Fantasmagoria (25 page)

“Are you Jack Fulcrum?”

“Who the hell are you?” Jack stood and shook himself off.

“My name is Gilbert. I’ve been looking for you.”

“You and everybody else.” He dusted himself off one-handed and pulled the snot-like slime from his chest. “No offense, Mr. Tubers, but I’m really not in a position to help you out with”—Jack waved his good hand into the air—“whatever it is you need help with.” He looked again for Zen-ji.

“I just want to talk. If I could just explain.”

“I’m sorry. Not a good time.” Jack lifted the metal box from the ground. It looked damaged. “Shit.” He shook it. The key jingled. The piston must not have fired.

“What is that?”

There was a noise in the distance, a commotion.

Jack put the box in his pocket. “I’m getting the hell out of here, Mr. Tubers, before more of them show up. You should, too.”

Gilbert grabbed his coat and gloves. “Wait!”

He shuffled after Jack down the avenue. Gilbert didn’t know what to say. He sensed the big man was in no mood to talk. It was very dark in the labyrinth, and there were no street signs and no clear landmarks. Just alley after alley of tiny block housing and feeble voices. After twenty paces, Gilbert turned and wasn’t sure which of the intersecting alleys they’d passed through.

He turned and ran after Jack again. “I can fix you.”

“Look,” Jack said in a whisper, “no offense, but you need to get yourself fixed first,” he nodded to Gilbert’s arm. “You should go home.”

“I don’t have a home. Pimpernel stole everything and stashed it underneath Hoosegow Prison.”

Jack didn’t stop. “Yeah, he does that.”

Gilbert scurried to keep up. “I’m an engineer. If all your gears are still intact, then it’s just some simple damage to your frame. It won’t take long.”

“No.” Jack kept hobbling. He dragged his left foot behind him as his right arm dangled.

“Please, I just want to help.”

Jack didn’t stop.

“Would you stop for just a second, please? At least let me give you the message from Marcelline.”

Jack turned. “Marcy?”

A noise echoed through the dark alley and both men listened in silence. A cat leapt from a roof and disappeared. Its owner cast the men a sideways glance and did the same.

Gilbert took a deep breath and nodded.

“Where is she?”

“She’s dead.”

“Oh.” Jack looked down. “Damn.”

“Yeah,” Gilbert panted. “I’m sorry.”

“What’s the message?”

“She said to tell you that she never forgot. Not ever.”

Jack nodded. He looked at Gilbert. “Thanks. I owe you one. For back there. Maybe after this is all over, if we’re both still alive, I can help you with your problem.” Jack turned and started hobbling again. “But right now all that matters is this.” He held up the box without stopping or turning. “I need the combination before I wind down again.”

“Combination? I could open it.”

Jack stopped. “How?”

“I told you. I’m an engineer. A damned good one, too. I helped start the Empire’s nuclear program.”

“What?”

Gilbert waved him off. “It’s not important. The point is, if all you need is that box opened, I can do that.” He wasn’t sure, but it was worth a shot. “And I can fix you. And everything.”

Jack squinted down at the man in the faded yellow suit.

Gilbert held out his hand. “It’s just a cylinder combination lock, right?”

Jack studied Gilbert’s face. Then he handed him his most valuable possession.

Gilbert turned the box over in his hands. He nodded. “I can crack this.”

“No.” Jack shook his head. “There’s a piston inside. If it’s opened without the combination, the contents get squashed, and I’m fucked.”

Gilbert scowled and moved the box back and forth. The key clinked. “Did you actually see this piston?”

Jack thought. “No. Why?”

“Because this box is very well balanced. If there were a piston, then one side would be heavier than the other.”

“Fuck . . .” Jack gritted his teeth. Vernal.

“Plus, to be honest, it’s kind of crappy workmanship. No offense.”

“None taken.”

There was another commotion, the yell of a crowd and the report of a gun, this time from the opposite direction.

“Probably just saurus fights,” Gilbert shrugged.

Jack looked around. He wasn’t sure where they were. Clouds obscured the stars. Zen-ji was still out there somewhere. If the samurai attacked, Jack was certain they’d both be killed. And they’d never hear him coming. “We can’t do it here. We need to find a place to hide.”

“There.” Gilbert pointed to a skull-topped spire, just visible over the tenement roofs.

“What is it?”

“The last place anyone will look. Come on. I’ll show you.”

(TWENTY-SEVEN) Unicorn Blues

Vernal turned into a unicorn every time he laughed, a fact he discovered after joyously escaping the Old Arcade. The viral serum had worked its dark science, and now he was a permanent lycanthrope.

He sulked in an alley across the street from the Crystal Phallus and fell into a deep melancholy as he waited for the doors to open. Sunlight cowered behind fresh rain, which had returned in force. It fell just as thick as the morning of the day before, when Vernal had betrayed Cecil to his doom. That seemed like weeks ago. Vernal expected to have the Genix by now. He was running out of time. The world was going to end in less than 24 hours, and his careful plan was falling apart. He’d lost Jack, and now he was afflicted with a disease for which there was no cure, save death. It would follow him throughout the galaxy.

Vernal sat wet and dour-faced in the alley, dreaming of ways to obliterate his pleasant moods and perpetuate a black humor, when his bad luck soured further. Velma was not alone. Vernal watched from cover as she unlocked the doors to the shop with the aid of someone, a dark-cowled woman. Vernal cursed. His sister didn’t have any friends, and there’d be no need for two workers this early. Not at a sex shop. Not on a weekday.

Vernal shivered in the rain as the lights of the shop flickered on and the familiar leather-clad mannequin in the window waved at him. It brandished a crystal dildo like a mighty sword.

“Fuck.”

There was no place to wait but under the wet cardboard he’d taken from a drunken homeless man. The clubs and theaters of the go-go quarter were dark and silent while their patrons slept off a raucous night of bad decisions. The closest diner was seven blocks away and two blocks from a police station. Vernal leaned against a wall and waited a tiny eternity.

After twenty wet minutes, the cowled woman left, and Vernal scurried across the street and walked through the door of the Crystal Phallus, the only place Velma had ever found lasting employment. A poster over the counter announced another feature from Mandongo.

Velma heard the door and walked in from the back room. “Vern?”

“Hi, sis.”

Velma ran to the door, pushing her brother into a rack of leather. He knocked loose a zippered mask. Velma dug the keys to the store from the pocket of her jeans and locked the door. She turned the sign to “Sorry, We are Closed.”

“You stupid moron. Get away from the window before someone sees you.” She pushed Vernal back into a tall rack of ball gags. “Everybody in the fuckin’ world is looking for you.” The fluorescent lighting in the store wasn’t good for her complexion.

Vernal shook the rain from his clothes and gargled his words. “Yeah? Screw ’em.”

“What are you doing? You shouldn’t be here.”

“You gotta help me out.”

“Fuck. Why should I, you wet little turd?”

“’Cuz I’m your brother.”

“So?” Velma trudged toward the counter.

“Come on, Velm. I’m serious.” At least she wasn’t high this time. “I just need a little money.”

“Here.” Velma walked to a carton of sex toys and handed him a giant dildo. It was candy-striped and larger than Vernal’s arm. “You might want to practice.”

Vernal took it and made a face.

“That’s all the help you’ll get from me.”

“Velm--”

“I told you! I told you were stupid, you little shit. I told you if you were lucky, they’d just lube a saurus and let it rape you. Like that one that ate downtown. If you were lucky.”

“What do you want? Do you want me to say you were right? Fine. You were right. I was wrong. Happy?” Vernal shook the dildo at his sister.

Velma crossed her arms.

“You were right, okay? These people are serious. They’re gonna torture me and kill me. You gotta help.”

“Why’d you do it, Vern?”

“I found something.” Vernal stepped close. “I was running an errand out in the valley an--”

“You were disposing of a body, you mean.”

“It’s good money! But that’s not the point. I found something, Velm. I think it was hurt, like it had a disease or something. It showed me things.”

“Ugh.” Velma rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to hear any more of your stupid lies.”

“It’s not a lie. I swear.”

“Oh yeah? Do you swear like the time you swore you were gonna stop conning the folks at Mom’s nursing home out of their pain medication?”

“Hey.” Vernal raised a finger. “I happen to know little old ladies can take care of themselves.”

“Do you swear like the time you swore you’d stop hiding that beetle toy around the house, and then you didn’t and mom had to go to the hospital?”

“I was fourteen!”

“Do you swear like the time you swore you’d help me take care of twin little girls,
’
cuz otherwise I just would have had an abortion like me and Cecil talked. Is that how you swear?
’
Cuz if so, I’m tired of all your swearing, little brother.”

Vernal stopped. He shut his mouth. She hadn’t insulted him.

“I’m just tired, okay.” Velma shut her eyes and covered her face with one hand. “Look, I think it’s time we moved on. Okay? I’ve just got to put this shit behind me and get on with my life. I mean, you’re a really bad influence. If you hadn’t attacked that teacher, I never would have gotten involved with Dobie or Cecil or anything.”

Vernal stepped back. “What did you do?”

Velma tapped her foot. “What are you talking about?”

Vernal looked at the front door, the one she had locked right in front of his face. He gritted his teeth. “You already locked the back, didn’t you?”

Velma nodded. It shook her stringy hair. Her eyes were wide with fear. She was shaking.

“What did you do?”

“I met somebody.”

“Who did you meet, Velm?” Vernal looked around for something to break the door.

“She told me what happened. What you did.”

“Who did?” Vernal dropped the giant dildo.

“A woman. Well, sort of. She’s a mechanoid.”

Vernal shut his eyes. Shit.

“She told me . . . she--” Velma’s eyes watered. Her mouth twitched and turned down. Her hand covered her face for a moment, then she glowered at her brother. Her voice shook. “She told me what you did to
Cecil
.” She choked on the name.

“Velm . . .” Vernal stepped forward.

Velma was crying, but her eyes burned. “Don’t bother trying to lie, little brother. I know it’s true. I know what you did.”

Vernal clenched his fists and stepped closer to his sister.

“She told me that you’d come. You don’t have anyone else. Mom’s dead. Dad’s dead. Cecil’s dead. The girls are dead. It’s just you and me.” She sniffed and wiped her nose. “And I knew she was right. I knew it.”

“Oh yeah? Did she tell you what Cecil did to your daughters?” Vernal wanted to strangle his sister for all the times she lied to herself.

“Shut up! That’s a lie! That’s a lie. Cecil would never do that. He loved our little girls.” She was bawling now. She wrapped her arms around herself.

“I promised you, Velm. I promised I’d help look after the girls. And that’s exactly what I did.”

“You’re such a liar. You always lie. Always. About everything.” She ground the words in anger. She hit him.

Vernal stood. “I couldn’t take back what happened. But I made it right. Didn’t I?”

Her face was twisted and crying.

“What did you do, Velm?”

“They’re coming,” she whined.

“Give me the keys.” Vernal held out his hand.

Velma shook her head. The movement knocked tears loose.

“Velm . . . give me the keys.”

Velma stepped back and shook her head again. Her mouth was frozen in a panicked, teeth-baring frown.

“Give me the keys!” Vernal shouted.

Velma jumped in fear and fell back against the wall.

“Give me the keys!” Vernal grabbed his sister and shook her. “Dammit you stupid, stupid junkie. Give me the fucking keys! Give me the keys!”