New Tales of the Yellow Sign, page 7
The clients ball up their hands. They won’t look at the box.
Translucent globes rise from the box. They float like helium balloons but are made of some other material. As they bob and weave, catching the lamp light, I can’t decide whether they’re glass, or ceramic, or plastic. Likely the latter, with a simulated frosted surface. Guided by no means I can see, the globes take stable positions over the clients’ heads.
Under my foot, the railing creaks. One of the screws is tearing out.
I shift my weight. The creaking stops. I’m okay for the moment. I think.
Attendants drift to the edges of the room. They tilt their heads. They sniff.
This can’t be right. For a moment it seems like the sniffing sound comes from their ears.
A trickle of sawdust drops from around the screw head.
“What is it?” Chet asks the attendants.
“Nothing,” says the closest one.
I could try to ease myself down, but don’t.
The other three attendants return to the box. They withdraw bizarre masks. They cover the full face, with large eye holes and tiny slits for mouths. They bend when handled, as if each is formed from a single layer of latex. No, not latex. Human skin.
I consider simply going in there and thumping the snot out of them. But it’s five against one, assuming that the clients sit tight. If they join in against me, it’s a dogpile I can’t hope to win. Whether Sim is ready or able to take my side is too open a question for my liking. I stay put.
The attendants lay the masks onto the clients’ faces. They cling tight, as if drawn and held by a static charge. When the masks seal tight to the faces, they turn milky white. The clients jerk and gasp. Poor Sim’s hands twist into claws. It takes all I’ve got not to drop down and kick the door in. At the first hint of visible injury that’s exactly what will happen.
“Positive framing,” says Chet.
The clients convulse. I reach into my jacket to grip the handle of my machinist’s hammer. A bile-green liquid materializes, bubbling, in the floating globes. Though I’ll always remember it taking longer, I count out the effect at a hundred and twenty seconds. Then the clients pitch over in their folding chairs. The globes drift down to floor level. One of the attendants cradles a plastic bucket full of pipettes. Withdrawing one at a time, he punctures each of the globes. The pipettes fill with liquid. Once pulled out, no sign of a puncture remains. This lackey carries the gooey pipettes into an adjoining room.
The others remove the masks. They shrivel into papery cauls. Chet helps them put the masks and globes back in the box. His attention returns to the clients as the attendants wheel it out. They’re grumbling back to life, as if unwillingly wakened from a rocky nap. Though fearful before, now they seem calm. Medicated calm, like they’re cruising on diazepam.
“Concluding thoughts?” asks Chet.
“I’m tired of being ashamed,” says the poodle-haired woman. “Pride in shameful behavior is merely acting out. Only by scrubbing away the behavior can I shed my shame.”
“It’s good to feel bad, if that impulse leads to improvement,” says a red-headed man in his late twenties. He’s definitely the type Sim would go for, were it not for the mind-control. Was it an interest in this guy that maybe lured him into this?
“For a long time I thought it was enough to be different, with a group of people who were different the same way I am,” goes a white-haired man, his face incised with wrinkles. “But you get old and realize it was all an illusion.”
The other woman speaks. “It’s all happened too soon. I can’t change attitudes so quick. Not even about myself. The old regime said we were criminals. I never thought they were right. Until they went away.”
The rest make equally depressing robotic pronouncements until finally Simeon is the last one left. He says, “If you hate yourself, you have to go to the heart of who you are. And if that heart is rotten, assuming you’re unready to step into a Government Lethal Chamber, then your only other alternative is to heal the rot. To cast it out.”
Call me unfit to practice therapy in the great state of New York, but from where I’m perched, that doesn’t sound like positive framing. The attendants return. Chet orders one of them, who he calls Bunker, to drive them back to the city. Bunker complies with a nod.
I climb down from the railing. Succumbing to fleeting OCD, I retighten that screw. It may be jammed up against a stud.
The lights go out in the large room. I wait about fifteen minutes longer still, then push open the door. My flashlight beam arcs across the room.
The attendant took the pipettes through that door over there. I test it—locked. It’s only a privacy handle, so the easiest way in is to disassemble it.
A borealis of rippling light greets me on the other side. Metal utility shelving covers every usable inch of wall surface. It bows under a patchwork mismatch of vintage electronics. Cobbled stereo parts and TV tubes enter into forced marriage with manufacturing devices and monitoring panels. Wires run between them in an appalling fucking mess, tangling together until they feed into a set of python-thick cables. These in turn dangle into a large aquarium. It has to be 84 by 20 by 30 which would be, what?, a capacity somewhere in the 250-270 gallon range.
Floating in the aquarium... here’s where my powers of description take a powder on me. Let’s call them turd-shaped albino larvae things. They range in size from a few inches to a foot or so. One of them is much more developed than the others. It’s like a partial fetus, with nearly a complete human-sized skull, sort of an undistinguishable mass of spongy tissue where the neck should be, and then tiny legs and hands sprouting from that.
From each of these trails a thin, half-opaque umbilical cord. The cords lead to the bottom of the tank. Each of them hooks into the same sodden human corpse. It’s so bloated and black that I can’t make out age or features, but it definitely belongs to a brunette woman. I long ago inured myself to the sight of the worst chunkers, but water-damaged corpses I’m not at all used to. Angry and ashamed, I tamp down a very unfamiliar impulse to hurl.
So what the hell am I looking at? A sight like this is mostly outside my experience but only mostly. Behind the old regime lay a backstop of deep mystic crap nearly all of us would sooner wipe from the memory bank. When we blew the Camden stronghold, I caught a glimpse of a starry, vaulted world other than our own. Winged, squirming searchers prowled its lightless stars. In Philadelphia a rebel cell fought men with the heads of dripping flowers, who stank of carrion when they died. Or so says its leader, a man not given to yarn-spinning.
There’s a physical reality here. The cords have to feed the larvae. There’s liquid in them, drawn up from the corpse. So it’s their nutrient base.
The water they’re bathing in tinges green. A beer-sized fridge hums in the corner. I pull its door open. Inside are the pipettes. The goo they’re extracting with the mask ritual must be vital to keeping these things alive.
I’m raising my hammer to smash the tank when Chet comes through the door, wielding a well-maintained Colt 1911A.
***
There’s an added level that doesn’t appear on the maps. Flirting with foundational damage, they’ve dug a mini-basement and lined it with poured concrete. Its most prominent feature is the cell I’m now cooling in.
Chet pulls the backwards chair trick again, this time with pistol in hand. One other attendant is in the cell with him. Two stand in bodyguard stance on the other side of the bars.
“You came for Mr. Simeon?”
I’d ask him to tell me his plan if I hadn’t already more or less mapped it. Reproduction: the oldest motivation.
Chet’s lip curls. On close inspection, his gums aren’t quite right. He’s either diseased, or inhuman. My money’s on the former. Chet and his mooks are what the albino turds in the tank become when they grow up.
“Of all the feeders, his self-hatred was hardest to get at. But the better buried, the greater the yield. Sometimes.”
I’m trying hard to betray nothing, but Chet’s not fooled. He can see me getting pissed when he talks shit about Sim.
He waves my hammer. Too bad about the bars: otherwise I’d wrench the gun from his other hand, grab the hammer, and cave his skull in.
“You didn’t tell Mr. Simeon you were coming to rescue him.”
It’s a statement, not a question, so why answer?
“Who else did you inform?”
“Directly, no one. But if I disappear suddenly, the five or six government paper-pushers who helped me background search you and your outfit will dial the cops.”
Chet scowls. “Government. As if you rebel thugs comprehend what it is to govern. He who has not beheld the glamor of the Hyades has not the right to rule.”
“Whatever you say, Chet. It won’t take them but a few hours to put it together.”
“You imagine you’ll be so quickly missed?”
“There’s a government lethal chamber that’s not gonna fix itself.”
Chet clucks his tongue. Why have none of his clients noticed its double tip? “So.” Around his irises, fiery rims appear. “You repair a machine that dismembers the living?”
“That’s right.”
“And that doesn’t trouble you?”
“Users suffer worse when the machine falls out of alignment.”
“But if the machines went offline entirely, there’d be fewer suicides. You approve of suicide?”
I shrug. “There’s lots of ways to kill yourself, if you put your mind to it.”
“But how many casually walk in, who might relent when left to pills or open gas lines?”
“Humankind thanks you for your concern, Chet.”
When he squints, the glow from his eyes shows through his lids. “You are a hard case, then.”
“Whatever.”
Chet recovers his poise. “And why does one need a hard case, hmn?”
“As a shield against assholes?”
“To protect a vulnerable interior. You were broken inside long before you went to war, weren’t you? Repairman.”
“Go jump in the lake of Hali.”
“If only we could.” A hint of black mucus trails from Chet’s nostrils. He searches his pocket for a crumpled tissue and dabs it dry. “You destroyed more than this world’s sense of order when you toppled the regime. We, its loyal servitors, were left stranded. But enough about us. You are deft at deflecting. Might you be familiar with the term?”
“It’s headshrinker talk.”
“A tactic used by resistant subjects. A shield against introspection. The more you deny, the more you confirm.”
Now it’s me who’s shuffling uncomfortably. “Bullcrap.”
His irises flare. “I smell it on you.” A hissing emanates from his ears. “Like a bee smells pollen, like a fly smells carrion. It’s palpable to me, your self-hatred. Any kind of shame will do, repairman. We aren’t specialized to the psychic residues of fudgepackers and carpet munchers alone. Oh, they’re low-hanging fruit. Pardon the expression.” Chet’s chuckle sounds like the scuttling of a rat. “Shamed inside, from the very moment they realize who they are. If not before. A lifetime of ostracism, subtle or gross. You’d think we’d have trouble harvesting now, what with your so-called freedoms. It’s too soon. The shames so deeply ingrained. Perhaps in a dozen generations they’ll go dry. But as long as there is human weakness, we will have our sources. Sources like you. Since the day you took that job you’ve been pushing down, compartmentalizing, suppressing your natural revulsion for the physical manifestations of death. You can’t keep doing that, my friend. Evolution won’t let you. It instilled that response in you to protect you against disease.
“Others sense it on you, don’t they? The stink of death, your blunted response to it. They shrink from you as you ought to from a mangled corpse. Every one of your human cultures—even the cultures of my world—distance themselves from the designated handlers of the dead. Shun them as outcasts. A century from now, when faggotry is no more condemned than coin collecting, those who bear your stink will still be kept apart from other men. You live alone, don’t you, repairman?”
“What if I do?”
“You’re a hero of the revolution. Yet why am I picturing you in a dingy walk-up, grime caked on the inside of your unused stove, mold in the back of your icebox, talk radio on a constant blare, to trick you into thinking you have company?”
“Fuck you.”
“And during the struggle, as you no doubt call it. Your men—Mr. Simeon and the others—you felt a kinship to them you never before or since enjoyed. Yet even from them you were kept at bay. You were mad as they were not. Coolly familiar with death. Unshrinking as entrails looped out from ruptured torsos. Unflinching when spattered with a comrade’s spilled brain matter. They love you. They protect you, or wish that they could. But on the real level, on the level of reptile truth, you terrify them. They fear you.”
“Is that what you got Sim to say about me?”
Another ratty chortle. “This is insight, repairman. Perception through your flimsy barriers. My kind sees the truth about men. The depths your fellow humans shy to penetrate, for fear they’ll see themselves reflected therein.”
“Hence your usefulness to the regime.”
“Let’s not be sidetracked by politics. We have much to offer one another.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I can lift your burden. Not with a single treatment, mind you. But over the course of time, I can drain it from you. The slough of apartness in which your dead heart sloshes. Each time you come to us, you’ll leave feeling lighter. Until one day—perhaps as soon as a few months from now—you’ll be ready to open yourself to a woman’s love. To find companionship. To touch, and be touched, without the invisible grease of shame to blunt the moment.”
I’m holding my head in my hands. Looking at the scuffed toes of my boots.
Chet rises. “You’ll need to think on this a while.”
My face feels red. “I think better when I’m not held captive.”
He purses his lips. “Sadly, we can let you go only when we can believe in your absolute discretion.”
“So you have to hook me on this treatment first.”
“Is a cancer patient addicted to chemotherapy? A diabetic to insulin?”
“Fuck it then. Let’s go.”
“Pardon?”
“You want this? Let’s do it.”
He produces a humming sound. “You’re a quick decider.”
“Take advantage before I undecide.”
Chet stares at me for an instant, then nods. He tells the attendants outside to unlock the cell door. They hesitate. Chet ear-hisses at them. They ear-hiss back. Chet notices me noticing the exchange. He brings it to a swift resolution. The attendants snap to it. They lead me up shoddily installed concrete stairs, through a hatch, into utility closet, and then to the main floor area. Chet unfolds a chair for me. I sit down, my foot tapping a hundred miles a minute.
“Relax,” he goes.
“From what I saw I won’t get much choice,” I go.
“You must enter the process in a receptive state.”
The attendants come back, wheeling in the box. One flips the lid and the others guide the globes loose. They bob my way. Chet turns to get my mask. It tangles a bit in his hands, like a wet circle of rice paper. While he’s distracted smoothing it, I leap up, wishing I still had the hammer. Fists will have to do. I grab the nearest attendant by the shoulder and spin him around. Then I smash him square in the face.
I’ve never punched a face quite like this before. The skull squishes in, like it’s cartilage instead of bone. My fist goes right through it. The attendant’s face collapses inward, skin stretching past the tearing point. The goopy interior of his head suctions around my hand. It takes effort to pop it free. A layer of cartilage and semi-soft tissue and verdant black viscera comes with it. I shake it loose. It plops on the freshly varathaned hardwood floor. The dead attendant collapses, gunk gushing from its punctured face. The Hasturites stand flatfooted and appalled. They scream from their ears.
The nearest attendant lunges for me, trying to wrap his fingers around my throat. I turn to avoid him and tag him with a glancing gut-punch. He grunts but the result is otherwise unspectacular.
Chet has dropped the mask. It lies on the floor in a puddle. He draws his .45. Even though it means hitting his guy, he opens fire. His bullet zips through the attendant’s thoracic cavity and into my arm. Aside from a brief shudder the attendant seems no worse for wear. Hot agony sears my shoulder. I chance a quick look: it’s a through and through, an inch shy of an artery hit. With the opposite elbow I clock the attendant under the chin. The real danger’s Chet and his pistol. I dance my guy around in hopes of making myself a confusing target. It’s a dicey situation, with Chet not having to worry about hitting his own man.
Heads turn in response to an exclamation from the main entrance. Bunker has returned, and Sim with him. Chet must have called him with instructions to fetch Sim in case they needed to play the hostage card.
“A little help?” I yell.
Sim goes, “What the fuck?” Bunker’s making the untrained mistake of standing too close to the prisoner. Sim ducks under, grabs Bunker’s arm, and twists it. It yields unexpectedly to the pressure, not breaking, but bending and staying bent. Bunker’s gun falls at Sim’s feet. He scoops it up and plants a perfect shot between Bunker’s brows. A black spot appears. Bunker keeps on going, struggling for possession of the gun.
“Try blunt force!” I shout, demonstrating on the attendant I’m grappling. I smack him in the side of the jaw. It detaches and swims around halfway up his face. Black gunk spurts all over. Chet shrieks. Bunker shrieks. The unengaged guy falls on all fours and pukes.
I grab my guy’s misplaced jaw and yank it off his face.
Peripheral vision tells me that Sim’s pounding Bunker’s head literally in. He’s pinned against the wall and isn’t dropping though by all lights he’s already cacked it.
I dive behind the metal box, slipping on alien vomit along the way. Chet opens fire. Bullets ricochet off the box’s burnished surface. I push it on its castors, rolling toward Chet. Between us lies the retching Hasturite. I grab him by the hair and jam his face into one of the box’s badly soldered corners. It shatters like a rotten pumpkin.
