The Devil's Dictionary, page 7
Then the door opens again, and she pokes her head back inside the room. “That message for Ichika, if I talk to my friend, what do you want it to say?”
“Buddy Holly glasses. We need to talk. Lion Zorn.”
Miriam furrows her brow. “Buddy Holly glasses. We need to talk?”
“Ichika will understand.”
“That’s it?”
“Also give her my number so she can get in touch.”
“Fish petter out,” says Miriam, winking at him and closing the door.
Lion takes a shower, gets dressed, pockets the JOBZ, and heads down the hall to the elevator. He’s got five minutes until he’s supposed to meet Chandra.
He pushes the button and waits. Before the elevator arrives, the JOBZ starts to vibrate in his pocket. As he’s pulling it out, a text from Miriam slides onto the screen. “I talked to my friend. He delivered your message. I’ll let you know if I hear anything back.”
That was fast, thinks Lion.
Suicide Girls
The housekeeping station sits at the end of a long hallway. Lion opens the door and sees a rectangular laundry room lined with concrete floors and brick walls. One wall is packed with washers and dryers; the other has a long chrome table pushed up against it. Three humanoid robots stand at the table, their backs to Lion. Two robots fold bath towels. The third is completely lifeless, arms dangling, head hanging down.
In the middle of the room, a middle-aged black woman with a copper-colored Afro sits behind an old metal desk, filling in numbers on a spreadsheet.
“Excuse me,” says Lion. “Are you Chandra?”
The woman doesn’t look up.
Lion walks a few steps into the room and repeats himself.
She keeps working.
“I’m Lion,” he tries again. “I’m supposed to meet Chandra here.”
Finally the woman lifts her gaze and points at the lifeless robot. “That’s Chandra.”
Lion takes a step toward the robot, then looks back at the woman. “You’re messing with me.”
“I am,” says the woman. “Teasing the Yankees is a long tradition in my family.”
Lion laughs.
“I’m Chandra. You must be Lion.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Miriam said you wanted to see the business card I found in room 1107.”
“I thought the cops had it.”
Chandra’s phone sits on the desk. She picks it up, clicks an icon, then scrolls through a series of images before selecting one. Holding the screen out, Chandra shows him a photograph of a metal card etched with Chinese characters.
“I wanted to sell the photo. Thought, with Ichika missing, the press would pay. But then I heard about the police wanting to keep the details out of the press. I was in 1107 and saw that head vise. Whatever happened to Ichika was the devil’s work.” She crosses herself. “After seeing that, I wanted the police to catch Satan much more than I wanted pictures of dead white men on green paper—no offense.”
“None taken.”
Lion looks at the photo, pointing at the Chinese characters. “Any idea what they say?”
“I’m mostly a spareribs woman. I don’t speak no moo shu pork.”
“I had to ask.”
“I wasn’t finished. My auntie grew up outside of Hangzhou. She says it says, ‘Suicide Girls.’” Chandra taps a fingernail on the screen. “At least these two characters say that.”
Swiping the image away, she shows him another. It’s the other side of the same business card, the web address ending in dot-onion. Chandra taps her nail on the bottom right corner.
Lion sees a trio of Chinese characters, fainter than the others.
“According to auntie, these say, ‘Place your bets.’”
“Suicide Girls—place your bets?”
“Yup.”
“Sounds like French poetry to me.”
“Uh-huh,” says Chandra. “But auntie’s an old old-school feminist. She says the Suicide Girls were a burlesque dance troupe from the early days of the internet. Punk rock gals with tattoos and piercings trying to broaden our definition of beauty. She called them ‘third wave women’s lib.’ Said they mostly faded from sight in the West, but popped up in China around the time of the Splinter.”
“Do you mind if I take a picture of those pictures?”
“I’ll text ’em to you.”
Lion gives her the number for the JOBZ. Once her text arrives, he double-checks the images to make sure he can read the web address and both sets of Chinese characters. Satisfied, he turns back to Chandra. “Is there anything else you remember about 1107?”
“Ichika was tortured, I won’t forget that.”
“You sound certain.”
“Someone was tortured. There was blood on the sheets.” Then she looks Lion square in the eye. “You get tortured, too?”
His eyes pop wide. “How’d you know?”
“I saw the head vise,” she explains. “The metal prongs used to hold open the eyes. I also saw the video. Right before Ichika goes through the door and onto the roof, you can see that her eyelids are bleeding.” She points at Lion’s face. “Bleeding in the same place you’ve got those lightning bolt scars.”
“Not my favorite memory.”
“Ichika’s a famous em-tracker. Miriam says you are, too. Was it because of that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Humans First,” she says. “Sounds like their kind of cracker redneck Nazi bullshit. No offense.”
“None taken, and you’re right, it does sound like their kind of cracker redneck Nazi bullshit. But I still don’t know.”
“You find out,” says Chandra. “And when you do find out—you be sure to handle that business.”
“Shoot first, ask questions later.”
“Amen.”
Never Bring a Death Punch to a Gunfight
Lion leaves the housekeeping station and heads back to his room. Walking inside, he notices the decor is telltale Braveheart: four walls of shiny black metal. He’s amazed he didn’t notice before. Beside the black metal platform bed and a black metal desk, there’s nothing else in the room.
Lion crosses to the desk, slides out a chair, and sits down. He pulls out the JOBZ and clicks open their custom-designed Tor Browser. A quick search brings up a map of downtown Seattle. The Tech Museum that houses the seventh Bolex H-11 sits about a mile from the Braveheart, in the same part of town as the Space Needle.
Business hours are listed beside the map. The museum stays open late two nights a week, with tonight being one of those nights.
A glance at the window tells him the rain has stopped.
Lion changes into a thick black hoodie, lined with Sherpa fleece, the word Faction printed across the chest. He grabs his black down puffy, the JOBZ, and the joint he rolled earlier. Then he remembers what Miriam said about tension at the Space Needle and digs the death punch out of his backpack.
Sliding his fingers into the flex-steel rings, Lion extends his arm and presses the trigger. Five steel pistons punch outward, like tiny supersonic fists. A second later they retract, disappearing back into metal slots atop the knuckles.
Fully charged and ready to rock.
Lion slips the weapon into his pocket and heads out the door. The lobby is empty. There’s no sign of Miriam. But as he exits the hotel, the robo-doorman stands his solitary watch.
Outside, he’s greeted by a sky that’s two shades darker now, and an icy chill in the air. Lion pulls on his watch cap, flips the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and, when he’s halfway down the block, lights the spliff.
A couple of women across the street glance at him as he exhales. They have tribal face tattoos and dyed black hair. The tattoos are classic Anti-Nagel style, and the black dye jobs could make them raven fetishists or bat fetishists. But neither seems particularly interested in him.
He walks down the block and around the next corner, spotting a long glass skybridge stretched between buildings, some eighty feet above the ground. A sign reads: WASHINGTON STATE CONVENTION CENTER. Dangling beneath the bridge, there’s a giant web of climbing ropes supporting an array of skynets and pup tents. It’s another Anti-Nagel colony, though it looks completely deserted.
But not everything’s deserted.
Across the street, Lion sees those same two women with the face tattoos—even closer than before.
His pulse quickens.
Pot paranoia or is something weird going on?
Lion can’t decide, but picks up his pace all the same. Catching sight of the Space Needle between buildings, he aims in that direction, passing a brand-new street sign thanking him for visiting the Amazon Zone, and another, not five feet in front of it, welcoming him to the Microsoft Zone.
Another half block and a sneak peek in the side mirror of an old Chevy tells him the women have closed the distance again. Lion doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t feel like running, but death-punching these ladies in their face tats doesn’t seem like the better option.
There’s a Starbucks two storefronts up. Lion tucks the half-smoked joint into his pocket, strides inside, and buys a triple-shot Americano while watching the door.
Nothing happens.
He pays for his coffee, still watching.
Still nothing.
Lion walks back to the doors and sneaks a glance through the glass. But there’s no one in sight. The street is empty.
So pot paranoia after all.
“Get a grip, Zorn,” he says, heading out the door.
Lion aims in the direction of the Space Needle. A few steps later, his JOBZ starts to vibrate in his pocket. Pulling it out, he sees a text from Lorenzo.
“Big news,” it reads. An exploding skull emoji appears next, then more text. “Remember the three tech billionaires you asked about? One found dead at PRML last week. Covered in snakebites. Cause of death: inland taipan venom.” Then another exploding skull. The text ends with: “Onstage soon, will call later.”
Inland taipans are the deadliest snake in the world, but they are found only in Australia. Lion slides the JOBZ away, trying to figure out how someone could get attacked by an Australian snake in America.
Exotic pet accident?
Yet the text said the billionaire was covered in snakebites—so what, like, one really pissed off exotic pet or a bunch of them?
Maybe an exotic pet store accident?
But there’s no way it’s legal to sell inland taipan snakes in America, except to zoos.
Illegal exotic pet store accident?
Lion decides to park this line of inquiry until he has more information. He takes a sip of his coffee and starts down the street. Two steps later, those same pair of tattooed women step out of a doorway, not five feet ahead of him. One has neon purple lipstick and a large black square inked over her right eye. The other has traditional Polynesian ink covering the left side of her face.
“You’re Lion Zorn,” says the woman with the square-eye tattoo.
“Seriously?” he says.
“You really are Lion Zorn,” she repeats, closing the distance between them.
More groupies?
“Fucking took you long enough,” says the Polynesian-inked woman. “I’m freezing.”
She doesn’t sound like a groupie.
“Are you stalking me?” asks Lion, sliding his hand into his pocket.
“Absolutely,” says Square-Eye, taking a step closer and reaching for his arm. “You’re coming with us.”
“I am?” asks Lion, yanking the death punch out of his pocket.
The woman with the Polynesian ink glances at the weapon and starts laughing, her face tattoos scrunching into a kind of geometric death mask. Then she lifts up her right hand and points a Glock 39 at his chest.
“Classic mistake,” says Square-Eye. “You brought a death punch to a gunfight.”
“Ichika wants to see you,” says the Polynesian-inked woman.
Lion takes a sip of coffee and stares at the Glock for a couple of seconds, then slides the death punch back into his pocket.
“Put the gun away,” he says. “I want to see Ichika, too.”
Love Your Species
After realizing that Lion wants to meet Ichika as much as Ichika wants to meet Lion, the two Anti-Nagel women calm down. Jannah, with the Polynesian ink, puts the gun away and tells him she has a car nearby to take them to the meeting. Cathy, with the square-eye tattoo, apologizes for stalking him.
Jannah’s car is a retro-electric Miata, what the kids call a “mini-mini,” and more like a sleek golf cart than an automobile. They cram inside. Jannah spins the wheel, guns the engine, and rockets into traffic.
The mini-mini has some get-up-and-go.
Slicing between an oversized SUV and an undersized Toyota, Jannah nearly clips a bus. She glances over at Lion and shrugs. “Force of habit.”
“Force of habit.”
“Force of habit?”
“I learned to drive in Lagos.”
“Slow down,” demands Cathy.
Jannah smiles at her in the rearview, then jams her foot on the accelerator. Lion slams back into his seat, then gets tossed around as they bob and weave for a few blocks. Finally he asks, “Where are we going?”
“Near the Space Needle” is all either will say.
Lion doesn’t push it. With Jannah’s lead foot on the gas, they should be near the Space Needle in under five minutes. But as they draw closer, the sidewalks grow increasingly crowded, then overcrowded, then people start spilling into the street, slowing their progress to a crawl.
“Are all these protesters?” asks Lion.
Jannah shakes her head. “Not just protesters. Tourists, cops, under-covers from all the three-letter agencies, every panhandler for fifty miles and…’’—pointing at three bedraggled men with face tattoos sitting on a dumpster—“our people.”
Around the next corner, the crowd overtakes the street completely, and the mini-mini grinds to a halt.
Bodies begin to press up against their car.
Lion eyes them warily. “Let’s park and walk.”
“Not into crowds?” asks Jannah.
“Or heights.”
“Really?”
“Both scare the shit out of me.”
Jannah gives him a strange look, then lays on her horn and scatters the crowd. She makes a sharp right into a 7-Eleven parking lot and pulls into a spot. Lion gets out of the car, wondering about her look. He doesn’t wonder for long. A rising tide of battle chants catches his attention.
“Humans First!” shouts the Humans First contingent. “Love your species!”
“Empathy for all!” is the poly-tribe reply.
“Love your species” is more redneck cracker Nazi bullshit. It’s an updated version of the white power classic, “Love your race.” Yet the chant of “empathy for all” hits even harder. “Empathy for All” is the title of the article Lion wrote about Sietch Tabr, the one that told the world about the psychedelic. Even after the scrubbing, the phrase stuck around—first as underground graffiti; next as a poly-tribe rallying cry; and finally, as just another protest chant.
As an em-tracker, Lion probably should have seen that one coming.
“Tension,” he says, surveying the scene.
“It’s been like this for two weeks,” says Cathy, stepping out of the car to stand beside him.
“And worse every day,” adds Jannah, walking over to join them.
“What now?” asks Lion.
Jannah points to her right. “We’re this way,” she says, speeding off into the crowd.
Humans First
Jannah walks like she drives, weaving between bodies at high speeds. Lion has to jog to keep up.
Down the block and around a corner, and the Space Needle comes into view.
The sight pulls him up short.
The Needle is constructed from three massive steel girders shaped like a gigantic hourglass. Tip to tail, the entire structure measures 605 feet. At the base, the girders start out in a wide tripod stance, then come together 400 feet above the ground to form a tightly corseted waist, before spreading wide apart again, creating the four-pronged cradle that supports the observation deck up top.
“It was designed to look like a flying saucer,” says Cathy, pointing at the observation deck.
But that’s not where Lion is looking.
Beneath the deck, there’s a massive web of ropes supporting a miniature village. There must be a hundred skynets housing over two hundred pup tents. Lion has seen photos, but those were taken in the early days, when the initial cadre of thirteen Anti-Nagels first occupied the Space Needle. Now that occupation has grown into a colony.
“That looks like it could hold three hundred people,” says Lion, pointing at the platform.
“Three hundred and twenty-seven,” says Cathy, “as of last night.”
“We count heads,” explains Jannah. “We think the structure can hold four hundred people, but no one wants to find out.”
“There are that many Anti-Nagels in the colony?”
“There are that many Anti-Nagels in Seattle. Once the protesters showed up, Ichika thought we’d all be safer together…”—Jannah points at the encampment—“up there.”
“That’s why the Washington State colony was deserted.”
Cathy nods.
Lion looks at the crowd. “Do you also count protesters? Any idea how many there are?”
“Maybe a couple thousand,” says Jannah. “But the Space Needle is a big tourist attraction. Once the Anti-Nagels arrived, it got bigger. Add in the cops, the undercover feds, and the people visiting the museums nearby—maybe five thousand at any one time.”
“Humans first,” chants the crowd. “Love your species!”
“Empathy for all,” comes the reply.
Jannah angles them past the Needle, avoiding the protest barricades and the cops in riot gear. They wind through the crowd, ending up near a giant curved metal blob. The Museum of Pop Culture, a sign tells them, and the newly added Museum of Technology. This must be the Tech Museum that houses the seventh Bolex H-11.
