No Dogs in Philly, page 13
“He is with us now, happy.”
“You mean he’s dead.”
“You aren’t listening. There is no such thing as death. Do you wish him to be back here? As an individual again, a lonely mind trapped in a bag of fluid? Or what about your friend McCully or the woman Terry? Do you wish to see them again? To return them to the pain of this world?”
“You bastard.”
Was he taunting her? The scans showed nothing, no body sign of lies or deception, no blush or elevated heart rate, no blink or the conspicuous absence of a reaction that tagged along with intent to deceive. Of course that could merely indicate training, the superior self-control all these alien worshippers seemed to exhibit. But her gut told her he was telling the truth, that he really believed he was some sort of murderous Good Samaritan, and he could bring people back from the dead. And there was no doubt he intended to do the same to her, to mesmerize her with whatever voodoo he could muster and then carve her up in some insane therapeutic exercise.
Fanny Duvak. At last she remembered the name. It was her, of course, one of the aliases she had used to navigate the security bureaucracy—a condom ID, something you used once and then tossed. But it had her picture, had a scrap of data winding back to her and someone with a deep knowledge of the Net had followed the path. The implications…too much to sort through. She was on the list, one of the targets. That bastard ElilE, he had known, suspected at least. Of course she had to take the case, she was part of it already, from the very beginning. Blue eyes, about as dull and gray as you could get, a cheap imitation, dollar-store blue, but enough to make her a target, to tie her in with these other lucky candidates. Did that mean she was a target for something else, for the so-called Blue God? Was he right now lurking in this room, watching this scene play out and judging on his own incomprehensible score card?
“Come,” the impostor cooed. “Come join your friends.” He took a step forward, holding out his hand. Her finger twitched over the trigger of her Betty. “Come, we’re all here, Saru,” it was McCully’s voice. “It’s so nice here. You can have whatever you want.” And then Terry, in her three-packs-a-day croak: “It’s wonderful here. I’ve never been so happy.” And other voices, voices from her past, barely remembered—Johnny Creek, the first boy she’d kissed, in the Morning House after they’d stolen the janitor’s flask of whiskey, trying not to grimace as they slurped it in the cleaning closet, pretending it wasn’t their first time, and then the passion of the transgression bringing their mouths together. “Come Saru,” he said, but was he dead? Or was it a trick of her mind? Emily Rothstein, the girl that had tattled on her for sneaking a boy—not Johnny—into the girl’s dorm. She’d found her on the playground, the fenced-in asphalt on the building roof, and slammed her head into the ground, pinned her and pummeled her until both her eyes were swollen shut. Saru hadn’t meant to hurt her, not that much, at least, but she’d needed stitches and she wasn’t as pretty after that. She too sang along: “It’s not your fault, Saru, it was my fault. I’m sorry. Come, come with us, it’s alright.”
Another step, the hand outstretched was less than a foot from the gun barrel now. She saw her hands were shaking and the Betty wasn’t as firm as it had been. “It’s okay, Saru, you did your best. I’m better now.” Colton Mathews, one of her first cases, a kidnapping fuckup. He had almost the same name as Colton L. Mathews, of the Rittenhouse Mathews, but his parents were the Richmond Mathews, living in assistance housing, paycheck to paycheck off the mother’s truck-driving salary. The kidnappers had learned their error, but they’d poked the kid full of holes and left him behind a dumpster anyway. She’d never caught them, hadn’t gotten close, hadn’t even taken the time to bring back the kid’s body. She’d taken the family’s $2,000 and hit the bar. “It’s okay,” Colton said. “I’m better now. I’m safe, I’m happy.”
She dropped the gun, let it snuggle back into its holster. Her hand stayed where it was, just a few inches from Jojran’s. “It’s okay,” Jojran said. “It’s all okay. We’re happy. We’re safe. We’re complete.” It was true; they were happy, she could see that. All these mistakes were just the symptoms of her humanity, inevitable. And beyond that waited a better form of life, a form that was perfect, that could not err, and she could be part of it. There it was, the certainty, the absolute, a diamond, irrefutable Truth. She had not erred. The very world she lived in was an error, a false step on the path to existence, an abortion, a failed world. Of course she caused pain and hurt others. It was life, the life that she was part of and she could no more control her nature than the maggots that wriggled in the meat of the dead.
She saw that she was immaterial, that her actions were meaningless, but she could join in something greater, something real, a purpose, to bring joy to the joyless, to liberate the other horrid, mistaken abominations of this tiny planet. All the men and women mindlessly killing and fucking and scrabbling together piles of junk—for what? Pointless action. Carnal routine. The urge to fuck and murder propelling a horde of hairless monkeys further and further into a hell of their own creation. She was dead, they were all dead, even though they may move and copy they were just machines, air-powered bags of gas and blood. Life! She wanted life! Truth! Purpose! Certainty. Here, here was reality, and everything she had known was nothing more than the lizard-brain impulse, amebic stimulus-response. Oh God, she wanted it!
She reached and their fingers touched. His warmth flowed into her, a trickle, a river, an ocean of souls, caressing her, running through their hands and over her skin, welcoming her to reality. She was home. She was whole. Somewhere, a distant part of her put its hands on her hips and clucked. Saru, you moron, you fell for it, you swallowed his Kool-Aid. Oh well, it was too late now. She luxuriated in the warmth, the joy, the physical ecstasy of every atom in her body cumming at once. Yes, this was better, oh how much better it was. It was hard to tell amidst the torrent of souls, but somewhere in the process—amidst the satisfaction of her own gullible stupidity and the ecstasy of an alien touch—she realized that she was dead, or her body was at least, and she was finally free.
Chapter 15
The sun was hot, a wonderful, luxurious hot on her naked skin. She wriggled and dug herself deeper into the sand, massaging herself against its cool, abrading yield. Oh yes, that was it. The water was warm, coming in gentle waves to tickle her feet. And it was quiet, so quiet, quieter than she had known was possible. Not a sound except for the gentle lapping of the waves and the crush of sand on her back. She dozed and woke and repeated. How long had she been there? Forever of course. There was nowhere else to be. No distracting hunger, no worry, no need to piss or shit—was she even breathing? Yes, her lungs moved in and out in a long, slow, relaxing rhythm, but she sensed this was merely a feature for her comfort, that the action served no purpose other than its absence would be frightening.
It was annoying when she realized this would have to end, that this wasn’t life, and it wasn’t death. There were memories, distant, from ages ago, but they were there, nagging, poking her, prowling the edge of her calm. They were becoming aggressive. She’d have to do something about it. She sat up and opened her eyes. Her other senses had been right; she was on an island. It was tiny, a hump of sand with a single palm tree amidst an infinite blue ocean beneath an infinite blue sky. She marveled at the blue, how it blended flawlessly from shade to shade, light where it touched the ocean and steadily darkening until directly overhead it was almost black. She could see stars amidst the darker blue, scattered silver freckles in the sky.
“It’s beautiful, is it not?”
Friar, of course. She’d known he’d be here. Known he’d find her eventually. He was standing next to her—had he been there the whole time? He was naked too, she noticed, observing this simply as a fact without any of the baggage of nudity imposed by society, no judgment or breeding urge. He was naked, the sky was blue, the sand was white, and the ocean had no end.
“Yes,” she said. “Did you make this place?”
“No,” he said sadly. “You did.”
“I did?”
“Yes. A part of you. This is your margin, where your existence,” he gestured to the water, “intersects with all the existences that are. It is your atomic memory, the memory of your atoms as they were born, when they were part of the super-universe before our own universe was born. They remember their brothers and sisters and welcome them.”
She remembered herself, knew on an intellectual level that this kind of talk bothered her, but there was no anger or annoyance. She accepted what he said as fact, even if she did not understand. The sky was blue. The sand was white. The ocean had no end.
“Friar?”
“Yes.”
“What am I doing here?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I think you are making a decision.”
“A decision?”
“Yes,” he said. “You’ve met the enemy.”
“Yes,” she said. It was strange to call it an enemy. “He told me things, told me I’d be happy, that others were happy. Is that true? He said that the women made him torture them…that it was their humanity. He said we saw him as evil only because we ourselves were evil.”
“Yes,” Friar said, “It is true. The UausuaU is truth. In our world it exists as we would have it. And if we are monsters then the UausuaU is merely a reflection of that.”
“Then what’s the point?” she yelled, and there was anger now, a familiar feeling, comfortable. “Then it’s right! We’re the bad guys here, we’re the shit heads. We should just join it, become part of it. Be happy.”
Friar said nothing. He looked out across the water.
“It may be that in the end it is our only option.”
“Well thanks, Friar, so glad you stopped by, fat lot of good you are.”
“I’m sorry, Saru, I can’t help you.”
“No shit. God, I have to do everything myself.” She stomped around the island, kicking at the sand. She picked up the single coconut and hurled it into the sea, where it made a satisfying plop.
“Rargh!” she yelled. “Let me out of here. Friar!” She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook. “I know you’re doing this. You were in my head, weren’t you, fucking around, and now you brought me here.”
“I was trying to warn you.”
“Of what?”
“From coming here.”
“You are useless!” she said, pushing him so he stumbled back. “Some friend you are; I go looking to you for answers and then you go and die—no, you make me kill you—and then you camp out in my head like some squatter and when I really need some help, some fucking coaching, all you can do is vomit out this fatalist bullshit!” She yelled again, beating her chest, screaming into the bored air. Ah that felt good; there was the real joy, the real warmth. That instinct, the inside touch. That was who she was and God she loved it, relished it, every lick of it. Fuck this other shit, this alien bullshit and Friar’s cryptic dithering.
“Fuck this,” she said aloud. “I’m out of here.”
She walked into the ocean, resolute, wading out to her hips. The water was warm.
“That’s not the way out,” Friar said.
“Whatever,” she called back. She kept going. The water was up to her neck, then over her head and her feet no longer touched the ground. She paddled forward awkwardly, she didn’t really know how to swim, but it didn’t matter. This wasn’t really water. She kept paddling until the island disappeared, realizing it was accomplishing nothing and she wasn’t getting tired. She let herself sink, let the water fill her lungs, and at last she felt a pain, a pressure, a panic as the blue sky disappeared under the darkness of the water, sinking, sinking, sinking, and the pain growing and morphing into a body pain, and then a face staring at her, some broken mask of a face, Jojran, cackling at her, and she saw that they were holding hands, standing in his kitchen.
She whipped the prod from its holster and slammed it like a club into his temple. The soft bone crumpled and the prod sank half an inch into his skull, crackling at full power. He closed his eyes and opened them slowly, sighing as if impatient.
“How disappointing,” he said. His right hand blurred forward, too fast for her response implants to follow, and formed a vice around her neck. In a casual, whoopsie-daisy motion, he lifted her up and dragged her across the counter; the tiles cracked as he slammed her into the floor. Stars floated across her vision—why was she staring at the ceiling? It was hard to breathe, like one of her ribs had gotten lost and wandered into a lung. Ow. The prod wriggled in her noodle grip, still sending out sparks and arcs of electricity. Jojran, broken-mask, crumpled-skull Jojran stood over her, massaging one hand in the other. He laughed and threw up his hands.
“Why is it so hard with you, Saru? Why can’t you just be happy?”
She tried to spit and blood dribbled out the side of her mouth—had she bitten her tongue? There was something to say to that, something witty and defiant, but it wouldn’t come. She seemed to be having trouble keeping a single thought in focus, it kept getting pushed out by the pain in the back of her head. Sitting up was impossible, but an arm managed to flop up and poke at the wet sensation in the back of her head. Her nails came back painted red. How pretty. She should paint her nails more, treat herself more. It was okay to spoil yourself every once in a while, maybe she’d even enjoy it. But first she needed to live.
She tried a leg sweep, a half-assed affair that didn’t budge his foot, didn’t even make him look down. Then she tried to kick him in the testicles, but he swatted her boot away like it was a humping terrier. He reached out a hand, presumably to help her up, and she tried to stab it with her boot knife. He evaded easily, grabbing her wrist and pulling her to her feet, where she swayed, tottered, and then slammed the flip dagger in her heel into his foot. Of course he didn’t react. She was beginning to realize that pain was not a useful negotiating tool in this scenario. The Jojran impersonator didn’t seem to care—didn’t seem to feel it.
“Is there nothing you want?” he asked, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Do you really want to be like this? Angry, sad, afraid, fighting without knowing why? You could be so much more.”
“I…want…” she had the hiccups for some reason, perhaps a result of the meandering rib bone. “I want to kick your ass.”
“Yes…” he said. “You do…you really do.” He let her go and spread his arms wide, vulnerable. “Do what you must, Saru. It doesn’t make any difference, really. Today, tomorrow. Seven years or a million. You will know our love and—”
She shot him, a real bullet this time, right in the chest from a foot away.
“…you will be happy…”
Again.
“…you will know peace…”
Again.
“…and joy…”
And again and again, she emptied the whole automatic clip, closing her eyes and screaming. When she opened them it was quiet. Jojran, his body, the alien impostor, or whatever it had been, was lying on the ground in front of her in a puddle of blood, riddled with holes. He looked peaceful, happy even, somehow, and that annoyed her. The blood was pooling around her boots, soaking into Jojran’s white fuzzy carpet, splattered on his nice white couches. Her head was killing her, she couldn’t focus, her feeds and her implants were scrambled from the touch or the trip to the island, or the blow to the back of her head. Her hair was wet and she could feel the wet trickling down the back of her neck, sliding down the channel of her spine. She swayed to her knees and pried the vial of blood from Jojran’s fingers. Then she limped and rummaged and gasped her way around the kitchen until she found a plastic baggy. She dragged it through the blood pool until it was full and put it in her pocket along with the vial.
The music in the elevator was a tropical melody, blue skies and white sands. The doors slid open at the lobby and she sucked in a breath and tried to look normal as she walked to the doors, ignoring the security guards. She’d washed as much of the blood off as she could but there were still splatters on her coat and jeans, and she couldn’t really walk out naked. She pushed hard against the doors, leaning in to support her body weight. They wouldn’t open.
“It’s only a matter of time,” the security guard called. There was a click and the doors swung open. She stumbled into the night.
Chapter 16
The blood was a lie—more than a red herring, a joke. Four different vultures and one shady lab tech at the MercyCorp Hospital, and they all came back with a different analysis. It was McCully’s blood. Terry’s blood. Jojran’s blood. Her blood. Had she mixed up the samples? No, of course not. The needle ring on her middle finger did all the work, one quick, painless prick on McCully and Terry to get their samples, impossible to mistake for the nigh-quart of blood she’d wrung from Jojran/his impersonator or the vial she’d snatched from McCully. Didn’t she know that doppleganger blood was a trickster, that it could corrode and corrupt and play havoc with your data? Of course she did, that’s why she kept the vial and the blood bag separate from her prick ring. And anyway, this wasn’t a case of dopple contamination—that would mess with the results, ruin them, not change them every time. But everyone who looked at the bag of blood came back with a different idea of who it belonged to. The skeevy lab tech had even found Friar’s blood in the mix.
Friar. He knew all about this magical bullshit, understood it even to the point that it was a science for him. And now his ghost was banging around her skull, inviting her to tropical getaways in the midst of some extremely tense situations. Was he really helping her? Or was he just another symptom of this enemy, a stray scrap of misery, a bodiless victim that had gotten stuck in the drunken, angry maze of her brain.
Feasters. The man, the thing, whatever it was wearing Jojran’s skin was a feaster for sure, or one of their servants. What was she expecting? Not that, for sure. Crazy, yes, strong, probably, and clever, a psychopath with an education and a dollop of religious zeal. But that was something else—there was a power there, and she needed to admit it, internalize this as fact, because the sooner she really let herself believe there was alien magic at work, the sooner she could stop underestimating her enemies. Now, in the light of day, walking down Broad Street, surrounded by men in caji suits and women in posh dresses, it seemed silly, like a bad dream that she’d confused with grown-up life. But she could still remember the voices calling to her, that urge she’d felt within her—physical, emotional, spiritual, sexual—to give herself up and join into something greater. She remembered the skin-crawl terror of the security guard calling to her in Jojran’s voice as she slunk away, remembered the way every man and woman on the trek to her hotel—no way she could go home now—had seemed to stop and watch her pass, to whisper nice things in strange voices and offer themselves. She remembered the elzi she passed scattering before her, which frightened her perhaps more than anything, because of course they couldn’t see or hear or know that she was there, and yet they ran from her like she was doom.
