Flotsam Prison Blues

by M. K. Gibson

  Jensen was king and that chair was his throne. The former head of security saw all with perfect clarity and had an arsenal to back him up. Now, the chair was gone, replaced by what appeared to be a respectable doorman. Hell, come to think of it, for a street-level dive bar and brothel, the whole place was looking . . . nice.

  How revolting.

  The garbage and bags of trash that littered the area were cleaned up. The graffiti was covered with street art and murals. Even the old parking structure was under repair. And valet attendants? What the hell?

  Grimm was also noticing the changes to the area. “Looks nice,” he commented.

  “Shut . . . your . . . ass. What happened to this place? What happened to the dirt and soul of the place? Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t we here just a few weeks ago dragging out Vali’s drunk ass?”

  “Yes, we were,” Grimm replied, looking around approvingly. “Seems Rictus has been busy. No more pollutant debris. No more wet, dank ambiance.”

  “He took the dank?! I loved the dank! What happened to the dank?”

  “Umm, sir?” the human parking attendant said somewhat sheepishly. “If I may, sir, you two happened.”

  “Come again?” I asked, itching to put a hole in the little prick’s head.

  “Well, you two took down Abraxas and put Archduchess Bathin in charge. The Mage and The Technomancer.”

  “The who and the what now?” I asked. “Technomancer?”

  “Yes sir,” the attendant said. “That’s what they are calling you. You did the impossible. You beat a demon with tech. You made actual change. Since then, tithes are reasonable, search and seizures are moderate, and unlicensed crimes are at an all-time low. All thanks to you. Thank you.”

  “Uhh, you’re welcome?” I said. Looking around, the area was nicer, sure. But I missed my crappy bar in a worse neighborhood.

  No good deed goes unpunished, eh? Wait. Wait a damn minute. “Dante’s is a goddamn tourist attraction,” I said, shaking my head, realizing what had happened.

  “Indeed, sir. Now, if I may?” the attendant asked. Grimm nodded, handing over the keys as we hopped out of the outrider and made our way to the front door.

  We walked past the line of people and demons waiting to get in. A few unhappy patrons called out for us to be killed, and I was pretty sure I heard the biological impossibility of fornicating with myself.

  For tourists, they sure were assholes. I stared back over my shoulder at the crowd, basically daring someone to do something. This was Dante’s after all, and there was always time for blood here. Despite a quick clean on the way over, I was still covered in drying blood and looked like a man returning from a war zone. I heard “Technomancer” whispered several times.

  Stupid name.

  When it was apparent I wasn’t going to get any takers, Grimm and I headed in. The new doorman opened the way for us, bowing slightly.

  Jensen never would have done that. “Doorman” may have been his title, but if he got off his chair it was to crack skulls, not to waste precious calories helping someone open a fucking door.

  The inside was even worse. It was well lit and—gasp—clean. Sweet Jesus, what is wrong with the world? You have something exactly the way you like it and someone has to come along and cock it all up. Hmm, kind of like my last few ex-girlfriends.

  The clientele seemed to be the same. People, demons, hellions, and mixed breeds all drinking and looking for sin. So at least that part was the same. Thank God for small miracles.

  The layout was a full-frontal assault on the left brain—multi-tiered and asymmetrical, full of little nooks and tables, with a blend of brass, steel, wood, and concrete. I made my way to the main center bar, a horseshoe-shaped dispensary of spirits.

  There was a time when the Spinoli sisters were behind there and you would probably get your drink along with an earful of go-fuck-yourself, quickly followed by the business end of an assault weapon. But after Theresa died, Caitlin’s heart just wasn’t in it anymore. No one had seen her since the last night here celebrating after the fall of Abraxas.

  Grimm walked up to the bar, first exchanging words with the bartender. Grimm had been working here part time, I think just for something to do. Come to think of it, he probably knew this was coming. Asshole.

  But I reckoned he was between his usual projects. Like undermining Hitler or discovering the mystery of the human soul. You know, pet projects.

  Throughout history, Grimm had always been in the dark places. Places of blood and pain. When you look at it all, it would appear he was the vilest man on the planet, the devil incarnate. In truth, he was in those dark places of evil fighting for mankind. He went into the dark places so we didn’t have to.

  Like I said before—what a dick.

  I plopped down on the barstool next to Grimm. The sound dampeners kicked in and the roar of Dante’s was muted to a dull background noise.

  “What ya want?” asked the new bartender. That’s the problem when a damned decent dive like Dante’s goes mainstream—the new guy doesn’t know the regulars or their drinks. I eyed the kid up. Kind of a pretty boy, douchebag. About six-four, blonde and lean, wearing jeans and a white synth-skin t-shirt. He seemed human. I was pretty sure I hated him.

  Maybe I was just mad that almost everyone and everything these days was taller than me. Well, what can you do. Natural evolution and modern medicine coupled with girls liking taller men equals more tall babies. There was a time when my six-foot height was tall. Now I was just average or below. Which was fine. People underestimate shorter guys.

  Like how I underestimated Legion. That almost killed us both. I guess I could have the Collective make me taller, if I really wanted it. Nah . . . be true to myself and all that crap. I turned to the tall pretty boy bartender and tried not to hate him.

  “Jace, this is Salem. He would like a whiskey sour,” Grimm told the kid, who nodded.

  “Sure thing. Coming right up,” he said with a smile and went off to make my drink.

  Nope. I tried. Hate him.

  “How long have you known?” I asked Grimm.

  “Known?”

  “Don’t play dumb. I haven’t been here in a couple of weeks. Not since we had to drag Vali out. How long have you known changes were coming to the place?”

  “Since the beginning. You mostly come in at night. But during the day, more and more new faces have been coming here. So Rictus decided to make improvements. Spruce the place up, so to speak. He wanted to make it feel safe for the locals and new clients coming down to street level. At night he could kill the lights and make the establishment look like the old Dante’s. I assume you don’t approve?”

  “You assume correctly. Thanks for killing my favorite place in the world. You wanna reshoot Star Wars while you’re at it? Hmm? Shit on another personal favorite? Not only make Greedo shoot first, but have all of Chewbacca’s lines dubbed over by Gilbert Gottfried?”

  Grimm looked mildly offended. “I am not a monster. Besides, I wanted you to see the place earlier. Remember when I was bringing you here to help remove Vali? You would have seen it then. Unfortunately, there were complications that prevented that from happening.”

  “Nothing complicated about it. I got blown up by a missile.”

  “Rocket.”

  “Asshole,” I said as Jace returned with my drink. I nodded and sipped. Right proportions, no fruit. All in all it was good. I just mildly disliked him then. I nodded my thanks as I took another sip and reached for a smoke.

  “Speaking of,” I said as I sipped more of my beloved whiskey sour and took a drag off my smoke, “how are you doing? You know, with getting shot and all?”

  Grimm took a moment before speaking. “I am healed. However, what I am is curious and at the same time furious.”

  “Curfurious? That’s the worst,” I joked. Grimm shook his head. Portmanteaus did not amuse him as much as they did me. No accounting for taste.

  “Not what I meant though. Let me be more direct. How h
ave you healed so quickly?” I asked. Grimm knows a lot about me. About my past. In fact, outside of my family, he knows the most. And I know squat about his. I just know I trust him and he trusts me. Friends. Ugh.

  Grimm smiled. “In my own way” was all he said. OK, so that was a dead end.

  “So, what the hell is a ‘Hex-Bullet’?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “A bullet designed to counteract a mage’s spells and abilities. Specifically, to penetrate his shield.”

  I gave Grimm a “no shit” sideways look. “Yeah, I kind of worked that part out already.”

  Grimm smirked. “The Hex-Bullets were something I designed with an apprentice of mine centuries ago. When he passed, I believed that the secret to making them was gone forever. Locked away within my mind alone. They are very rare and exceedingly hard to produce. I thought them all gone.”

  I sucked the last of my drink off the ice cubes from the bottom of the glass. “Sure he’s dead? Messed-up world we live in now, brother. Maybe he had a secret apprentice, you know, Sith style.” I set my empty glass on the bar counter.

  “Yes, he is dead. I killed him myself.”

  Damn, that’s cold. “So, who was the apprentice?”

  “Rasputin.”

  I nearly coughed up a lung. “Seriously? I thought he died in like the early 1900s after, you know, being shot, poisoned, strangled and all that.”

  “1916. Yes. He became my apprentice after that. But allow me to worry about that for the moment,” Grimm said, dismissing the issue with his normal resolve and a sip of his scotch.

  While my head was still trying to wrap itself around the idea of Father Grimm being a mentor to Grigori Rasputin after his death, Jace, the pretty boy bartender, came by again with a fresh drink for me and a scotch for Grimm. Well, I’ll give him credit; his timing was perfect since I was about done with this one. I nodded to him and he nodded back. Jace lingered a moment longer than usual.

  “What?” I asked.

  I figured looking like a blood-soaked badass was enough to keep most people from asking stupid questions, or just downright bothering me.

  “Umm, the drink is from that lady there.” Jace pointed to the other side of the horseshoe- shaped bar. “She would like to talk to you.”

  Not that I don’t appreciate a free drink, but I am usually pretty damn leery of anything “free” in this world. Hell, from this very seat I was once slipped a drink that had a radioactive tracer in it, which then led an assault team of Techuza Cyberai right to me. And that drink came from a friend. So I looked at this free drink from a stranger and thought twice.

  Then I just drank it all down in two swallows.

  I figured, hell with it. After the day I’ve had so far, put what you want in this drink. I’ve survived a lot of crazy shit and at least it wasn’t boring.

  I checked out the girl. She was pretty in a classical sense with no need for makeup. High cheekbones, blonde chin-length hair and blue-green eyes. She wore a black, tight top with a gray wrap and black slacks. She had a knowing look about her that was hard to explain. If I had to guess, she was educated and refined. Which begged me to ask what the fuck was she doing down on street level in a dive like this. Beloved, sure, but the place was also a whorehouse that saw blood on the floor nightly.

  “Stare any harder and you will melt her,” Grimm said as he sipped his scotch.

  “Something about her,” I said.

  “Then go talk to her. I am going to let Rictus know we are here,” Grimm said as he slid off the bar stool and made his way into a small comm room marked “Employees Only. Enter and Die, Asshole.”

  There was no way Grimm needed to let Ricky know we were here. Ricky saw everything from his monitors in his control room, deep in the Earth below this place. I figured he wanted to give me a moment alone to chat up a pretty lady who was obviously out of my league. I looked down at myself for a moment. Armed, blood-soaked, and wearing a replica of a two-hundred-year-old t-shirt and ripped-up jeans. Yeah, I was a winner. I caught a whiff of myself as well.

  Eh. I’ve been worse. I walked over to her.

  As I approached, she seemed more familiar. Something about her I couldn’t quite place. Like I had seen her before. Not here in Dante’s. Just around. And since she didn’t look like she ran in the same lightrunning circles I did, dealing with sleazy people and affluent perverts, I had no idea why I thought I recognized her. Maybe it was the bar lights? Maybe it was my nonexistent sex life that made me think I wanted to know her.

  “So you are Mr. Salem,” the woman said.

  Great, she knew who I was. And apparently, she was not impressed. Meh, can’t say as I blamed her. I sidled up to the bar stool next to her and lit another smoke.

  “Thanks for the drink. And just ‘Salem’ is fine. Drop the ‘Mr.’, please. Makes me feel old,” I said, extending my hand.

  The mystery lady stared at my grimy hand for a moment, then took it in her own very expensively manicured one. Her grip was surprisingly strong, and this close she smelled of books and chocolate. Surprisingly sexy. I suddenly felt very ugly next to her. I waved to Jace for another round of drinks. He brought me another whiskey sour, and a single malt Irish whiskey for her.

  Nice.

  “Abigail Bird.” She introduced herself.

  “Holy shit. No wonder I recognized you. You’re that hack reporter bitch from TV!”

  “I prefer investigative journalist and exposé expert. You’ve got the bitch part right, though.” Abigail sipped her whiskey, then smiled a bright white row of perfect teeth.

  Abigail Bird was, besides otherworldly beautiful, one of the TV personalities who would do anything for a story, and shit usually followed in her wake.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen your type of journalism. Like the piece you did on the Low Tide district in Ars Amadel? The homeless folk who made a living with fishing along the coast.”

  “You saw that piece? I thought it was an excellent look at people surviving against all odds,” Abigail said, still smiling.

  I stared at her for a moment. Judging. Trying to get a read on the person in front of me. I listened to her heartbeat, and it was steady. Even. Nothing she just said bothered her.

  It sure as hell bothered me. I lit another smoke and chose my words carefully. “That piece of shit reporting caused the local lords in that district to come down and wipe those people out. All of them.”

  “And?”

  “Even the children.”

  “...And?” She repeated herself.

  That’s all she had to say in response. And. Humanity was now just a race ever since HE left and Hell took over. It no longer meant anything more. I had lived in this world longer than the old one. And yeah, I’d been a scumbag more times than I could count. I’d stepped over homeless, and fuck me, sometimes on them. But I’d been mending my ways.

  “Ms. Bird, what do you want from me?”

  “So glad you asked, darling. I want an interview with you.”

  I just stared at her a moment, smoked, and took another drink. “Uh huh.”

  “Honestly. You are the man who killed Abraxas! Rumor has it you fell over two thousand feet from his citadel while simultaneously destroying it. And you, a human, have been granted the title of baron with your own community you lead. You have to admit, that makes for a wonderful story. What do you say? Will you give me your story?”

  “No.”

  Abigail’s face darkened. “You will give me that story,” she said as her voice deepened. Changed. And I sensed a hint of anger and power.

  For a moment, I thought about it. Then my rational mind took over. “No. I won’t. And you . . . will go fuck yourself.”

  “Excuse me?!” Abigail stood up and postured as threateningly as a five-foot-four woman could to an armed man soaked in assassin’s blood.

  I stood up and looked down on her while pointing with my right index and middle finger. “No, I won’t. You don’t give a shit about the people you hurt to get your story, or what happe
ns after. So screw you. I don’t want the people of Löngutangar to become your next proxy victim. So take your self-righteous indignation and shove it up your sweet little ass.”

  “I could just write a story anyway. I don’t need your permission,” she threatened.

  Bad move, lady.

  People like her figured they were beyond the reach of people like me. But this wasn’t the old world. Say what you want about anyone. Just be prepared for the consequences if you piss off the wrong person.

  I was the wrong person.

  I got real close to her. Right inside the uncomfortable zone where someone is about to either kiss you or punch you. I pointed right at the spot between her eyes.

  “You say a goddamn word about me or my people and I will blow up your fucking house with you inside. This isn’t paint all over my clothes, chica. This is what’s left of the last guy who came by trying to fuck with me, no more than two hours ago. Cross me and I will show you the goddamn devil. Are we clear?”

  “Yes,” she said with a small smile as she slowly sat back down on her barstool.

  “Good.” I sat back down myself. “Now we can behave like reasonable people.”

  Abigail slowly reached out and took my right hand in hers and studied it like an old-fashioned palm reader. She turned it over and rubbed my palm and held it in her two. It was weird, but not unpleasant. After holding it in silence for several seconds, she looked me in the eyes.

  “Is it true you are a cyborg?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t look like one.”

  “I’m a different kind. All internal modifications.”

  “Interesting. So, you really killed an assassin today?” she pressed. A reporter at heart. She was going to get some story out of me. Hell, it wouldn’t be bad press to let these would-be attackers know they should stop trying. You know, pimp my rep and whatnot.

  “Yeah. A guy named Legion.”

  “What happened?” she asked. That I did not want to go in to. The populace may already know about my cybernetics, but they didn’t need to know about my vaults.

  “Nothing special. He ambushed us and we dealt with it. I’m still standing and he isn’t.”