Apocalypse Alley

by Don Allmon

  —Yeah.

  Sending was a sensation half between sound and reading, toneless in its way. But Comet knew exactly what Shaggy was feeling. He wanted to be alone, the same way Comet so often felt after something bad was over.

  And Comet wanted out of here, he wanted good and gone. He was hurt worse than he’d been hurt in a long time, and it went deeper than bruises or cracked bones. And he could barely look at Shaggy, because what did they do now? Where did they go from here?

  Near the Corvette, Shaggy and Austin fussed over Dante. Dante obviously didn’t like being fussed over. She kept slapping at Austin.

  She said, “Don’t start thinking I like you. Don’t start thinking I appreciate you running around in my fucking head, because I don’t. I’m gonna have bad dreams about elves for a week.”

  “I saved your goddamn life.”

  “Yeah, thanks. Except this was all your fault to begin with, so what I really mean is fuck off.”

  Shaggy said, “Hey, we were just trying to—”

  “And you fuck off too. I don’t know you from anyone!” She’d come out of her day-long coma confused and clumsy and needing help for everything. She really didn’t like that.

  Comet and Jason—he still couldn’t call him JT—sat on the old battered guardrail overlooking a ravine. Their feet were propped so they looked like gargoyles perching (Jason more so than Comet).

  “She ain’t very grateful,” Comet said.

  “Should she be?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Austin did save her, though,” Jason conceded. “To be honest, I didn’t think he could do it.”

  “Why did you let him?”

  “I didn’t have any choice. I had to trust him. And it worked, and now I feel shitty for not trusting him.”

  He watched Jason watch Austin. Comet wasn’t sure what to think about the elf. The elf was beautiful, sure, but in that dodgy kind of way that made smart people keep their distance. And maybe Jason wasn’t all that smart, because there was something between the two of them, Comet could tell. And he thought it was more than just gratitude for saving his protégé’s life.

  “Are you in love with him?”

  “He’s an elf. Everybody loves elves. Buzz is in love with you, you know.”

  And if that wasn’t an evasion, Comet didn’t know what was. But he let it go. Shaggy was tucking Dante into the back of the car. He covered her with a stolen ambulance blanket. “Is he?”

  “You can’t tell?”

  Shaggy caught Comet looking at him and looked away fast, pretending not to have noticed.

  “I’m surprised the two of you aren’t off fucking in the woods, what with the way you get after a fight and that boner you’re trying to hide.”

  “Ain’t trying to hide anything.” He shifted his legs a bit so Jason couldn’t see. “We don’t need to fuck, we need to talk.”

  Jason laughed. It wasn’t a booming sort of laugh like Duke had. But it was loud and clean, four sharp barks that faded into a snicker and a shake of the head. “So it really is love.”

  And Comet knew he was trying to make a joke, but the nagging doubt that grew every passing minute Shaggy didn’t talk to him made it fall flat. Because he barely knew the guy. They’d known each other eight hours, was all. And maybe this space between them just now was because Shaggy had come to his senses and knew there was no future for a thief and his paladin. Maybe Comet had been wrong, and there’d been nothing between them but two people hopped up on adrenaline and fear and needing a release. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  Shaggy still refused to look his way.

  It was time to go.

  “I’ll see you in Greentown?”

  JT shook his head. “I can’t go back. Not until all this is done.”

  It wasn’t what Comet wanted to hear, but he knew it was true, so he nodded once and stood and started for his bike.

  And halfway there he slowed and he stopped and he turned, and there was Shaggy watching him go, and Comet couldn’t walk away from him. He jerked his head, C’mon, for Shaggy to follow.

  But Shaggy shook his head no and turned back to the car.

  JT took Buzz by the shirt and slammed him into the Corvette. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “I can’t go with him. I can’t, JT. I can’t.”

  “You’re fucking going with him, or I’m fucking tearing your head off.” JT’s eyes had that worked-up look.

  “No, you don’t understand.” Buzz was nearly in tears.

  JT said, “Austin, you got handcuffs?”

  “About a dozen.” Austin popped the glove compartment and pulled out a pair of cuffs and tossed them to JT. JT yanked Buzz’s hands behind his back and wasn’t gentle about it at all when he slapped the cuffs on Buzz’s wrists.

  “This ain’t funny, JT! I’ll remember this! Goddamn you!”

  JT hauled him off to the middle of the road, held up Buzz by the scruff of his shirt so his toes were just grazing the ground, and shouted at Comet, “We ain’t got room for this guy. And the way I understand it, he’s your prisoner anyway.”

  He let go, and Buzz’s knees cracked into the pavement. Already banged up and scabbed up, he broke into tears from the pain and couldn’t cuss JT fast enough or blue enough, so he executed a goddamn program to spam the bastard with curses, net-wise. JT just laughed and blocked him.

  The orc went over to the Corvette and climbed in. Austin saluted them all. Then the batwing doors folded gracefully down, and the beautiful car with its beautiful hood damage slid blackly past them out onto the county road no one knew the name of, and was gone. All that was left was Comet and Buzz.

  Buzz didn’t like the look on Comet’s face. Comet looked mean.

  Buzz said, “This wasn’t my idea. JT was being a jackass. C’mon, let me go.”

  Comet bent over him and riffled through the pockets of his motorcycle jacket (Comet’s motorcycle jacket). He pulled out the little chip, the simple password hacker Buzz had used in Comet’s apartment to break free of that first set of cuffs.

  “Thanks,” Buzz said just a bit too early.

  Comet dropped the chip onto the asphalt and slammed his boot down on it. He ground his heel with a crunchy insect sound.

  “What the fuck, man!”

  Comet threw his leg over his bike and brought it upright under him. “Get on.”

  “Like this? I can’t hold on!”

  “Have you ever actually tried to hold on?”

  Travel Advisory: Comet

  Buzz leaned into Comet, cheek against the plastic spinal ridge of his banged-up, shot-up, torn-up jacket. He listened to the screaming wind. It made him think of banshees and dead Irishmen.

  At the first working cell-tower:

  Buzz stood in the Ultraviolet and watched Breugel’s castle grow. He was one of thousands. BangBang and Critter found him, no surprise there. And they stood beside him quietly, which was a surprise.

  Bruegel’s castle was mathematical. It looked like a castle only because Buzz chose to interpret his old lover’s data that way (Breugel had been the one to teach him that). He didn’t have to see it that way. His protocol could have interpreted the complex mathematics Bruegel transmitted as anything, even raw data endlessly streaming in alchemical green down his visual field.

  Somewhere in all that math dreamt his old lover. Buzz didn’t love him anymore. He never had. He’d never been wise enough to know what love was, although he thought he might be now.

  Breugel’s art unfolded in increasing complexity, proving endless theorems, postulating more. His adherents worshipped him. Their avatars knelt and walked away dazed and enlightened somehow, and Buzz knew this worship, this holy power, was because of him and what he had done. Did anyone know what it had cost him?

  Because Breugel had been an abusive fuck as a human, and he didn’t deserve any of this, but like everyone abused, Buzz had blamed it on himself and given it to him anyway. This crazy scene here, these digital apostles and their mi
ndless god, just now it felt less like The Passion of the Christ and more like Life of Brian.

  And he imagined Breugel’s body, withered and kept alive by chemicals and machines, barely more than a brain in a jar.

  And BangBang sent, —There will always be another Valentine. And the next one will go after the ones you love. And your soldier won’t always be there to save you.

  They watched a while longer, time running strangely here, and Buzz hoped his link to the working wireless tower would fail, but it didn’t.

  —I know. I’m ready.

  —You won’t regret this, Buzz.

  A new tower sprang from the castle, and Breugel’s apostles cheered.

  —That could be you in there, BangBang sent, and God help him, but he obviously thought that was a good thing.

  He wrote Comet a goodbye letter, or that was the intention.

  First iteration: —Had a good time, good luck, and goodbye. Trite and dishonest.

  Second: —When I first started thinking there might be something to this . . . but it bogged down in the middle and went on too long.

  Third: —I’m a really bad lay anyway. You wouldn’t like me at all.

  Fourth: he added a recording of himself he’d done once to prove he wasn’t kidding.

  Fifth: He flipped through his porn collection. Somewhere had to be motorcycles. He found one that looked like Comet’s. He cracked the copyright protection. He deleted the biker and pasted in a sim he’d done of himself jacking off for an old boyfriend a few years back. At a working wireless tower, he went online and found a jacket that was close enough to the one he was wearing and dressed himself up in it. He repositioned his hand a bit. He added handcuffs. He made the spray of come ridiculous, buckets. He spent a long time on that because spurting fluids were hard to model and get the physics right. The end result was silly. A gag gift. (And he forgot to add the part where he said goodbye.)

  Once they got back to Greentown, he’d slip away. He’d send it from the Marid. Or maybe he wouldn’t, and he’d just leave without a word.

  Was he that much of a chickenshit?

  Yeah. Yeah, he was.

  He hit Send.

  He panicked.

  Oh God. Oh Christ. What had he been thinking? That bike was Comet’s heart and soul. He loved that goddamn thing. And Buzz had sent him a video of himself jizzing all over it? Christ. He broke out in a sweat. His pulse thundered. It was too late now. He waited. He waited and he waited and he waited for Comet to say something. And the longer Comet went without saying something, the more it seemed proof that he’d pissed Comet off.

  Kilometers slid by.

  Or maybe Buzz was lucky and Comet had been so torqued with him, he had just deleted it unseen? Yeah, that had to be it. Thank God. Thank God.

  But then the bike slowed. Comet pulled off to the side of the road, gravel popping under the tires. He said, “Get off the bike.”

  “Comet, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

  “Shut up. I said get off the bike.”

  Buzz slid off the bike. Handcuffed like he was, he almost fell. Comet didn’t help him. Comet was gonna leave him here. Comet wouldn’t leave him here, would he?

  But Comet kicked the stand down and got off the bike too. He backed off a few meters. He folded his arms on his chest and cocked his head to one side. “Kick your right shoe off.”

  Buzz just stood there and didn’t know what to do.

  “Come on. Right shoe.”

  So Buzz did, and he stood there one bare bloodied sock against the gravel. He started to sweat from the heat. Comet went up to him and pulled him close by the waistband of his jeans (Comet’s jeans). Comet unbuttoned them.

  “What are you doing? Someone will see.” Though they hadn’t seen a soul on this road in hours.

  “Shut up.”

  He yanked the jeans and Buzz’s boxers down, had Buzz pull his right leg free, and left the jeans tangled around the shoe he still wore. Sunlight hit Buzz’s copper bush, and it went bright orange. He wasn’t hard. He was half-scared, more than half-embarrassed. He could feel heat in his chest and shoulders and cheeks and ears like the whole top third of his body had caught on fire.

  “Lean over my bike,” Comet told him. “Like you’re gonna get on. There ya go. That’s it. Now stop.”

  And if Buzz had thought he’d been embarrassed before, he was going to die now. His left foot and its tangle of jeans and boxers held him steady. His stomach lay over the engine compartment, its heat warming him to sweat worse. His right leg was tucked under him, shin on the soft seat. In front of him was the right handlebar. He could smell the heat from the engine. He could smell the dirt and sweat left by Comet’s hand on the handlebar grip. His shoulders were sore from the cuffs holding his arms back. His wrists were sore too.

  And he could feel a breeze on his asshole. It wasn’t a place he was used to feeling breezes. He could feel the damp sweat there drying. He could feel his ass hairs shift under the sun.

  Buzz wasn’t a virgin, but like many net-savvy people, most of his sex had been virtual. He’d simulated all kinds of crazy things, but simulations were porn. They were stylized, edited. The clumsy false starts, the smells, the tastes, the pain, the discomfort afterward, all of that gone or carefully chosen to appeal to certain tastes. Simulations weren’t real sex; some didn’t even pretend to be. Some critics said simstim had made a whole generation of people who didn’t know how to touch another person. Maybe that was true. Buzz liked giving blowjobs, but he could count the guys who’d fucked him on one hand. And Comet scared him.

  There was nothing simulated about what Comet was going to do. Right here on the side of the road—Comet’s bike rack-like beneath him, Comet’s jacket sun-warm on his back, Comet’s jeans gathered down around one ankle—Comet was going to fuck him.

  Comet came round to the front, where Buzz could see him. Buzz’s hair fell in his eyes, so it was hard to see. Comet brushed it out of his way, and the gentle way he tucked his too-long bangs behind his ear, that was when Buzz knew Comet wasn’t mad at him. Comet wasn’t doing this to embarrass Buzz or punish him. Comet was doing this because he thought it was hot.

  “Goddamn, you’re beautiful,” Comet whispered.

  And Buzz thought, No, please don’t do this. Please don’t make this any harder than it already is. It was supposed to be a goodbye, not this. Please.

  But he didn’t say any of that because if he did, Comet might stop.

  Comet had stepped back, and he was looking Buzz up and down. Comet plucked at the hem of his shirt. He shrugged his jacket off, and it fell with a rustle into the roadside weeds, and his black, sleeveless compression T-shirt showed every curve and plane of him shadowed in low angled light. Sunlight caught the bio-engineered dye in his hair, and his colors went rampant. His eyes were cobalt like the sky behind him, like his eyes were cutouts and Buzz could see right through him. He ran a hand over his stomach. And Buzz watched him closely, because the way Comet touched himself, that was the way he liked to be touched, and Buzz would need to know that later. (He tried not to think of later.)

  Comet pulled the shirt up, exposing rippling stacks of muscles and the barely existent flame-trail of hair that ran between them. The shirt was so tight it stayed wrapped over his chest, and he flicked at one pale-brown nipple until it went hard and sharp. The amber of his skin, and the flame of his hair, and the blue of his eyes, he was a sun god in the making.

  A sun god who’d just had the shit beat out of him. There was barely a centimeter of him that wasn’t bruised. That perfect cobblestone stomach was mottled purple and green. He was nicked and cut and bloodied. The rain and wind and dust had turned his hair into a wild matted mass. He looked so awful that Buzz thought, Maybe now’s not a good time. Maybe we shouldn’t do this.

  He didn’t say that either.

  And he could see the thick bar of Comet’s cock hanging to the right in his jeans. Comet wanted Buzz. The thought barely made sense to him. The hottest man in the world, the
bravest man in the world, the most loyal man in the world wanted everyday, boring Buzz.

  This guy punched a dragon and now he’s gonna fuck me.

  Buzz was plenty hard now.

  Comet knelt in front of him so they were eye level to each other. The pupil-less void of Comet’s eyes were Buzz’s own private eternity. Comet took him by a hank of his dirty, windblown hair and pulled his head back. It stung and Buzz’s eyes teared up. Comet leaned in close to Buzz’s ear and said, “This is what you get for coming on my bike.”

  He gave Buzz a wicked smile, stood, unbuttoned his jeans, and worked his thick cock out of them. He let it wag there in front of Buzz, right at mouth level. The head of it was candy red, and the foreskin was drawn full back, and as it wobbled, pre-come beaded at the tip and sagged south. Buzz tried to lick it. Comet kept it just out of reach. Buzz tried to squirm forward, but he was afraid the bike would go over and he’d land face-first in the gravel curb, ass in the air. (And that might not have stopped Comet. He’d have fucked Buzz anyway.)

  Comet thumped him on the temple for trying. It wasn’t a hard thump, just enough to surprise Buzz and teach him to hold still. Comet wiped the head of his cock across Buzz’s nose and left a thick bead of moisture where Buzz couldn’t reach with his tongue. He took Buzz by the hair again and slapped his cock against Buzz’s cheeks a few times. But he wouldn’t put it in Buzz’s mouth where Buzz wanted it. “You already got what you wanted out of me. It’s my turn. Yeah, I owe you for that too, you smart-mouthed little fucker.”

  Comet went back around where Buzz couldn’t see him, and that was maddening, not knowing where the guy was or what he was planning, so he cheated and accessed the bike’s cameras, and through them saw Comet crouched and staring at Buzz’s bare ass, balls and cock hanging free, the tip of Buzz’s cock pressed by his own hard-on uncomfortably against the bike’s engine.

  And Comet leaned in close, and Buzz thought of sims again and how he had to smell down there because how long had it been since he’d had a shower?

  Comet’s tongue met his asshole and Jesus fucking Christ.