Strange Flesh

by Michael Olson

Olya wrenches violently, causing Prison Tats to lose patience. He presses his blade hard against her neck. A line of blood smears her throat as she writhes. I have to move.

  I charge down the length of the fire escape and pull my jacket up over my face at the last second before I hurl myself into the window. The glass crashes inward, and I’m able to roll as I hit the floor.

  Which would be great, except for my Glock jarring loose from my waistband. It flies across the room, caroms off the bottom of a bookshelf, and then slides behind Olya’s love seat.

  There’s no time to mourn its loss. Everyone breaks into furious motion as the split-second shock of my arrival vanishes. Despite seeming the fiercest of the group, Topknot grabs the laptop, tears open the front door, and runs from the room.

  I’ve regained my feet and lunge toward the South Asian guy, slamming my forehead between his eyes. He goes down with a girlish screech.

  Prison Tats is a lot faster. He drops into a passable knife-fighting stance and aims an overhand slash at my face. But my first opponent falls awkwardly against his legs, so his swipe gets my jacket, rather than me. He nimbly steps over his colleague while he reverses the stroke.

  I’m about to be stabbed to death.

  What neither of us anticipated is Olya’s right leg arcing up in a perfect roundhouse. Her foot slams into the guy’s mouth. That staggers him enough that I’m able to grab his knife hand and ram into him. He drops his blade as he hits the floor, and I kneel on his ribs to drop an elbow into his eye. Olya unhooks her chain from the light fixture.

  A piercing, tremulous scream stays my follow-up blow.

  “Stop! I’ll blow your motherfucking brains out!”

  I’d assigned the Geek such a low threat priority, I nearly forgot he was still in the room. Now I’m shocked to see him standing by the couch jerkily pointing my gun at me. Beads of sweat appear on his forehead.

  I throw my hands up and stand. Prison Tats rolls over groaning. The South Asian man takes the opportunity to stumble from the room, cupping his broken nose.

  The manic glint in the Geek’s eye makes me imagine a man who never had the guts to take out his homeroom, but now relishes the feel of a loaded gun in his hand. His chance to take charge.

  I say, “Hey, everything’s going to be fine here, just—”

  He shouts, making an effort to deepen his voice. “Shut up! Who the fuck are you?”

  “Eh! Tiny Dick, who the fuck are you? In my home!” Olya yells back. She’s leaning against the corner of the column, but I can see her right hand slowly reach for something behind her. Prison Tats spits blood and tries to get to his feet.

  “Shoot this fucker,” he hisses to the Geek.

  I say, “Look, man, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but please listen to me. The police are on their way, and you need to get out of here. This is not a game.”

  Awful choice of words. My last phrase is the very mantra of the Alternate Reality genre.

  Prison Tats picks up his knife and advances on Olya. “Now get that shirt off before I have to cut it off. And I ain’t going to be so careful about it this time.”

  The Geek adds, “Do it, bitch!”

  Olya glares at him but then slowly tugs at the button to her collar.

  Wanting to force the issue, Prison Tats bellies up to her and jerks at the front of her blouse with his free hand. Olya leans in so the tip of his knife is just past her left shoulder. Then she brings her other hand around fast. A liter vodka bottle from the bar cart behind her shatters into the side of his head. He takes two drunken steps back before collapsing.

  The Geek twitches the pistol at her, but she pays no heed and marches toward him, brandishing the bottle’s jagged neck.

  “Shoot me, goluboi!”

  The Geek considers it.

  I place my hand out to stop her while I desperately try to think of the right button to push with him. “You’re going to fuck your real life forever if you don’t leave now. Things can’t be nearly as bad as sharing a cell block with guys like that.” I gesture toward Prison Tats lying inert on the floor.

  “And also I cut off your balls,” Olya adds, pressing closer.

  He turns the pistol sideways. Breathing heavy, working himself into a lather.

  I step in front of Olya. “This stupid game is not worth it.”

  Again, probably the wrong thing to say. His face sets as though he’s made a decision. He flicks the safety.

  A moment of pure terror. His knuckles go white on the trigger.

  He’s squeezing.

  Harder than necessary, I realize. Since I had the safety off when I burst in, the Geek has actually disabled the gun.

  I charge at him.

  Though the gun failed to fire, I fail to appreciate that it remains a weapon. The Geek throws it hard into my face, nailing me above my left eye. The explosion of pain makes me stumble to one knee. He runs out the door.

  Olya goes after him but pulls up lame after leaving several bloody footprints on the way to her door. Glass shards from the broken bottle. I wipe my eye and try to catch up, but the Geek skids down the final stairs and out into the night before I’ve made the first landing.

  Back upstairs, I find Olya ignoring what must be severe pain to stomp on Prison Tats’s fingers. He remains unconscious. I embrace her and gently lead her away. She places a hand over her mouth, breathing in deep gasps as the event catches up with her.

  I rub her back and whisper soothing nonsense. Olya submits to this for longer than I’d expect. But suddenly she draws back and skewers me with a calculating stare. Her eyes narrow.

  “Zhames. Why are you here right now? How did you know to come?”

  I don’t have a good answer for her.

  59

  Over coffee the next morning, I cast around for something positive about the events of last night. Since tossing me out after my avowal that I’d happened to drop by in hopes of romance, Olya has ignored all my calls. I have to assume my entrance last night was recorded, so now Billy must know I’m the player behind Jacques_Ynne. Leaving me right back in the tedious position of waiting for him to make a move.

  His first sally comes at six PM. I’m about to log off from NOD when Jacques gets a message from Louis_Markey that says:

  I have to conclude that you wanted to see

  What I had in store for the evening’s Plan B.

  Below that is a NObject link that gives me a short video file titled She Loves Me Not #1.

  Rosa stands naked and shivering, her back pressed up against a filthy green-tiled wall. She’s bound spread-eagle with rusty chains to a steel framework. A bright light washes out her skin to the tone of a cadaver. She squints, a strip of duct tape across her mouth. From above dangle more chains, each of them terminating in a wicked hook, like something you’d find at the end of an amusement park pirate’s arm.

  A hissing voice from off camera says, “Let us hear her.”

  Two men wearing black velvet executioner’s masks and long rubber gloves step to either side of her. One rips the tape off her mouth.

  Rosa begs. “Please. Please. I’ll do anything you want—”

  The man on her left kneads the flesh of her shoulder as if seeking to comfort her.

  But then the other one sinks in the first hook.

  Rosa screams herself hoarse.

  I force myself to watch until the end, when they hoist her into the air by the six huge hooks they’ve stuck in her back. Her flesh pulls into grotesque Vs, and she leaves a trail of blood as she’s dragged up the wall.

  This can’t be real.

  But . . . the close-ups on the hooks’ insertion. The way she screams. They go out of their way to demonstrate that it’s real, and I can’t see how Billy could fake it.

  And if it’s real, then Billy truly has gone bug-fuck. That he’d take out his rage at my disrupting his plans for Olya by punishing Rosa in this way defies comprehension. His brother has been constantly talking about how crazy he is, and I’d always put that do
wn to fraternal rancor. But now . . .

  Did Gina’s death really damage him so much that he’s actually drowned his former self in this Sadean cesspool? That he’s let his noxious experiment infect his own imagination?

  Given Billy’s previous manipulations, I can’t completely trust what I’ve just seen. But clearly something awful is happening.

  60

  Rosa’s video demands that I make inquiries to the DC police’s missing persons department in a futile attempt to figure out who she is. Though I’m racked with equal measures of guilt, helplessness, and doubt, I cling to the hope that Billy will have no choice but to contact me again.

  While trying to think of ways to bait him, I swing by the Orifice to see if Olya’s shown up. There I find Garriott head-down on a worktable, a section of his bangs being slowly singed to carbon by a soldering iron he’s left on. Perhaps Olya hasn’t yet told our partners about last night’s events. Which gives me time to get a better story together.

  I think to wake him, but he needs his rest and will probably see his style by fire as a badge of geek honor.

  On my way out of the building, I get a text from Louis_Markey:

  Center fountain in Washington Square Park. One hour. Bring an iPod with the video on it.

  My fingers nearly spasm with excitement as I put in the call to McClaren.

  Fifty minutes later I’m sitting on the edge of the giant circular cement fountain under a gray sky trying to spot either Billy or components of McClaren’s “executive” team he’s had standing by for the past weeks.

  I’ve just met some of the principals. Three intense, wiry gentlemen in forgettable business casual, but with very expensive sunglasses. McClaren explained that my role was simply to show Billy part of the video and then demand the hundred thousand dollars. They would handle the rest, and one of them even insisted on confiscating my gun as a “potential distraction.” When I raised the issue of witnesses—morning commuters crowded the park—the team leader said, “Sir, you will not ever see us. We are very good at this. We could pick him up right in front of the NYPD, and no one would notice.”

  He was right. Looking around at the mass of humanity traversing the wide plaza, everyone seems suspicious, but no one particularly stands out.

  I take a moment to gut-check my role in this “involuntary commitment.” At first, I thought that if Billy was crazy, his madness was the high-functioning sociopathic kind, not the delusional “danger to self and others” type normally required to treat someone against their will. But the turns his game has taken lately point to the latter.

  Now I’m thinking that if Billy’s such a fan of the Marquis de Sade, then an asylum will be the perfect place for him to gain a better understanding of the man’s work.

  Billy is late. My ass is getting sore from the concrete, so I stand up and stretch. My phone starts vibrating from a text:

  [C12@192.0.2.117 ProSoap Alert]

  Cam 12 - Unrecognized - conf .89

  I’m about to ignore the message when I remember that camera 12 is the one in the alley at the back of GAME that leads into the POD. The only people it ever sees are GAME residents, and I’ve only gotten a handful of alerts on it. I pull up a low-res stream.

  It’s no wonder the face comes up unrecognized. The person standing in front of the doors is wearing large wraparound shades and has a black baseball cap pulled low. But what stand out are the guy’s high cheekbones and extreme pallor.

  It’s Billy. He’s decided not to make our meeting. He brandishes a security card at the camera and runs it through the reader. Then he bends down and picks up two items lying beside him. The first is a small gray duffel bag, and the second is a comically large sledgehammer with a short but very fat cylindrical head. He’s traded his crowbar for a post maul. I’m sure Billy chose the tool for its aesthetic properties: the proverbial blunt instrument.

  He hefts it and then takes a lazy swipe at the camera. The signal goes dead.

  Oh no. Our plan is falling apart. Looks like Billy had a different one.

  I radio McClaren and tell him the news. There’s a brief silence, and then he says, “Okay. Sit tight. We’ll get him.”

  I feel deflated, like the starting quarterback getting unaccountably benched before kickoff. It occurs to me that Garriott is probably still in the Orifice. I’m not sure what Billy’s intentions are—though the presence of the post maul provides some insight—but it’s worth warning Garriott to lock the room and stay there until we get this under control. I try his cell, but it goes right to voicemail. Concerned, I pull up the bank of camera feeds from one of our tracking systems. Front_Cam_B shows a wide shot of the Orifice. To my dawning terror, Garriott’s not there, but Ginger is. She’s sitting right in the middle of the worktable. In his sleep-deprived delirium, Garriott must have forgotten to put her in our safe before he stepped out. I picture Billy’s hammer coming down hard on her head.

  I take off toward the southeast corner of the park, thinking about the odds of getting a cab during rush hour. Then I see a hippie walking toward me with a beat-up ten-speed. I careen up to him and grab the handlebars.

  “Buddy. I need your bike. It’s a matter of life and death. Take this.”

  I flip my money clip at him, and he catches it with his free hand. Seeing a hundred-dollar bill wrapping the outside, any thought of resistance leaves him, and he steps back, allowing me to mount up.

  I hear him say, “Vaya con dios,” as I sprint away.

  I’m amazed at the time I make. It’s just over a mile from Washington Square Park to GAME, and pedaling furiously, I’m halfway there in less than two minutes. Normally, riding the way I am, I’d have been mowed down by a bus before I hit Lafayette. But as fate would have it, traffic is completely gridlocked the whole way.

  I jump off the bike in the alley behind GAME and check myself briefly at the cellar doors Billy left open. The crushed wreckage of the video camera reminds me that I am unarmed, and that it’s often best to treat a man with a mallet delicately.

  I grab the top lip of the entrance and swing myself down without stepping on the noisy metal staircase. I sink behind a large bank of rusting industrial detritus and listen.

  A motor whines along with a high-frequency scraping sound. I see Billy kneeling at the door to the Orifice using a handheld angle grinder on its edge. His choice of tools is commendable, because the noise will cover my approach.

  I slink down the hall. Billy doesn’t look up until I wrench his grinder away from the door.

  I say, “I take it you’re going to want to reschedule.”

  He grins. “Yeah. There’s been a change in plans.”

  Seeing him smile at me in triumph when it’s quite clear that I’m going to kick his ass and then hand him over to the dubious care of his brother tells me he really is living in another dimension.

  “What did you do with that girl? You little—”

  Then I feel something to my right. I don’t know if it’s a slight shift in the air, but I start turning too late. There’s a soft click, and the muscles along my vertebrae seize up in succession like a row of toppling dominos. My entire musculoskeletal system ceases functioning. The sensation is not unlike having your man die in a first-person shooter. You don’t always notice the shot that takes your life bar to zero, you just find suddenly that your guy is no longer responding to your input, and then the camera crashes to the ground.

  I hit my head hard on the doorjamb on the way down. The last thing I see is the man who gave Olya the necklace sneering at me from above. His lips move in some vindictive epithet, but I can’t decipher it. In one hand he’s got a sparking stun baton. In the other, a liquid-soaked rag that he’s bringing toward my face.

  61

  McClaren appears above me with a terrifying expression of concern. “Are you all right?”

  I run through a system check. My head confirms that it hurts like hell. I can see and hear. Basic mental functions seem to be in order. I can feel my extremities, but—and h
ere’s where some triple-distilled horror pours in—I can’t move them.

  My answer: “No.”

  McClaren sees me trying to wriggle into a position where I can see what’s wrong with my arms. He puts calming hands on my shoulders and says, “Let me untie you, killer.”

  Before McClaren sent me to the emergency room, I established that Billy made no further attempt to get into the Orifice. So Ginger remained intact. The break-in was just a ruse to get me down there and out from under McClaren’s security umbrella, so that he could steal my iPod, and with it, Gina’s suicide video. While things are well shy of good, at least the worst case didn’t happen.

  I’m even able to spare a little admiration for Billy. Since disappearing, he’s been hunted by a team of trained professionals, and so far he’s run circles around us with his illusionist’s ability to make us look the wrong way while he pulls off the trick.

  I go home and sleep for a blissful two hours before I’m roughly shaken awake by McClaren. I stutter out a question about why he can’t ring my fucking doorbell, but he interrupts. “Get up. Your boss wants a debrief on this morning’s tscrewnami.”

  I’ve worked with Blake for a month, and this is the first time I’ve been in his office. He begins with, “Do you want to tell me how the fuck this happened?”

  “I’m sorry. Events got out of hand. Your brother engineered everything from the beginning. Our meeting was a ploy.” McClaren had filled in the details on the way over. “He used traffic barriers to create a circular detour that snarled traffic all around the Lower East Side just so our team couldn’t get down to GAME. Even the guy I got the bike from was probably a plant. We should have been prepared for something like this. Setting up carefully rigged scenes is, after all, what Billy does best. We need to determine how he knew about the team we had in place.”