The Way of All Flesh: Illusions Can Be Real

by Corey Furman

  Ridder put his eyes on the floor. “Well… yeah. Didn’t you?”

  Harry gave a tired sigh. “To be honest, Breylin is my friend, and he’s had real crap in this life. I thought that’s all it was, and that I could control him. If from where you were sitting it looked like he got away with it, then I’m sorry.”

  Ridder’s smile dripped with cynicism. “Forgive me if that doesn’t count a whole lot, Sir. He beat the hell out of me for nothing. But you still didn’t answer my question – why do you care what happens to his simulants?”

  “I’m sticking my neck way out here, Ridder. The truth is, no matter what you might believe, I don’t think what he’s doing is right, and I need your help to get those girls away from him.”

  He idly scratched his forehead while he thought about it. “I’ll help, but you’ll understand if I won’t stick my neck out to help him, or you. I will do it for my own kind, though.”

  The two men were quiet on the way out to Amity Canyon, until Ridder spoke up. “I assume you think this could go bad – right?”

  Harry looked over at him. “It’s certainly one of the possibilities, but I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  “What do you plan to do with them, once we get them out?”

  Harry studied the road a bit. “I haven’t gotten that far in the plan yet,” he said uncertainly. The thought instantly made him wish he’d rolled a few smokes before leaving.

  Ridder sat looking at him for a few seconds. “You really are putting yourself on the line for a couple of gabachas. That surprises me.”

  Harry took his eyes off the road to meet his gaze. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use that expression.”

  Ridder snorted. “Fair enough. I guess that was something of a cheap shot.”

  They crested the rise, and the canyon opened before them. “There’s the house,” Harry said as he pointed at it. “Alright, look. You stay off to the side while I knock on the door. As soon as he opens up, I’ll barge in, and you follow me up. I want to overwhelm him fast, threaten him, get the girls, and then get out of there before he has a chance to think.”

  “Sounds good – let’s see if it works though.”

  “Yeah. Breylin once told me ‘no plan of battle survives first contact.’ Let’s hope he was wrong.”

  They pulled up out front, jumped out and moved into position fast. Harry wrapped on the door hard enough to make it rattle in its frame. He stood with the straps of his muscles laced tight over his frame as he waited for what seemed like years for the door to open as the wind tore at him. Today was obviously a day made for tense waiting, he thought, and it pissed him off.

  Twenty Six

  Just as the door started to crack open, Harry gave it a hard shove, banging the door against the wall, and he forced his way in. He found himself face to face with a startled Maré, and she was reeling from his sudden entry. She yelped, and it pushed his internal tension even higher. Shit, it was supposed to be Joss! Joss had been right; the plan went right out the window. It was too late to reconsider now though, so he shouldered past her into the living room.

  Standing up, Breylin yelled, “what the hell is going on?! Harry?!”

  Everything happened at once. Harry was advancing on Joss with Tomas at his back, but when their eyes met, he could see Breylin’s understanding bloom, and he began to stride in their direction with his teeth bared in terrible rictus. They met somewhere in the middle and filled the air with the noises of predators trying to ward each other off. Harry swung a hard right at his jaw, but Joss backed a little out of reach, then replied with the heel of his foot, driving Harry into Tomas. By then Maré had backed into the corner, stunned.

  Harry recovered quickly, and he and Tomas had grabbed Joss by the arms. “Don’t fight us, Joss! We’ve got things to say and you’re gonna listen!” They thrust him backwards until they had him up against the sofa.

  “Let go of me, dammit! Or I’ll kill you both!”

  “Stop making this hard, you lunatic!” Ridder hollered as he dug his fingers into his arm. “Or I’ll even the score between us!”

  “Let go of me, you piece of shit! No one will even miss you when you’re gone!”

  “Stop fighting us, Breylin!” yelled Harry. “It’s the only way out!”

  Joss managed to jostle Ridder off balance and get his arm free from him. While Ridder was trying to grab him again, Breylin slammed Harry’s ear with the flat of his palm.

  “Ow, you bastard!” His vision filled with angry fireflies, and he let Breylin go. Dazed, he stumbled back. The edges of his sight turned black, and he could only watch with detached interest as they continued to swear at each other and scuffle back and forth, arms flailing all the while. On the other side of them, he could see that Maré had her hands over her ears.

  Breylin threw a big uppercut but it only glanced Ridder’s jaw. He answered with a wild swing of his own, missing him completely.

  The scene was total chaos. Maré and Luna added their own yelling to the din in the room as they pleaded for Ridder and Breylin to stop fighting and tried to pull them away from each other. Dimly, Harry wondered through the ringing in his head where Luna had come from, and why the two girls would interfere. As they broke contact, Joss managed to shove the girls to the side and turn back.

  Ridder was on him though; he connected a brilliant left hook, and Joss’ head snapped back as blood ran from his mouth and nose. His hands went to his face, and Ridder used the distraction to drive his shoulder into Joss’ midsection. They both went over the sofa in a tangle of limbs and guttural snarls. They were still clawing for purchase and the better hand as they staggered to their feet.

  Joss’ nose was bleeding freely, and he was spraying droplets of it from his mouth with each enormous exhale. Ridder’s shirt was striped with it, but he didn’t notice; Joss had one hand in his hair and was pulling it back, lifting his chin to an optimal angle for the heel of his other hand. When he connected the two, Ridder’s eyes rolled up and he reeled away, leaving Joss standing there with murder in his eyes and huffing arterial froth on his lips.

  Maré had stood shocked, watching the fray, and holding on to Luna. Things had moved fast, and once started there had seemed no way to stop this confrontation that had quickly careened into a war for survival. Fear had been enough to keep her and Luna from wading back in, but a small, hopeless part of her mind had been chittering the idea that there was no way two tiny women would be able to do anything other than get in the way. For better or worse, this would have to play on without their interference. It was a bitter conclusion to give in to.

  She continued to watch as Harry lurched around the sofa to confront Joss, but he was moving slow, way too slow to Maré’s eye, as if he were wading through water. She could see from the look on Joss’ face and the way he stood to meet him that he was sizing up how to take Harry down. No! No! she thought. If he wins this then he’s not going to stop until he kills us all! She looked at Ridder as his eyes began to flutter, but he would never be in time to intervene, not by a long shot. The whole damn thing teetered on the edge, and Joss was about to push them all over it. She could see how it would happen, as if they were all following a memory only she could recall. The music was definitely picking up its pace and building to the end.

  Something shot through her, jolting her, flushing and dizzying her, an almost ecstatic perception that she was somehow above, outside, independent. Rational thought began to drain away, but she had the sense that the others were now becoming aware of her. She could feel Luna’s gaze at the back her neck as they broke contact. Ridder regarded at her as if she had become something utterly incomprehensible. Harry didn’t seemed to have noticed anything odd, but in a weird, crazy way she perceived that in a future context Breylin had already noticed her. Maybe all of the Lunas and Marés that ever were stood watching, too. She nearly laughed at the insanity of it, but there was no time, none. There had been some, a little, while her jumbled thoughts were
jostling each other, but it was gone now, slipped away, and all that remained was the sense that doing something now was right. Rationality was quickly receding, and its last trickles were that giving in to that floaty, disconnected impression was linked to protecting Luna. “Fuck it,” she muttered, but even she couldn’t hear it.

  Movement. It seemed as if now she was the one pushing through water, but she wasn’t. The rock hard, crystalline buffer of her fear, what had moments ago welded her fast in place, was now developing an infinitesimal flaw somewhere deep inside. It spidered out, shattered and fell away, and through its gaps she was rushing at Joss without thought or consideration in a paroxysm.

  As she crossed the room she let out a wordless, high-pitched shriek, and she collided into him as his head snapped around, eyes wide with surprise. His awareness registered, and it gave her a warm echo of satisfaction at having seen it beforehand. At the very instant of impact, the steel bands of every muscle and tendon in her knotted around her joints. She dug her straining toes into the rough texture of the floor, and she did everything she could to lever him over. Though Joss easily outweighed her, he’d only been prepared for dealing with Harry, and it was just enough for her momentum to alter his center of gravity. Though it felt like the trip to the floor took forever, she was on top of him as he went down. While the world was still tilting, Maré noticed the stunned, astonished look on Harry’s face.

  Her added weight drove Joss into the coffee table – and through it. She forgot about Harry; her entire world came down to throwing herself at this man, meeting him with what force she could muster, stopping him with her entire being. Of the music in her head all she could hear was the building thunder of the timpanies, or perhaps it was the mad crashing of her heart throwing itself against the bars of her rib cage; she neither knew nor cared.

  She screeched at the top of her lungs and thrashed at him with balled fists as more blood began to curd on his mouth amid the wreckage of the table. Joss’ eyes were still wide with disbelief, but the intensity in them was dwindling away. He tried to fend off her blows, but his arms were moving as if they wouldn’t work properly, weak and wooden.

  Harry watched through what remained of his dazed wits as Luna appeared next to her. “Let him go, Maré! Let him go!” she said, but Maré kept hitting him until Luna took her by the shoulders. She stopped flailing at Joss and looked up at her, quizzically, and then began to squall miserably as she leaned into Luna. As fast as she had rocketed at him, her fugue broke.

  Something clicked into place. “Get her off him, Luna!” Harry barked. “The glass from the table!”

  Luna looked down as she held Maré, and her jaw dropped in horror. A narrow, thick spire of green glass was jutting out of Joss’ abdomen. It was decorated with the brilliant red of Joss’ life, and more of it was beginning to saturate his shirt.

  “Grab her arm!” Harry took the other and they guided her off Joss. Luna took her crying into her arms, but when she hugged her Maré loosed a sharp hiss. Luna let her go, and a red stain began to snake its way down the side of her shirt.

  Luna said “Oh, Shit!” as Maré squeezed her eyes shut and clamped her hands over her own wound. She sat down hard on the couch, Breylin forgotten.

  “Harry…” said Joss in a wet whisper as he reached up. “Help me…”

  He looked at Luna and said, “Go get some towels! Move! Get whatever you have for tape, too!”

  He knelt down beside Joss, yanked one of the cushions off the couch and put it under his head. As he worked he said to Ridder, “Are you going to be alright? I need help, dammit!”

  “Yeah, he rang my bell, but I’m getting there,” he said as he stood up shaking his head.

  “Fine,” Harry said as he bent over and began to examine Joss.

  Joss spoke, and Harry forgot about Ridder. “Harry… how bad is it?”

  “Hang on Joss, I don’t know yet. It sure as hell ain’t good. Let me look at it…” he said as he stripped the shirt away from his wound. The glass was keen – it went right through him. Beyond the couple of large pieces under him, it doesn’t seemed to have shattered much, but there was a pool of blood slowly spreading out beneath him on the plastic floor.

  Luna ran back into the living room carrying a first aid kit. “This was under the sink! It’s got some tape in it and a bunch of other stuff!”

  “Good job,” he said. “Get it open and find the bandages and tape. See if there’s any surgical foam, too – we’re going to need it. I need whatever towels you have in this place!”

  She bolted from the room, then hurried back with several. “Here. That’s all of them!” she said through her tears.

  “Get one of those over her wound, Luna. Take a look at it and see what you can see.”

  “Maré?” said Luna. “You with me?”

  “Pain, Luna,” she replied distantly. “It hurts like hell.”

  “Let me see, hon.” Luna kneeled down beside her, but Ridder joined them.

  “I have some training, let me look at it.”

  Figuring they had it under control for the moment, Harry turned back to Breylin. “I’m going to have to roll you, man, so I can see what this thing looks like in the back. It’s going to hurt like hell, but hang on.”

  “Yeah… go…”

  Breylin screamed as he tilted him away, exposing the wound from behind. Crap, the glass is a lot wider back there! He eased him back down again amid more groaning. His breathing started to become shallow, and sweat was standing out on his forehead.

  He looked up at Harry with a question in his eyes. He laid his hand on Joss’ shoulder as he spoke. “It’s bad, Joss, but I’ll do what I can.”

  “Harry…”

  “Yeah, man?” he said quietly.

  “I’m sorry for everything…”

  “Let it go, Joss – just focus on staying alive for now.”

  Looking up, he spoke to the others. “Okay, we’re going to have to get him up on the couch. Luna, wad one of those and press it to the wound on his back once I have the damn thing out. How’s Maré?”

  “I don’t think she’s bad,” Ridder said. “It’ll need stitches, but that’s probably about it.”

  “Here, I got the stuff,” Luna said as she held out a small wad of bandages. “I found surgical foam, but the stuff seems old.”

  “It can’t be helped. Those bandages are useless for a wound this size, though – throw them away. We’ll just have to use the towels.” He turned back to Breylin. “You ready?”

  “Shit, the pain…”

  “I know. Once I’ve done what I can to stop the blood loss I’ll give you whatever there is in this kit.” He took him by the arms and said, “Okay, hold on, Joss.”

  Breylin nodded and Harry hauled him into a sitting position. Breylin screamed again, though weaker this time, ending with a few more bloody coughs. “Ridder, get down here and hold him up.”

  “I’m not helping that damn psycho!”

  Harry shot him a deadly look and seized his arm. “I don’t give a rat’s ass if you don’t like him – you get your ass down here now!”

  “Fine.” He kneeled and grabbed Joss’ arms, as Harry moved around his back and knelt in warm, red gore. “Hang on, Joss!” And he pulled the glass out in one quick motion. Breylin just groaned. Reaching into the case, he took out the foam applicator, pressed it to the raw, puckered hole in his back and depressed the button. The device sputtered, and he shook it, tried again. It sputtered once more, then filled the hole with a thick, expanding goo. Moving to the front, he eased the nozzle in and pumped the button again. A little came out, then quit. “Shit!” Harry shook it again, more violently this time and tried it again, but nothing happened. The indicator showed it was empty, and it wasn’t enough. Harry tossed it to the side.

  “Call emergency services, Ridder! Tell them what happened and see if they’ll come. Wait!”

  “What?”

  “Don’t tell them anything you don
’t have to – nothing. You read me?”

  “I’ll handle it,” he said as he moved to the comm equipment, and began to work its interface.

  Harry grabbed a towel from Luna and pressed it to Joss’ stomach tightly, then put her hands over it. “Hold it in place and keep a little pressure on it – got it?”

  When she nodded, he said to Maré, “I need to get him up there – you need to move, okay? I’m sorry…”

  She shook her head with fearful, wet eyes as she moved to get out of the way. Maré was coming around – it was probably the gash in her side prodding her – but taking care of her would have to wait. Harry took Joss by the arms and hauled him up and onto the couch. He continued to moan as Harry checked his wounds. The one in front was still seeping, and he figured Joss was probably bleeding internally anyway. The blood coming out of his mouth with every cough probably meant that he’d at least nicked a lung. There was nothing for it, though. Lying back on the cushions, Breylin looked pale and sweaty, and Harry was sure it meant shock was setting in.

  “Any idea how much blood he’s lost?” Ridder said. “They want to know.”

  “Tell them I don’t know. A lot, though. I applied surgical foam, but I don’t know if it will help.”

  Ridder spoke for a few more seconds, then came back. “They’ll come – they should be her within twenty or thirty minutes – but they didn’t sound all that hopeful when I described his wound,” he breathed.

  Breylin looked up and gave a weak smile. “I’ve had it, haven’t I?”

  Looking at his friend, he nodded. “I’m sorry, Joss. I can’t do anything else…” He broke eye contact and went to the first aid kid. Looking through what was there, he located a small stash of sedative. He worked the notches on the hypo-spray and pressed it to Joss’ neck, injecting him with about a quarter of its contents.

  “Give it a couple of seconds, and that should dull the pain, man,” he said quietly.