Vessel

by Matthew Bryant

  “What?”

  I take a deep breath, watching my good fortune with hospitality rapidly drain from the room. “I’d like a mirror held above me, anything alcoholic, and some more water.”

  “Fine,” Paige spits back at me, but with less venom than before. Did I just call his bluff? He turns to Benson and gives him a head nod. The fat man waddles quickly from the room. Marissa walks my way and pulls a metal coatrack looking thing from behind me, setting one of the arms to hover a good foot above my head. “Keep an eye on him, will ya? I have other things to look into.”

  “You got it,” she calls to his back as he walks from the room, his previous anger seeming to have given way to some enormous weight on his shoulders. “What’s the restaurant business like?”

  “Like taunting a cat with a fish and sending it home with a pound of catnip.”

  Her face scrunches in confusion, so I expand. “People think they’re coming in for dinner. We feed them drinks and whatever else we can milk away from them. Or maybe they were never there for the food to begin with. Just another excuse to indulge.”

  “Is that why you work so many side jobs?”

  I shrug. “Natural order of things I suppose. If you surround yourself by a certain type of people, eventually they rub off on you.” My own words hit home and I feel myself grimacing. I should probably surround myself with a better caliber of people, but like lying, it’s never easy to dig yourself out of a hole you’ve been shoveling at for years.

  Benson returns with a worn plastic tub that may have been red at some point. He pulls out a hand-mirror and offers it to Marissa before setting the rest on my lap.

  “You can adjust the mirror as you like,” she says as she clamps it down in the extended arm. “You shouldn’t have any trouble pulling it or twisting it to whatever angle you need.”

  I mutter gratitude while taking the refilled can of water from Benson and taking a few gulps. Setting down the cup, I rifle through the plastic tub until I find a knit tomato filled with sewing needles like some stuffed porcupine. I select one, look it over, then bite it between my teeth and curve it more like a suture, then take a moment to admire my handiwork. Not pretty, but it will suffice.

  “You really gonna go through with it?” Benson asks anxiously.

  I ponder the question for a moment while unspooling a bit of fishing line before trying to work the end through the needle’s eye. Nodding my head towards his metal hand, I ask. “You ever do work on yourself?”

  “Well yeah, but…”

  “Same thing. But if you’re squeamish about the fleshy bits, I’m gonna suggest you leave the room.” To my dismay, neither of them make a move. Unscrewing the lid to what I assume is alcohol, I hold it to my nose and take a deep whiff, instantly regretting my decision. The stench is enough to turn my empty stomach, but it will have to do. I take a long swig of it, make a face, then pour it liberally over my wound, feeling it tingle and then burn. Should have asked for ice or something else to numb it a bit. Or maybe just something to bite down on.

  A moment of pure regret sets in as I adjust the mirrors. Then try to talk down my anxiety pretending I’m working on somebody else. Just another stitch job. It takes a moment for me to get accustomed to working my hands in the reflection, then I press the needle into the flap of skin and set to work the way Doc taught me. The way I’ve done dozens of times before.

  Sixteen

  The whole process took less than an hour, but I received no fewer than fifteen visitors in that span, each arriving with a less likely excuse to talk with either Benson or Marissa, and most of them standing around watching in wonder at the guy suturing himself. Each new arrival made the already stagnant room a few degrees warmer. I’m just glad I’m not the kind of guy to get nervous with an audience. Doc taught me well to control my breathing and keep my hand steady. Maybe for just such an occasion.

  My mind kept drifting back to the day he had me move on from stitching cadavers and made a deep cut down the length of his own forearm to give me something to practice with. When I couldn’t keep my hand steady, not use to working with still-flowing blood present, he irritably took the needle from me and sutured himself back together.

  Faithfully, and I use the word with as much irony as I can slather on, Marissa and Benson stood by my side the entire time, save for the handful of occasions I would send Benson out for more water. When I had finished, there were ten other occupants in the room, most of whom had given up on politely pretending to be distracted with other things and were openly staring.

  My only interaction with them was to sweetly suggest a backseat driver shut the hell up or else I’d be stitching his lips and asshole together the second I finished on my own wounds. He didn’t stick around much longer.

  As uncomfortable as a small room crowded with twelve other people while monkeying with backdoor self-surgery may have been, I found myself missing their presence when Paige came back in and sent everybody else out so that we could chat some more.

  “You do clean work,” he mumbles over a cigar, admiring the artwork across my chest. I can’t tell if he’s grabbed himself a new one or still has the same thing in his mouth.

  “Thanks. I’ve had a bit of practice.”

  “Which confirms my suspicions. There’s no way a guy like you in a place like this is a… what did you call yourself?”

  “Roadkill taxidermy enthusiast.”

  He chuckles and takes a long draw off his cigar. “Fallows, right?”

  My body twitches in response to the sound of my own name. I may have told him earlier, but the way he holds it in his tongue like a prize-winning trophy. Maybe I should have lied a little more.

  “Apparently there’s a guy, same name as you, works as a hired gun for the Captain. Pretty deep in his pocket from what I’ve gathered.” My teeth begin to grind. This isn’t the kind of information I want somebody having on me this far from home and in this condition. “Apparently he’s got a few side jobs as well. Bartender sounds pretty far from restaurant manager. And as for trading on the open market, that sounds a fair bit meatier than lowly drug dealer. But you know, names are just coincidence, right?”

  Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and let my head fall back. My body’s taken too much of a toll to start planning escape. Probably best to keep my mouth shut for a change.

  “The Captain and I go way back,” he continues after realizing I have nothing to say. “Not many cigar connoisseurs down on the streets. All the good stuff goes up top. Even the cybernetics.” I glance over and meet his eye. “Turns out if you got the creds, even limb replacement can be overlooked, disguised like it never happened. Nobody turning their heads or giving it a second thought. For the right amount of creds, anybody can fashion skin as easily as a t-shirt and jeans. But there’s more to it than just the money, isn’t there? Gotta have the right names in your rolodex. Right skills to keep you up there. Money can buy you what they got, but it ain’t no anchor.”

  Now it’s my turn to listen to a story. I try to prop myself up, feel the fire ignite fresh across my chest, and lay back down. No matter, all that mention of cybernetics brings me back to the assassins tracking me down a few weeks back. One of them was laced with metal through and through. Though a lot of good it does him at the bottom of the river. In the end, nothing but dead weight. At least it gives a good lead towards the Chauncelor as the culprit of all of this. Or at least one of his lackeys. Maybe it’ll buy me a little extra time. My limit’s about to expire.

  “No sense in overdoing it, hero. Once I figured you were too good to be true, an honest to goodness runner delivered straight to my door, I thought I’d check in. Since I figured you weren’t with the other guys, thought my old buddy might have some intel on you. Hope I didn’t go getting you into trouble. He more than vouched for ya, but he doesn’t have the slightest clue why you’d be out this far from the districts. Says he’s got you workin’ for old Rex. How’s she lookin’ these days? She was a might hair past doable in her pri
me.”

  I grin, though it has nothing to do with Rex. Paige just all but confirmed everything I needed to know. “She’s a firecracker through and through.”

  “Hellcat that one. Thought about dropping her a line as well, though I doubt she still operates by that ancient tech. Nobody does radio these days. Nah, I figured it best to come directly from the source. So whaddya say? Got any more of that bullshit to lay on me? Or you gonna shoot straight?”

  Little in this world is ever gained by giving straight answers. Especially when the inquisitor all but handed you what you wanted on a silver platter with all the fixings. Now all that’s left to do is fill in as many holes as I can and find some clever way of making it out of here alive. If he’s the head of this place, nobody would give much thought to him making short work of me while I lay prone. Especially if they’ve already got a fear, if not inert curiosity, of the districts and their citizens.

  “Rex has me working on a missing person’s case. While it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say that the two cases could be related, I’m working with a third party who’s got a conflict of interest with your current benefactors.” Time to throw some dice. “Gotta say that I’m not too fond of dealing with them either.”

  Snort and an eyeroll. It’s all I need to move in. “They promise the full course and deliver the scraps? Or is there supposed to be some big bonus once all the work is done? Seems simple enough, right? Send in a few of your guys, set up a remote uplink. They do a little time under the hospitality of district municipal and your colony benefits. Nothing lost and a bit of gain. Doesn’t sound too terrible. So how are those scraps tasting?”

  I can’t tell if he’s in shock, angry, ashamed or some nasty little cocktail of all of the above, served lukewarm. “It gets us by. But you still ain’t shootin’ straight. Why come to us?”

  “Cut off supply and get specifics. It’s that son of a bitch, Sanderson. Right?”

  Paige shakes his head, but the tension in his jaw informs me that I’m on the right track. “That ain’t the guy, but I heard the name. What do you mean, ‘Cut off the supply.’? What exactly were you intending?”

  “Don’t go lookin’ at me like that. Mass genocide isn’t my thing. I may not be the best taxidermist in the world, but I know a thing or two about business. If I make the better offer, then Chauncelor’s empire loses its keystone and I prevent pandemonium.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating a bit there, pal.”

  “That your friends are essential to this gig or that your little jobs are a lot dirtier than you suspect?”

  He takes a long draw on his cigar, but looks thoughtful for a moment. “Both I presume.”

  “Then you honestly have no idea what you’re doing, just see an opportunity to better your situation a bit with hopes of a big finish. And what is that, exactly? Did they promise to take you in? Give you guys citizenship? Fix you up all nice and pretty so you can walk the streets and lead normal lives? And I thought you weren’t a fan of bullshit. Those guys need you to be nobodies. You’re offering up a crime lord’s wettest dreams. A supply of goons off the payroll with no identification in the, pardon my term, civilized world and with little to no cost. Not to mention untraceable back to the higher ups that are profiting from the whole thing.

  “And as for the ‘pandemonium’ I mentioned previously, what kind of information do you think you’re stealing for them? This isn’t grandma’s secret family recipe for melt-in-your-mouth meatloaf or professional sports statistics. What you’re snatching up and handing over will cost jobs, corporations, and lives. So yes, I see your potential and my being here is worth every risk to personal health that I’ve taken thus far.”

  Paige takes a moment to consider, running a hand along his head. “So much for the untraceable part. The first time my boys ended up in jail I thought my heart would stop. Then they all came home just like Hanson said they would. I didn’t like the risk, but it was for them,” he gestures a hand towards the hole in the wall. “Getting supplies out here isn’t easy. We’re not farmers, but we try our best to feed ourselves. Nobody wants to deal with us ‘cept the junkers and the occasional crime boss. But none of them is exactly trustworthy. Nothing to base a life around.” Tell me about it. “With everybody getting sick, this was the only way to get medicine out here. But you waltz in here thinkin’ you got a better deal?”

  “Getting sick?”

  “Strapping metal to your body comes with a price, kid.”

  “What? Like tetanus?”

  He gives me a knowing glance and I feel dumb. Sure booster shots are easy to come by in the districts. Hell, they’re mandatory. Dime a dozen. But out here where it matters is a different story. Muscle spasms, limbs locking up, body shutting down. Away from all the luxuries of the districts, the common cold could be fatal. My head starts working. Who do I know? Everybody wants something. These people out here, they don’t have much to offer, but how much could they possibly need to get up and running? If it means saving my hide, I know I can pull something together.

  “Give me some time to crunch through things.”

  He spits and stands. “Should’ve known you were too good to be true.” He tosses a woolen bundle at me. “You figure something out I’ll be in my office.” At the exit he pauses again and turns back. “Ask anybody around, they’ll have no problem taking you there.”

  “Don’t give up on me just yet, big guy. I haven’t played my whole hand yet.”

  Seventeen

  I slide off the bed and let my bare feet gingerly embrace the cold, concrete floor. More wary of tenderness than tearing, I slowly straighten my back and take a few test strides away from the makeshift operating table. The wool shirt Paige left me is blessedly large, barely touching skin beyond my shoulders. At least ten minutes pass and nobody feels the need to bother me. I use the silence to my advantage, pacing the length of the room a bit and getting the blood flowing.

  The pain in my chest is tight and I’d give anything for some high grade meds. Hell, I’d be happy with an aspirin at this point. I bet Doc’s got everything I need just beyond the horizon. Thoughts of him and Myria make me smile. He may think I’m a lost cause at this point, but he’d be proud of my handiwork, even if he’d refuse to say so.

  From the hole, I detect the whizz and buzz of activity. I can only hope that the rest of the place is more inviting than the recovery room. Curious to make reality of the whispered stories of the techies and their hideaway refuge, but even more to refill my tin can with water, I approach the gap. The wall itself is different than the concrete slabs all around me. I can make out the textures and individual grooves of clay bricks, hidden from a distance by a thick coating of drab gray paint that chips away under my fingernail only to reveal more paint. The hole itself seems more like an accident than an intentional doorway, haphazard and asymmetrical. But even the three inches of interior wall has been liberally coated with the same nothing-colored enamel.

  The other side does nothing to tantalize my repressed imagination, baring much of the same décor of despair and hopelessness. The room opens into a giant cavern of more concrete walls and asphalt floors. Globes of light sparsely illuminate a vast darkness. Only the chaotic distribution of backlit curtains hung from the ceiling do anything to break the monotony and add splashes of color.

  Despite the depressing vibe, the makeshift curtains are almost magical, each one casting an intriguing display of dancing shadows toiling at whatever mundane task may be emanating from each private partition. Something about the scene reminds me just a little too much of crash houses, makeshift settlements funded by drug manufacturers where junkies go to overdose and leave their rotting remains.

  Off to my left, I spot a lone figure walking through the main area some thirty feet off. “Hey friend,” I call out to him. “Would you mind telling me where I could get some more water?” My own formality comes as a bit of a surprise to me. Must be the atmosphere. This place gives me the heebie jeebies and makes my butthole pucker li
ke I’ve been feeding it limes.

  The figure stops and turns to meet my gaze. Hard to tell from the shadows, but I’m almost certain it’s one of the guys I broke out of jail. Or more specifically, one of the fellows I shot with a tracker and followed here. Maybe he doesn’t recognize me. After a moment’s pause, he turns away and begins walking in a new direction.

  “Umm… okay. I’ll just follow then, shall I?” I mutter under my breath. I steal a quick glimpse to see if he picked anything up. He doesn’t show any reaction in the slightest. And also looks like he’s wearing headphones. Did he even hear me? I continue following regardless, not like anybody else is poking their heads out of their little shadow puppet tents. “Don’t mind me, guys,” I continue my whispered rant, “Just some outsider with free reign to wander around your dark, creepy facility and stalk whomever I please. Just a nice little stroll for some stale air, that fresh shit’s over-rated.”

  For a second, I smell nachos. I pause and sniff the air, feeling my queasy stomach gurgle to life with hope. But as quickly as the tantalizing aroma arrived, it vanished. Also, my silent guide is standing stoically under a fluorescent lamp beside an old water pump. As I approach, I realize I’d been mistaken about his age, now guessing him to be around mid teens. But I had been right about the headphones. How could I have missed those things before? They more than cover his ears and bulge out into two shiny blue hemispheres. A thin wire dangles down from the left one and trails into the network of even more wires and actuators that make up his left forearm, leading to one of the most noticeable cybernetic hands I’ve ever seen. Most cybernetics are designed to be somewhat concealable, though the noise often gives them away. His hand is quite obviously metal, plastic, scrap, hydraulics, wiring, and more sensors than I would know what to do with.

  If he minds me staring, he doesn’t say anything. I meet his eye again only to have him swiftly turn his back to me, approaching a stack of metal buckets that have seen better days, but at least appear more metal than rust. He pulls the top four from the pile, separates them, then places one below the spout and begins working the pump’s handle with his natural arm.