#
Nathan was watching it, too, back in the penthouse condo, surrounded by a new phalanx of the Mayor's security personnel. They had been brought in to replace those killed or injured in the blast. A doctor was patching the cuts on Nathan's face as he watched the 80" LED television with cold detachment.
Peters, bloodied and with an ear that seemed half bitten off, was talking into his phone. He was circling, barking orders at the physician. His own injuries hadn't fazed Peters, but the fact that Nathan looked like he'd come off poorly in a Tijuana bar fight most certainly did. Peters was frantically trying to put some spin on the whole situation.
Jude was lying on the white couch, an open pack of cigarettes and an ashtray full of spent ends beside her. When each cigarette was finished, she lit the next with the still burning end of the last. One after another. She sucked in large lungfuls of the smoke, letting it out slowly.
"God damn, motherfucking Puke, son-of-a-bitch, bastard, cock-sucking Puke whores!" Peters sprayed, dialing something on his phone. "This is what we get!" He poked an angry finger toward the television. "This is what we get when we're nice. When we play fair... We just tried to do right by those skull-fucked, syphilitic ass sores, and this is how they repay us!"
Nathan didn't move, Nathan didn't flinch. The doctor was taping something to Nathan's right cheek.
"That Puke bar," Jude spoke up, woozy. "Those dead cops. Now this. No one's going to be talking about internment anymore. Not tomorrow. Not after the shock wears off and the American people start getting mad." Jude remained horizontal on the couch, puffing at her cigarette between sentences. "Supreme Court decision or not, tomorrow any Pukes left in this country will have taken their last breath of free air."
"Too fucking right," Peter agreed as his call was going through. "Kill every last motherfucking one of them for all I care– Hi, yeah, it's Peters..."
As Peters' voice trailed off into his phone call, Nathan focused in on the television. The crowd in Westlake Square was hefting up the dead bodies of the executed Pukes, displaying the corpses to the cameras, cheering and shaking fists in defiance. Nathan reached over and took one of Jude's cigarettes from the pack, lighting its tip with her lighter.
"The wolves are already circling," Jude said to Nathan. "Peters has stalled the press, but everyone is going to want to hear your take on this attack. Any idea what you're going to say?" Jude asked, her head slightly raised on the edge of the white couch. She took a deep drag of her cigarette and Nathan followed suit, holding the scalding mix of tobacco and cannabis in his lungs for as long as he could.
"It was no terrorist attack," Nathan corrected, exhaling. He coughed, leaning forward and resting the cigarette against the ashtray. "It was an assassination attempt."
Jude sat up in shock. The phone came away from Peters' ear. For a moment, everything was quiet.
"What?" Jude asked, raising her perfectly sculpted eyebrows.
"It was an assassination attempt," Nathan repeated. "I saw the bomber right before the explosion. The bomb... this..." Nathan pointed at the TV. "This is collateral damage. I was the target, he was trying to kill me."
Peters disconnected his call.
Chapter 17
"We're not having this conversation again!" Sweet Beat's fist crashed down on the table. Elder and Kevin jumped as the breakfast plates rattled. Prime glanced over from the stove where he was cooking eggs and grimaced. Only Eydie was silent, sitting at the foot of the table. "You two idiots have fucked things up beyond all recognition! Your speaking privileges have been revoked! As soon as we've eaten, we're loading up the Wagoneer and getting the hell out of here! If we make it out of town alive, it will be a miracle, what with the shit storm you've created!"
"I didn't mean to–" Elder began.
"Fuck!" Beat punctuated, cutting Elder off short.
"Sweet's right," Prime agreed, stepping over to the table and portioning out the eggs. Luckily, Prime had held back some bounty from his excursion to Bannock, keeping the best for himself. Like fresh eggs. The breakfast used up all of them, but the smell made Elder's mouth water. He dug in as Prime was still ladling out of the pan. "Bannock is our best chance now. It's too damn hot here in town. There're no more internment raids, no more arrests. They're shooting Pukes on sight now in retribution for the attack yesterday."
"I didn't mean to–" Elder said through a mouthful of eggs.
"I'm not arguing," Kevin spoke up. "I just think it's too hot to be out on the street right now. Give it a couple days, let things calm down. The Candy Kitchen is safe, we're off everyone's radar here. Prime's got this place locked up like a fortress... cameras, guns, booby traps... I think holding out here until the frenzy dies down wouldn't hurt us. Besides, if we've got to shoot it out, better here than in the streets."
"I didn't mean to..." Elder tried again, after swallowing.
"And remember: they have his face," Kevin continued, pointing at the television playing above the breakfast table. They did have his face, all over the news. The shot taken by one of the dark-suited men on the streetcar. Elder Tull looking haggard and bloodied. It was playing in solid rotation on all channels and all stations. Elder had instantaneously become the most wanted man in America. "We have to do something about Elder before we can even think of making a move."
"I didn't mean to," Elder said, with no small measure of self pity. He'd actually forgotten what he hadn't meant to do, but the sound of the words comforted him.
"That could be any Puke," Prime said, looking up at the television. He'd sat down and picked up his fork, preparing to eat his breakfast. "It is every Puke, if you know what I mean."
"He's right," Eydie spoke up in her little voice, making everyone at the table jump. "Prime's right, Kevin's right, Sweet's right. You're all right. We need to get out of town, but we won't make it a hundred yards looking like we do now." She leaned forward and began to eat the eggs sitting in front of her, only pausing to add salt.
"Eydie?" Elder said in surprise.
"We need to clean ourselves up." Eydie said between bites. "Everyone. After breakfast. Beards, hair, clothes. We need to look like Stems. We need to become Stems. Stems are perfect. We need to look perfect. Everyone. We were all young and attractive once, I can remember." She looked around the table at the shocked faces watching her eat. "I'm sure some remnant is left under all the dirt and grime."
"Eydie?" Elder said again. "You're back?"
"Back? Where did I go?"
"Back in the land of the living?" Beat added.
"Ah," Eydie finished her breakfast and wiped her mouth on her napkin. "Yes."
"So, we clean ourselves up and we get out of town, right?" Prime asked.
"No, no, not yet," Eydie said, looking down at her empty plate.
"No?"
"No. Not until we've settled all our business here in town."
#
Like a light turned on in a darkened room, Eydie was back. The tragedies of the past few days that had so loaded her down seemed to instantly, mysteriously melt away. She was her old self – not just the hungry, scavenging Puke, but the old Eydie as Elder remembered her from their youth. She was suddenly, unquestionably back in charge of the group. A fact that made Elder eternally grateful. His short tenure as group leader had not turned out well, and he was already doing his best to forget that it had ever happened.
The girls dived into the project of the group's Puke-to-Stem makeovers with gusto. Sweet Beat and Eydie vanished together into the bathroom, filling the house with steam and the continual sound of girlish giggles from the shower.
Elder's interest was piqued, and he hovered around the bathroom door, attempting to catch a glimpse of something through a keyhole. His interest was more than rewarded. A silence momentary fell over the hijinks in the bathroom, and then the door flew open and Elder was pulled into the bathroom by two slick, naked bodies.
Elder was stripped and pushed headfirst into a bath of scalding hot water. Beat and Eydie were
right behind, sinking into the steamy, soapy tub beside Elder, sloshing the water over and out onto the floor.
With three bodies in the old, steel, claw-footed tub, there was little room to maneuver. Soap was generously applied to Elder's grubby hide and he was scrubbed from head to toe. The experience more than excited Elder, who prominently displayed his newly rediscovered physical prowess. Beat paid extra special attention it this part of his anatomy, soaping it off almost beyond the point of Elder's tolerance.
Just when Elder thought he could take no more, the girls hauled him out of the bath, propping him up in an old wicker chair, and started in with scissors and a razor on his hair and beard. They were a whirling circle of bare breasts and moving blades. Elder could do nothing but attempt to remain still, a feat made almost impossible by his ungratified erection.
Presently, the girls were satisfied. They held a hand-mirror up before Elder, showing off their handiwork. Elder was shocked, looking at the young man in the mirror. With his beard removed and his hair cut into some semblance of style, he looked... well, handsome. Elder could hardly give it credit, but some part of his memory recalled that he had once been handsome. Beat and Eydie seemed overjoyed with their success, peppering Elder's now bare cheeks with kisses.
Sweet Beat found a towel to wrap around herself and gathered up the razors and sheers. While Eydie ran her fingers through Elder's soft, sweet smelling hair, Beat let herself out of the bathroom.
"I think I'll find Kevin and see how he's coming along," she said with a wink.
Eydie didn't let Elder up out of the chair.
She straddled him, taking him inside her, slowly lowering herself down onto his lap. Elder moaned with pleasure. He wrapped his arms around her small, naked body as she worked herself into a rhythm. Elder didn't last long. Neither did Eydie. They climaxed together, flopping like rags off the old, wicker chair and onto the floor.
"I'm– I'm–" Elder muttered in the steam of the bathroom. But Eydie kissed him, long and slow. For the first time in as long as Elder could remember, he felt a joy that had nothing to do with food.
#
Elder helped himself to a set of clean clothes from Prime's stores in an abandoned bedroom. A pair of khaki slacks and a blue shirt. Slipping his feet into a relatively new pair of sneakers, he felt revitalized.
He caught a glimpse of himself in a window pane as he passed and smiled. Yeah, he could pass for a Stem, he thought. Okay, he didn't have the upper body definition, no muscle mass, but he was as thin as rake. He was hardly recognizable as the Elder Tull from the grainy, camera phone picture broadcast on the news. The transformation was almost perfect.
Eydie came out of the bathroom as Elder passed, wearing a tight, black skirt and attempting to put earrings in her ears. She winced as she pushed the pins though piercings that had long since overgrown.
Her transformation was also perfect.
She'd cut off her dreads, and now sported a short, styled mop. She was wearing makeup, perhaps for the first time in her life, and a men's shirt, rolled up at the sleeves. Without a doubt, she could pass for a Stem, with a waist that Elder could almost circle with his hands. She seemed tiny, smaller than Elder remembered. But beautiful. More beautiful than Elder thought he could stand.
"You look..." she began when she spotted Elder in the hall. "You look human..." Elder rubbed his chin and smiled. She kissed him, balancing on her toes to do so, then turned and headed towards the kitchen.
Where had this Eydie come from? Elder asked himself. All of a sudden, she was human, too. The walking vegetable, what the arrest of Steve had left behind, had vanished, replaced by a walking, talking, laughing and fucking Eydie. The last part Elder especially liked. Where had that come from?
Elder followed Eydie down the hall and into the Candy Kitchen's actual kitchen. Elder was surprised by the sight of a tall, handsome black man sitting across the table from Eydie.
"Kevin?" Elder asked in shock.
Kevin looked up and titled his head to the side. "Elder?" Kevin replied. There was a long moment while each examined the transformation in the other. Neither could really believe his eyes.
"You look..." Elder began.
"...Good." Kevin finished.
"Like a couple of fuckin' Stems," Beat said, entering the room. "At least, I hope."
"You look... normal," Elder said with disappointment.
Of everyone's makeovers, Sweet Beat's had made the smallest transformation. The ravages of the Stem Era had affected her less than the others – at least physically. In fact, her transformation made her look downright dowdy. For a woman who routinely wore bikini tops with combat boots, the sight of her in a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt was almost shocking. If not for her arms covered in tattoos, she could have easily been mistaken for any average, time-card pushing office drone.
"Fuck you," Beat said, flipping Elder the bird.
"I feel like such a tool..." Prime's voice sounded as he moved sheepishly into the room. Everyone except Beat began to laugh. Beat had trimmed Prime's beard back, but not cut it completely off, and styled his hair into something approaching a haircut. His aviator-style eyeglasses were gone, replaced by a more fashionable pair of horned-rimmed spectacles. Beat had dressed him in horizontal stripes, hoping to slim him down optically as much as possible. It hadn't done any good. He still looked like an overfed giant. It was hard not to laugh.
"What?" Beat raised her hands in despair. "I did the best with what I had to work with! Someone else want to make a fucking silk purse out of this sow's ear?"
"No, no," Eydie chuckled. "You did great."
"I'm staying in the car until we get to Bannock," Prime said dejectedly, looking down at his shoes. This called for a second round of laughter.
"Lets get the fuck out of here," Beat added when the childish chuckling had faded.
"No, no," Eydie interrupted. "We're not heading for Bannock. At least, not yet."
"What?" Beat shot back in surprise. "Then what the hell's all this preening been about?"
"We still have unfinished business here in town."
"Yeah, you said." Kevin raised an eyebrow. "What–"
"We're not leaving a man behind," Eydie said. She picked up the remote control and flicked on the television that hung over the breakfast table. The news was mid-stream, carrying an interview with Steve. He was denouncing the terrorist attack in Westlake Square, and calling on the government to act quickly to apprehend those responsible before they had the chance to strike again.
"What? Who?" Kevin was looking back and forth between the TV and Eydie. "Steve? You want to go rescue Steve?"
"That shit-sucking Stem?" Beat added, pointing at the screen.
"No, not rescue." Eydie said calmly, fiddling with the new rings on her fingers.
"That's insane," Beat said coldly, regarding Eydie through half-shut eyelids.
"Not insane," Eydie replied, look up and fixing Beat with a piercing stare. "We owe him that much."
Chapter 18
The interview lasted only five minutes, but that was all it took for Nathan to make his statement. It was no longer his job to try and comfort the American people; he was no longer an apologist for the actions of the State. He was free now to speak from his heart, and condemn the atrocity that had occurred in Westlake Square. He held his tongue only with regard to the fact that the bomb in the square had been meant for him – there'd be no easy way to explain that. The fact that Nathan's war with those he had once called friends had caused so much pain and suffering... it was a fact that Nathan would always have to live with, but not the rest of the world.
There were three men standing outside the suite waiting for Nathan when the interview came to an end. Two Nathan recognized as police, or somehow connected with Nathan's security detail. The third was a stocky man – not fat, as that would be impossible with the WLI, but naturally bulky – dressed in a finely tailored suit. He was speaking with Jude as Nathan exited the suite, but stepped away fro
m her, holding out his hand to Nathan as he closed the door behind him.
"Nathan Pope?" the man asked. "It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Arnold, Charles Arnold. I'm head of the city's security agency. These are my boys that have been looking after you." He motioned to the security detail guarding the elevators and stairwell doors. "I hope they've been treating you well."
"Yes, thank you very much." Nathan took Arnold's hand, shook it, and attempted to slip by. He was in no mood for a conversation with some city functionary. Arnold sidestepped and blocked Nathan's path, Jude stepping up to double the blockade.
"I have a few questions to ask you... about the bombing yesterday in Westlake."
"I– I already talked to the police," Nathan said.
"No, I'm not with the police, Nathan." Arnold lifted a wide hand and placed it on Nathan's shoulder, squeezing. "If we can go upstairs, to talk."
"It's all right, Nathan," Jude reassured. "I asked Arnold to come and talk to you."
Nathan shrugged. Jude smiled. What harm could it do? Nathan thought, and allowed Arnold to lead him to the elevator.
#
"Do you recognize this man?" Arnold held out the grainy image of Elder Tull, the same image that the police had shown to Nathan. Nathan shook his head. He'd told the police the same thing. "No? Never? It's not a good shot, maybe if you took a closer look."
Arnold handed Nathan the picture. Nathan looked it over and handed it back, still shaking his head. Nathan, Jude and Arnold were sitting at the dining table of the penthouse condo, everyone smoking a cigarette. Jude took Nathan's hand, squeezing it gently.
"Then let me tell you what we know," Arnold continued, taking a drag off his cigarette and snuffing it out in the ashtray. "He's called Elder Tull, though we're unclear on his real name. No known address, no known associates. We can place him at the explosion in the U-district two nights ago – the one that killed all those cops. It would fit his MO. And here we have him, striking again, not twenty four hours later. This time killing two of my men in the explosion. Busy little bee for a Puke. Are you sure this face doesn't ring a bell?" Arnold held up the photo.
Zombpunk: STEM Page 11
