Urban Legends of the Future Page 5

  Lawrence smiled at Donna, “Why does Ms. Manners speak like it can be heard?”

  “You always hear me just fine,” Manner smirked, “otherwise, you wouldn’t think I need so many lessons. Limprick.”

  Lawrence Ulysses Seifert grabbed the clone’s apron, yanked her towards him, and took her jaw with is empty hand. Seifert pried her mouth open with Manner grasping at his arms. She tried to bite down as he grabbed her tongue with one hand. The resolution enhanced as more viewers turned their eyes upon the spectacle, just in time for Seifert’s hand to fumble for the knife in his table setting.

  First he stabbed upward like an extreme tongue piercing. A thumb driven flick of the blade sideways, Seifert popped the lightly serrated knife out of one side of Manner’s tongue. Manner grabbed at the knife hand. Seifert’s other, awash in red clone blood, still gripped her slippery half tongue. Shonda’s position caught the lingual artery really going to town. Background conversation filtered to a dull roar.

  Seifert flipped the blade in his palm, straining against Manner’s grip. Each tense moment crawled him closer to the savaged muscle in his other hand. Metal met flesh. The struggle made a perfect sawing motion to finish the job. Lawrence splatted the red tongue in the center of some excess canapes, tossing crackers and cloned meat askew with more cloned meat.

  Manner’s sound was more primal than a scream.

  Partygoers erupted into a mix of applause and cheers. All eyes focused on Seifert, missing the woman in dire need of medgel. He fauxmodestly took in applause, flashing his palms with a, “Caught me red handed.”

  The crowd went wild. A serving clone took away the ruined canapes. A waiter team replaced everyone’s empty salad bowls with side plates of bacon wrapped scallops and Crème fraîche.

  “Ah, a delightful treat for the tastebuds,” Seifert laughed out loud and the hanger on debauchutant guests laughed with him. Picking up his scallop by the toothpick, he placed it in between his teeth.

  Karen looked Seifert head on as his face expressed utter shock. The scallop fell from his mouth. He looked down to find a reddened broadswoard sticking from his chest.

  Manner spat blood into Seifert’s face, even more gore spilling from her mouth, and pulled out the sword. Everyone wore the same expression as Lawrence. Only two others dropped finger food from their mouths. Manner ran from the building, security cam catching at the front door. Manner knocked over the hired Roplaxive guards with a wide sweep of the sword, flung the door open and fled into the night.

  “That’s where the vids end,” Karen rolled up her smartpaper and set it on the table. Shonda scrolled through the casefile on her own sheaf, opening recent activity.

  Shonda said, “She followed her coming out party with doing wetwork on the cheap outta Clonetown.”

  “That’s where homicide steps in,” said Karen.

  “But she’s killing the cakeholes that were at that party,” Shonda flipped through more stiffs. “Or people with a taste for clone violence.”

  “Last three kills have been in the target’s home,” Karen squinted at the lights as they rose to normal. “Apparently, she’s very successful with infiltration.” She retrieved her coat from the wall pegs, shouldered it on and adjusted her lapels.

  “And the brass thinks she headed west with that Slicer kid to join up with the rebellion?”

  “They don’t think,” Karen bundled her smartpaper in her coat pocket and looked back at Shonda. “They know.”

  Shonda shivered as she gathered her things, “The plant?”

  “With the group, feeding intel. They just took down a special ops unit sent west to intercept the crew.” Karen stopped in her tracks and turned to Shonda, “They stole a fragging Gene Works helicopter.”

  Shonda looked impressed, “Then why aren’t GWI taking over?”

  "They're trying. We have them tied up in a jurisdictional grievance," Karen moved towards the exit. “C'mon, we’re headed to Hollywood.”

  “There go my Thanksgiving plans.” Shonda clutched at her gut, “Though, I think I’m gonna quit white meat for a while.”

  four

  Sucking Out Loud

  [HW2097-2099CE]

  “So you think anything’s even up there right now?” Seven heads followed the line made by Lex’s finger.

  Johnny, Trip, Decker, Thorn, Prez, Terry and Toshi squinted at the corrugated aluminum shack/unit. It perched gargoyle-like above the third floor of Das Komplex against the sunshine. Prez went back to plunking out, ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ on the baby grand turned bar fixture.

  Thorn covered her eyes from the sunset, “Anyone ever see a light on in there?”

  “What say you, Johnny Markoolname?” Decker baby sipped his martini from a bendy straw, head rocking on the piano bar, “You’ve lived here the longest.”

  “Not to mention you’re physically closest to the thing,” Trip wiped sweat out of his eyebrows.

  “Fragged if I know,” Johnny Marko snort-an-horked a sinus clogger into the dirt. “Never seen anyone go in, never seen anyone come out,” Johnny uncrossed an arm to scratch at his stubbled lazyhawk.

  “I bet there’s like an axe-murderer that lives up there, and like, in the hours when no one’s in the courtyard, he like digs graves for his victims,” Thorn got tired of holding her head up with her hands.

  Decker scoffed, “Yeah. Right. Like there’s a time when peeps aren’t awake and corralling all around this place. Who’s JumpUp are you huffing?”

  “Johnny’s,” Thorn positioned herself so she could scowl at Decker through the open piano lid. “Same as you.”

  Johnny scratched his back on the wall he was holding up, “Neither of you go to my shows.”

  Prez, speaking through her fingers, needed to get to the airport and be put on a plane.

  “Well, awkward silence brought to you by DeMolition Lab,” said Lex, “if nothing’s up there, you’d think someone would do something with the place.”

  “I heard Dahng say once it’s the same rent as a studio.” Johnny took a slug from his tallcan, “Who wants to rent that instead of a unit where they’d actually want to live?”

  “I wouldn’t want to live up there,” said Trip.

  “You can barely stand our place,” Decker sipped more.

  Lex perked up, “Oo. You know what’d be cool?” her Valley girl accent dragged, “If all of us pitched in and rented it out as, like, a studio. For like. Whatever.”

  “I’m fairly certain the axe murderer is already renting it,” said Thorn.

  “Dahng will evict anyone for more money,” Terry exhaled smoke through her nose, displeased with her hand.

  “So that’s why someone’s already moving into Spencer’s place.” Toshi dealt Terry fresh cards, “Has anyone seen a light up in there?”

  Decker loosed the straw from his lips, “I haven’t. But when I did work on the grid, I saw that there’s active media and power.”

  Prez tinkled the ivories on the final, ‘sedated’. A round of applause from the audience. “Maybe there’s some creature that’s been locked away for centuries up there,” Prez said, “and the seal that’s been keeping our world safe from its day of reckoning will break if we open the door.” Prez looked around, “Anyone else got a smoke I can bum?”

  “Well, that’s about my quota of crazy for the day,” Johnny Marko pulled himself away from the wall. He pounded his tall can, crunched it in his fist and dropped it in the recycler with a belch. “Bye, people.”

  Johnny hunted faces in the cottage cheese ceiling above his bed, hands behind his head. He hadn’t found new ones in the ceiling of apartment 301 for a decade.

  ‘72 was when he first started slumming around Das Komplex. He came for the parties his old girlfriend, Tressie Unknown, used to spin at. Had it really been twenty-five years? Johnny lived another adolescence trapped in the so called artist haven.

  He was still in the same band, playing to the same people who had jobs that supported his own lifestyle. He was selling Designer
Molecules from friends who crafted them to friends that used them. He was bored and old.

  This is exactly how he wanted to live his life at seventeen when he first came to this place. When Tressie was still with him. Before she went over the rainbow that one fragged up night.

  There’s no point in thinking about her, man. No point wasting time on what can’t be. The logical part of Johnny’s brain told the rest of itself. And speaking of what can’t be. Why can’t I leave this skagpit complex?

  Johnny craved nicotine. He regretted quitting for the nth time. Instead he clutched under his bed, clinking glass bottles about, till he found a slosh of something. Johnny unscrewed the cap and sniffed hard. Wincing at the tang of piss, Johnny spun the cap back on and chucked the bottle out his screenless window. His head hit the pillow before the bottle hit the ground with a satisfying splash/shatter sound.

  Johnny gave up the search for more liquor and shut his eyes.

  Rapid thuds at the door jolted Johnny out of bed. His hand gripped around the classic M9 under his pillow. Johnny’s eyes checked corners for intruders.

  More thuds, “Jooooohnyyyyyyyyyy. Oh Mr. Marrrrrrkooooooooo,” Thorn’s falsetto pierced through the plywood door.

  Johnny debated shooting her anyway, loosed his grip on the pistol, and opened the door as far as the chain allowed.

  “Johnnycakes, whatchyadooooooooin?” Thorn bounced through the crack.

  Johnny looked around his studio. Sodium floodlights cast shadows through the open window. His clock faced towards his bed, shining red against yellow light in a dark room. Thorn scratched her arm, hopping from foot to foot.

  At last, Johnny said, “I guess I was sleeping. What, got the crawls?”

  “Yeeeeeaaaah,” Thorn tried to be adorable. Her sunken eyes looked dead in the stairwell light outside 301. If it was from the JumpUp or makeup who knew.

  “Johnny ‘Dadfraggin’ Marko. My main man in the DeMo lab,” Decker’s voice echoed up the stairwell with the rattle of his footsteps. “Dub-Tee-Eff, Thorn. Jumping in on my fraggin’ sale time?” Decker stank of coffee and chocolate in his work get up over Thorn’s patchouli and rosepetal perfume.

  Johnny sighed with his whole body and shut the door in their faces. Chain undone, Johnny opened it up again on the two of them making faces at each other. “C’mon,” Johnny waved them in, “let’s get this over with.”

  Decker pushed his way past Thorn, “Anything fancy in your stash tonight?”

  “Why do you guys hate sleep so much?” Johnny shook a vial of tablets and an inhaler pod in his hand, “Decker, you looking for anything in particular?”

  Decker shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pockets, “No, not really. Work sucked, could go for something that would help me forget about it.”

  Sounds of the common area coming alive downstairs came through the open door. 22:23 shown in the clock’s numerics. Johnny shook the vial, “Mescaline research moli. Puts you into some kinda RPG, spirit journey, trip.”

  “No way. That’s like something out of a comic,” Decker said, “frag it, I’ll take ‘em.”

  Thorn stepped in front of Decker, “You haven’t forgotten about my Up, right? Could go for some of that tonight.” She B-movie laughed, cheek skin on the fritz.

  Decker and Thorn tapped their cryptocred cards to Johnny’s for the appropriate amount. Thorn gave Johnny a kiss on the cheek and fled with her JumpUp.

  Decker pocketed his DeMos, “So what’re you up to tonight?

  “I dunno man. Same skag as every other fraggin’ night.” Johnny shut his drawer and took a seat on the bed, “What’s it matter? You’re going on a quest.”

  “Just doing the dealer/buyer requisite chat,” Decker shrugged with his hands in his pockets.

  “Think we could save it tonight?” Johnny rubbed his face.

  Decker rattled the vial in his pocket, “Yeah, sure man. Look, if you do need to talk. I’m here for more than altered perception, dude.”

  “I don’t want to talk tonight.”

  “Well, you know where I live,” Decker turned to go. “I never sleep, and tonight, I’m going on an adventure,” he said over his shoulder, flicking the vial of pills in his pants.

  *

  The Cobalt Too was packed for an all ages show. Johnny squeezed into a table in the back with a cola he emptied a flask into. Bodies of tweens to twentysomethings sardined together around the step up stage.

  A girl of no more than fourteen, crowned in liberty spikes, stalked back and forth on the stage, sneering at the crowd. She snarled something into the mic that could have been the band name or song title followed by a shrill “1-2-3-4!” Buzzsaw guitars revved up to mosh speed. The crowd reacted with pushing, shoving, and pogoing.

  Johnny used to be one of those thrashing bodies. Now there were gray strands in his collapsed hawk. All the latest DeMolition Lab songs sounded like these OldxSchoolxHardxCore punks on stage. Tired versions of the same songs they’d been writing when they were those kids age. All the same anti-corporate government skag being spit over and over again. Everyone shrieking the same message that’s been ignored by the people who need to hear it. The worst part about shouting against a corporate government is discovering how little shouting accomplishes. Especially at pay-to-play clubs.

  Johnny downed half his drink. The singer had some boy around her age by the shirt, shouting something in mocknese in his face. When’s the last time I felt anything from this?

  Johnny stared into his melting ice and carbonation bubbles. There wasn’t anything close to a buzz in his brain. Feedback assaulted his ears. Another “1-2-3-4!” and distorted thirty-second notes with a D-Beat. Johnny left his half drink and the establishment. Some punk kid swooped his spot once Johnny was out the club back door.

  “I’m tellin’ ya man, that’s like my fraggin’ dream, man,” Some skinny punk with his arm around another. “Just, like, playing music, making art, fraggin’, partying and burnin’ down the fragging establishment, man.”

  “Frag the establishment,” A girl with too much eye makeup pumped her fist in the air.

  The skinny punk replied, fist in the air in solidarity, “Frag the fraggin’ establishment.”

  “And I can design your band shirts,” The guy in The Skinny Punk’s arms nuzzled his boy.

  Johnny walked hard away from the scene with a, “Fraggin’ kids,” under his breath.

  *

  Das Komplex’s gate rattled behind Johnny. He tossed his empty bottle of tequila at the recycle bins to the right. His feet ached through the drunk haze from his walk home. No one was in the courtyard. Lights glowed in apartment windows, except on the second floor to the right.

  Toshi moved in six months ago, wanting to write the great American novel, with his rat cage and a duffle bag. When Johnny looked inside the studio there was no sign of any of these things. Toshi was playing cards in the courtyard today, and now it’s like he never existed. Not even left behind take-out condiments, like the previous tenant of 301, told a tale of occupancy.

  When Johnny left the dismal, open, apartment, he looked up towards his own. Not sure if it was the tequila, but Johnny could have sworn the fourth floor shack just switched their lights off.

  *

  //Johnny. Johnny Marko. C’mon guttersucker, pay attention.// a dark figure standing in the streets of 삼성타운 Korea with an umbrella that looks an awful lot like a katana sheath. //Johnny.// who spoke your name Johnnycakes? The dark stranger with the wild hair or the lady in the seat? Johnny knows he has to turn around right now and look right down the street——there will be someone he knows with something important——//Johnny, what I have to say is important. Now are you going to join in the conversation or is this a strictly one-sided…// Johnny finished his turn to catch the figure’s lips flapping as a rush of passing shoppers melted into the lighting that surrounded the inkblot intrusion. Johnny’s surroundings pulsed with the crowd. When he looked back to who he was talking to at the outside seating of some establishme
nt. There sat

  Tressie Unknown.

  Her hair, still a bunch of dreds beneath a bowler derby, gave her away. It was tea time in this parlor with its waitstaff frozen in stiff armature poses, dressed in finery.

  I can’t keep them at bay any longer, Johnny. :T

  Why are you interrupting this dream to haunt it? :J

  Think Johnny. Think back. It’s happening again, just like last time. But this time we know why. :T

  You never told me what’s going on...

  ...Then you went braindead. :J

  That’s what you want to believe. :T

  I want to move on. :J

  If you want to move on, you have to move. :T

  Everyone else is moving out. :J

  //No. They’re not.// and rainclouds fill the sky outside as the roof we believed in now does not exist rainwater drips into our tea and the walls glow in the neon of 삼성타운 shopping district //I can’t protect you anymore, Johnny. Not against this many.// Tressie closes her eyes and the light from her augments show through the lids burning bright green painting the rain sluicing off of her hat brim into emeralds lightning forks above their heads reflecting dozens of violet eyes and she sidewalk chalk drawing washes away in the rain