap. She opened it. “Yes?”
“There’s been no compromise,” said an effective voice, one of those voices that never misses a target, never acknowledges the possibility of dissent, and wouldn’t be caught dead waiting for an answer from those knowing considerably less than it did. It wasn’t reporting in, it was debriefing her on the incompetence of her Iowa staff.
“That’s good,” she said, because she hadn’t expected there to be.
“We are not yet aware of Milo’s whereabouts,” said der Kommandant.
“Teach a Jetstream to teleport…” Buford dragged out.
The pad came with in-screen and back-cover cameras.
“Why is he still naked? Nobody wants to see that. There is absolutely nothing remotely attractive about your doughy bodies, really.”
“Cynthia’s funbags are top shelf,” said Buford. “And I’ll be damned if every vampire is a tight, toned god.”
“I am,” said the sharp accent.
“In a pig’s eye.”
“Do we have eyes on Ramses?” said Madam.
“How often have you had ‘eyes’ on either one of them?” said Buford. “May I address you personally, sir?”
“Ricoula.”
“The Count Ricky? Impressed as hell at this operation now, particularly this direct communication,” said Buford. “Count Ricky speaking to the unwashed.”
“The game has been yours for quite a while, hasn’t it, Buford?” the voice asked.
“Game’s over but you won’t let me take my pieces?”
“Precisely.”
“What do you need from me?”
“You mean besides gloating?”
“Yes.”
“That’s about it. We might clone,” the Count posited before Buford interrupted him.
Buford addressed the voice while staring directly at Madam Cynthia. “Do you really want to start this war?”
“The end credits are rolling, Buford. Romanticism represents major flaws. You’ve engineered sheep to follow you, not warriors. The Dow won’t help you; the S. & P. cowers pathetically. Your sheep scatter and bleat as ineffectually as a mouse demanding cheese.”
“The world turns within the world,” said Madam Cynthia.
“The rotation carries you into night,” said the vampire. “Go quietly. I will when it’s my turn.”
“There’s a reason I rule this world, Count Willie. There’s a reason I’m in every home, every car, every goddamned coffee shop and college campus in…the…world. I don’t tend sheep. I create them.” Buford leaned forward to address Willie alone. “In the pig’s other eye. The only thing you do quietly is furtively sip at your little red flasks.”
“In appreciation of your petty squabbles with the Jetstreams, we’ll use you honorably,” said Count Ricoula. “A wise man might say we gods need honor most.”
“And the wise woman?” said Buford, nodding toward Madam.
“The wise woman,” said Madam Cynthia, “thinks she’ll have you sedated.”
“Put clothes on him,” said the vampire before decisively signing off.
Buford glanced at the guard over his shoulder. “You’re about my size.”