Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (55 page)

Zoey studied Scott's face. It was interesting to watch all of the various stages of emotion wash over it. On one hand, the guy knew for a fact that Will Blackwater was a world-class liar and con man. He had no doubt been told by his own boss to automatically dismiss anything Will said as a falsehood or some other attempt at manipulation, no matter what it was. So the first expression was mild amusement, the way you react to the clumsy lie of a child.

But here's the thing—lying would have become useless thousands of years ago if countering it was as simple as dismissing the liars completely. The really good liars were like chemists, brewing formulas that were mostly truth, the toxins undetectable in the mixture. So in just three seconds, Zoey watched Scott's face transition from amusement to concern, as he started to weigh the possibility that Will was in fact telling the truth—after all, it was perfectly possible, and even logical, to do what he was claiming to have done. It would prevent the mansion from falling into Molech's hands, along with whatever valuables or secrets were stored within, and would force Scott to make a call about what to do with his hostages. It was totally the kind of thing Will Blackwater would do.

To help drive it home, Will said, “I'm not going to let Molech move in and sleep in Arthur's bed. Five minutes from now, this is going to be a crater, no matter what we do. So let's not be stupid. Let's get out of the blast radius and plug our ears. I liked Arthur a lot, but I have no intention of dying the same way he did. But I will, if you insist—as you said yourself, the alternative is months of slow torture at the hands of your rotbrain employer. An instant death that I don't even feel? That's pretty much my best-case scenario at this point. So which of us has something to lose?”

Scott shook his head, grinning. “I mean this with all honesty. People say Molech is bad, but you, Blackwater, you're ten times worse. We may burn in hell but the devil gonna greet you like an old friend.”

Will sipped his drink. “You're a smart man, Scott, and I respect you. You could have probably worked for us, under other circumstances. So I say, forget Molech. Let's you and I work out an agreement to—”

Scott swung the pipe, and smashed it into Will Blackwater's skull.

Blood sprayed across a nearby marshmallow snowman, and Will Blackwater collapsed to the floor with a sickening thud.

He did not move.

Zoey screamed.

 

SIXTY-SEVEN

She ran toward the caterpillar, or as much of a run as she could manage, anyway. Scott grabbed her by the back of the shirt, yanked her and threw her back across the room. She crashed into a peppermint elf, her shattered ribs sending jets of fire across her torso. She coughed up blood.

Scott said, “Why don't you just sit tight for a sec. We're gonna wait for Molech to get here, right about…” Scott held a finger in the air. “Now.”

The wall behind them exploded. Chunks of plaster rained down on Scott and Zoey, and a cold wind rushed in from the courtyard. Molech strode through the dust cloud, brushing bits of plaster off of his superhero costume. At least five henchmen had followed him, all of them looked greatly amused.

Molech glanced down at where Will was sprawled, then looked at Scott.

“What, you started without me?”

“What can I say. Juice don't wait.”

“That it does not.”

Molech loomed over Zoey. She tried to back away, scooting backward on her butt, nowhere to go. Molech watched with annoyed disdain.

“Tell me, piglet, what story were you telling yourself up to now? What world did you think you were living in? Don't you get that I've been preparing my whole life for this? What have you been preparing for? Don't bother—I actually know the answer to that question, and you don't. See, a gazelle goes out and eats grass because it thinks it's feeding itself. But it's not. It's feeding
the lion
. It's fattening itself up, to be food. It doesn't know it, but it was born to be prey—that is its only purpose. So what purpose do you think a dumb trailer turd with no self-esteem and big tits serves, in a world of true men? Maybe I'll let one of my boys show you. Maybe I'll let
all
of them show you.”

Zoey said, “It's like you have Rape Threat Tourette's Syndrome.”

“My favorite part? It's that exact moment when the defiance turns into terror. About fifteen seconds from now, I'd say.”

Zoey reared back and kicked him as hard as she could in the groin, but it appeared the codpiece wasn't just decorative. Molech didn't even flinch.

“Well,” he said, “just for that…”

Molech raised up a boot, brought it down, and effortlessly snapped Zoey's right leg below the knee. Both bones splintered, jutting out of the skin. Zoey was unable to scream, she had torn up her vocal chords too much. She could only lay there, and squeeze her eyes and try to block out the pain. To block out everything.

On the other side of the room, the caterpillar clunked and hissed and wound down. A beep announced its production of object “Zoey” was finished. A little late for that, she thought.

Zoey forced herself to look down and, for the first time, saw part of the inside of her own body, white bone jutting out around ragged muscle and fat from her lower leg, blood soaking through her ripped jeans. She felt herself about to pass out, when she heard a soft meow. Stench Machine had arrived, having tracked down his wounded owner a second time, there to offer whatever assistance he could. It didn't amount to much.

Zoey hugged him and Molech said, “T-Bone, kill that goddamned cat.”

Zoey's scream of protest was barely a sound, but she couldn't stop it. The henchman known as T-Bone reached for Stench Machine, but the cat slipped out of his grasp, streaking away through the ragged hole in the wall Molech had punched open.

T-Bone giggled as he watched him go, but Molech said, “No, go get it. I want you to pull it apart in front of her.”

Zoey said, “Please don't. Just … please.”

“
Go get the cat
.”

T-Bone obeyed, chuckling as he ran into the courtyard.

To Scott, Molech said, “You got the camera? Good. Frame me up. This is about to become the Zoey Show.”

Scott brought up the camera, and they arranged the scene to get Molech in the foreground, with the shattered Zoey in the background. They had to pause to move a table out of the way. Then Molech insisted on getting the feed to play on the wall, so he could check it from time to time, see how it all looked.

Finally they got it arranged to Molech's satisfaction and he said into the camera, “All right, everybody, we got a little off track with our show, but's all good now. I'm glad this happened, really. I prefer things to be a bit more intimate, if you know what I mean.”

T-Bone reappeared at the ragged hole in the wall and said, “Man, there's a bunch of trees and stuff out there. That cat is gon—”

There was a roar, and a white blur, and suddenly everyone was shouting.

T-Bone was on his back, with a white Siberian tiger on top of him, ripping his throat out.

Amidst the chaos, Zoey rolled over, and tried to move. Black spots danced in front of her eyes. The pain had blown out the circuits in her brain, she couldn't even tell if she was feeling it anymore. She dragged herself on her elbows, toward the caterpillar. One of her splintered leg bones got caught against a chair leg, and she passed out.

She had no idea how long she was out. Maybe a few seconds. When she woke up again, it was to the sound of screams, tiger roars, and heavy, meaty punches. She dragged herself again, toward the caterpillar, toward the chute at the end. Nothing on her body worked other than her arms—everything was either numbness or blinding pain. She pulled herself along the black and white checkerboard tile, so slowly, the second time in this ordeal she had felt like she was living one of those nightmares where you run and run and never reach the end of the hall, some horror lurking behind you.

Zoey reached the chute, stopped to breathe, and to try to focus her eyes. Behind her, she heard horrific sounds of a man killing a wild animal. She glanced back and saw Molech stand and laugh, blood on his metal fists. She didn't have much time. She had no time. They would notice her; they would be on her in one second.

Zoey pushed herself up on her hands, unable to stand. She pulled herself up so she could reach into the into the caterpillar's delivery basket. She reached in, blindly, and grabbed the object the catalog of schematics knew only as “Zoey.”

It was a football helmet.

Zoey thought,
that bastard
, and blacked out.

 

SIXTY-EIGHT

She forced her eyes open. Once more, she had no idea how much time had passed. She looked over and found Will Blackwater on the floor, limbs askew, his head oozing blood. Not far away, the white tiger lay dead, along with two shirtless men. Molech's numbers were only increasing, though—ten or so henchmen had joined the party. Not that Molech needed their help.

Zoey sat up, her back to the caterpillar, the stupid football helmet in her lap. It didn't even look like a real, regulation helmet. It was like a toy one, for a kid. She wanted to cry, but didn't have it in her.

Molech noticed the movement and strode up to her, clenching his bloody robot fists. Scott was tracking him with the camera.

“I want to thank you and your tiger-owning father for giving me the most amazing piece of highlight video I'll ever make. I'm probably the first human in ten thousand years to punch a tiger to death. Now, I hope you'll forgive the delay, while you were out, I let my fans vote for what I would do to you. Want to guess what the overwhelming majority voted for? Because it's winning by a ten to one margin over the next choice.”

A couple of the henchmen laughed. Zoey's looked down at her ruined leg, transfixed by the sight of the leg bone's exposed gooey pink center. Her vision was pulsing red, blooming with each heartbeat.

Scott said, “Skyline feed is back, too. We're now live, everywhere. All the feeds consolidating right here, right now. Audience is sitting at one billion, with a ‘B.'”

Zoey tried to think, but the thoughts were shadowy figures barely glimpsed in a thick fog of pain. She could think of nothing else but the original plan. The one that so far hadn't exactly been a raging success.

She swallowed a pint of blood and said, “We have … a kill switch.”

“Piglet, if that existed, you'd have punched it already. Now, I have a strangely specific request from my fans here. I'm going to need you to roll over.”

“Wait!” Zoey jammed the stupid football helmet on her head. It was still warm, from the machine. “This, uh, helmet! It's the magic protection helmet! You can't hurt anybody wearing this!”

Molech held out his metal hands. “Come on. This is just sad.”

He reached down, grabbing her blood-soaked shirt, as if to tear it off.

“No! Stop! STOP!”

Zoey squeezed her eyes shut, and waited.

And waited.

For a moment that never came.

After ten seconds she pulled her swollen eyes open again, and Molech was standing there, completely frozen. Every part of his body, save for his face, which was contorting itself in rage and confusion, fist still clutching her shirt.

Scott, sensing his boss was in distress, rushed over.

Zoey turned toward him and again said, “Stop!” and he, also, stopped.

She backed up on her elbows, pulling her shirt free of Molech's frozen fingers.

“Oh. Oh, wow. Oh my god. It works. The helmet … oh my god our stupid lie was true. It really was. Okay. It's voice operated. Um … everybody freeze.”

The dozen henchmen froze, almost comically. One guy was frozen in mid-run, like a living sports poster a kid would have on his bedroom wall, and immediately toppled over. One guy's hand was frozen on his crotch, like he'd been in the middle of scratching himself.

Their mouths still worked, as crotch guy squinted and said, “Am I the only one who's paralyzed right now? Is there a reboot or something I need to do here…”

Zoey said, “Okay. Um … everyone start spanking yourselves.”

There was no response to this command, as that one apparently hadn't been programmed into the system. Zoey was deeply disappointed in Arthur but realized she needed to keep her eyes on the bigger picture.

Molech said to her, “Just deactivate the implants. Just turn them off completely. I'll take on everyone you've got with my own body, my own brain. Come on, me against whoever you can summon with your daddy's money. Take away the gadgets, I'll show you who the better man is.”

Instead, Zoey said, “Scott, throw the camera.”

He didn't. Another command that his body apparently didn't understand.

“Uh … throw your left arm forward and open your hand.”

That worked. He chucked the camera past Zoey, where it crashed against the caterpillar. Up on the wall feed, the view scrambled and went to black. Blink immediately switched to the second most popular feed—incredibly, it was inside the League of Badass van, which was at this moment rumbling toward the courtyard. These idiots just did not give up.

The van slid to a stop near the gazebo, the group bumbling out of the sliding side door with their medieval weapons in hand. Zoey saw for the first time that they were chasing two figures—Andre, still in his stupid costume, and Echo. They had led them back to the estate, either accidentally or on purpose, and had ditched their escape motorcycle outside the fence. Andre, Zoey noted, still had a single cat stuck to his back.

To Molech, Zoey said, “What would you do, if you were me, right now? Command your robot hands to rip out your own throat? Pull your head off? Maybe do it slow, have you pull your own guts out of your belly? Spread the video of it far and wide, so everybody knows not to mess with me?”