by Jack Yeovil
Mantle poured the potentially lethal dosage of intoxicants into his face. Fluid poured over his chest, soaking through his gold-thread T-shirt. It bore the legend in psychedelic silver, "WORLD MUFF DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS, HABANA, CUBA, 1997." It was probably the most expensive dirty joke in the world. Mantle swallowed, and his eyes started to float. His system had been amended to take care of any side-effects. He could mainline napalm or snort ground glass without getting so much as a slight hangover. However, his body chemistry was being permanently changed; if he urinated on the grass, he would kill it.
"Lola, darlin'," he said, "you know, a guy like me and a gal like you…maybe we ought to get together after the interview…"
His swimming trunks writhed as if he had a rattlesnake down there.
Ick!
The camcrew were getting all this down. The Evening News would be leading off on The Gavin Mantle Story all week. Everything else they had to cover was depressing, and so the producer wanted at least one "up" item between the wars, assassinations, plagues, and famines. Lola was beginning to feel nostalgic about Dino the Skateboarding Duck.
Since he received his one hundred million, Gavin Mantle had been living in the fastest of the fast lanes. The camcrew had followed him through the orgiastic party at which he demonstrated his bio-amendments for the first time, and got enough footage for the X-rated news shows. From a man whose entire life was devoted to kitchenware, he had turned into the kind of sybarite whose party guest list is composed in equal parts of exotic hookers, high-price drug dealers, minor soap-opera stars, third world politicians, over-the-hill Sanctioned Ops pretending to be "security consultants," this week's "in" criminals, religious fanatics, circus performers, lawyers, parasites, gossip columnists, obscure offshoots of forgotten Royal families, ex-Presidents and quack doctors of various specialisms.
There had been fifteen of these Blotto Lotto give-aways in the past five years. Three of the winners were still alive, and one of them was in a shock-trauma coma surrounded by the best medtech money could own.
Mantle was getting bored with the interview, Lola could tell. His implant glands were shooting a recipe of amphetamine, testosterone and adrenalin into his blood. He would have to get back to the party before, like the winner before last, his head and scrotum simply swelled until they burst. The small print of the winner's contract stated that if the Blotto Lotto superluck champion were to die within a year of receiving the prize, the unspent portion of the cash, plus all of the assets purchased with the windfall, would revert to the GenTech subsidiary that organized the contest. It was incredible, when you came to study the figures, how difficult it was for the unimaginative to fritter away a hundred million dollars.
The last question flashed in Lola's eye.
"And how did it feel to win the Blotto Lotto?"
"Well," he grinned with his new Rod Rambone teeth, "it was kinda a lot like sex, y'know. I was watchin' the teevee like usual, waitin' for My Pal, the Biosurgeon to come on. I love that show. Nurse Nookie is such a fox, don't you think? I wonder when she and Doctor Bob will get it on. Anyway, I wasn't really watchin' Blotto the Clown as he was openin' the envelope from RaLPPH, but out of the corner of my ear I hear somethin'. At first, I don't believe I'm hearin' it. Like, y'know, I thought it was Clodagh yellin' my name from the kitchen. Only she never uses my full name. You know, 'Gavin Mantle.' She usually calls me 'Big Stud,' for reasons which are pretty damn obvious. Anyway, I couldn't believe it when it sank in. There was like this earthquake, and it was like suddenly…"
Lola sneaked a look at her wristwatch. This was boring crappo, and she'd ream the producer's ass when she got back to the studio.
"It was like a bolt from the sky, y'know, and then, WHAM-BAM-ZAPPO, like…"
As she nodded, Lola imagined a flash of light.
And there was a pile of smoking ashes on the air cushion, which was hissing as it sank into the pool.
II
"Elvis? Elvis Presley?"
The 'gator man couldn't believe it.
'"All Shook Up'? 'Hound Dog"? 'Heartbreak Hotel'? That Elvis Presley?"
The Op nodded. "Uh huh, sir."
'"Baby, I Don't Care'? 'A Big Hunk o' Love'? 'The Girl of My Best Friend'?"
Hiroshi Shiba was an unnervingly strange creature. His extended snout was that of a swamp 'gator and his grey tail hung down from his black pants, but otherwise he was every inch the perfect Japcorp exec. He wore a sober suit, with a white shirt and a discreetly striped tie. His English was perfect as far as syntax and vocabulary went, but his accent was heavily Japanese and even more heavily alligator. Elvis couldn't help liking the mutant.
Elvis stood quietly, no longer even surprised at the latest off-the-wall twist this gig was taking.
Shiba paced his office, tail lashing, a hungry grin showing in his snout. The handkerchief in his top pocket was folded into a perfect triple point, and he wore emblems of his company and national decorations in a medal ribbon.
"'King Creole'? 'Blue Christmas'? 'Teddy Bear'?"
Elvis always had been popular in Japan. He still got the odd royalty cheque, although most of the money seemed to trickle towards Colonel Parker. There were a few odd little clauses in the original contracts Elvis had not bothered to read back in the '50s, and he was still paying heavily for them.
"This is a great honour," said Shiba, clapping. "A great honour."
Raimundo Rex, the hispanic dinosaur, was less impressed. He was picking his teeth with a breadknife, dislodging fragments of food. Elvis didn't want to know what they had been before they became a meal. The big mutant was practically wild.
The guitar 'Ti-Mouche had given him was on Shiba's neatly-ordered desk, along with his other personal possessions. Money, guns and documentation.
The creature's grin glistened. "'Dirty, Dirty Girl'? 'Your Cheatin' Heart'? 'Blue Suede Shoes'?"
Elvis looked down at his swamp-smeared boots. The mud had dried and fallen off, but he was still dusty. He was feeling light-headed from swamp gas.
The Suitcase People weren't turning out to be the monsters he'd expected. In fact, some of them were proving downright hospitable.
"Get Mr Presley some food, Reuben," Shiba told a black-skinned reptile indentee. "And anything else he wants."
The exec hummed "Tutti Frutti," and laughed. His yellow eyes gleamed, blinking.
"Uh, excuse me, sir…?"
"Yes, Mr Presley?"
Shiba bowed honourably, displaying the bony ridges that had risen from his scalp.
"Uh, I don't like to ask, but, uh…well…am I a prisoner?"
Raimundo snarled, tiny nostrils flaring, huge jaws grinding. Obviously, dinosaurs didn't dig rock 'n' roll.
Shiba lashed his tail airily. "Oh, no. Much misunderstanding. Most regrettable. We mistook you for some other parties. Enemies have been attacking. Hunting platoons comb the swamps. They come from the coast. From Cape Canaveral."
"The Josephites?"
"Even so. How do you know?"
Elvis wondered if he could recruit any help here. He had the impression that, without Krokodil, he might well need it.
"My friend. The girl you lost in the swamp…"
Raimundo snapped the blade in his mouth and did his best to pout sullenly. It didn't look right on him. His face was too big for such petty expressions to register.
"…we were heading for the Cape. She had business there. The Josephites are our enemies too."
Shiba was delighted. "Good. Of course. They are crazy people."
"Los locos," Raimundo agreed, spitting a fist-sized green ball at the floor.
Elvis wished he knew exactly what Krokodil had wanted to do at the Cape. She had more or less admitted that her salvage story was a cover, but she hadn't confided fully in him. He knew that he had some part in the game that was being played out, but he wished someone had bothered to explain it properly to him.
"They are dangerous," he agreed. "Some of them ain't human."
He realized immedia
tely that hadn't been a tactful thing to say, but Shiba took no offence. Elvis wondered if the Japanese quite realized what had happened to him.
"You are free to go any time, Mr Presley," said Shiba. "Although we should like you to stay and enjoy our hospitality." He laid a scaly hand on the guitar, twanging a chord. "Of course, if you would care to perform for us, it would be most appreciated…"
Elvis had played some strange shows before, back in the barroom and hootenanny days. But this would be the living end. He picked up the guitar and strummed a few chords. Shiba's mouth stretched into a toothy smile. Elvis sang the first few lines of "Mystery Train"…
"Train I riiiiide…sixteen coaches long…train I riiiide…"
The music took over, and his fingers found the notes. The words reemerged from the void in his memory into which he had cast them forty years earlier, and meant something to him. He sang about loneliness, desolation and the darkness at the end of the track. The long black train sped from nowhere to nowhere, carrying him along with it. The words of the song were vague. He remembered an argument in the old studio, about whether the mystery train was reuniting the singer with his girl, or speeding her away from him. He had always sung the song neutrally, but there was a persistent despair that crept in. He imagined Colonel Parker in a Casey Jones hat pulling on the whistle, Mr Seth leering like a skull as he wandered through the carriages punching tickets for dead men…and he saw Krokodil standing on the observation platform, waving to him as the mystery train vanished into the tunnel that fed into the depths of the earth and never rose again to daylight.
He finished his song, and said, "I should find my friend."
Shiba clapped, alligator tears on his creased green cheeks. Raimundo snorted steam. Elvis put down the guitar, and the music receded inside him. He remembered 'Ti-Mouche's suggestion that the music was his magic, his source of power. He wondered how he could harness it.
"A thousand apologies for the way you have been treated."
Elvis felt sorry for the humble creature. "That's okay, sir. I understand. You can't be too careful, what with some of the things wandering the swamps these days."
"Indeed, indeed…"
Shiba's intercom buzzed.
"Mr Assistant Director," a voice crackled, "the East perimeter fence has been breached."
Elvis heard gunfire outside.
"This is what I had feared."
Shiba nodded to Raimundo, who charged out of the room, his massive thighs pounding the shaking floor. Elvis had to hang onto a filing cabinet to stay upright. Reuben unlocked a cabinet, and started pulling out automatic weapons.
A klaxon sounded like a hellhound's whine.
"I apologize for this inconvenience," Shiba said to Elvis. Then, to the intercom, "Marielle, scramble the defence squads."
The gunfire was louder, and there were shouts. Through the office window, Elvis could see Suitcase People running towards the break in the fence. Some of them had guns, but others were just armed with the knives in their mouths and on their fingers. A human-eyed pterodactyl flapped past, flying low on leathery wings.
The window shattered, and Elvis ducked to avoid flying glass.
Outside, in the compound, an armoured transport was rolling across the field. Suitcase People were trying to resist a force of well-drilled soldiers in combat fatigues and black hats. Elvis recognized the adherents of the Church of Joseph. The pterodactyl dipped a beak in a Josephite's chest, but was cut to pieces by a chaingun.
The Moulinex was at the bottom of the swamp, but Elvis had had his side-arms when Raimundo brought him in. He picked up the fully-loaded Python from the desk, and cocked it. Shiba was slithering on all fours.
A grapefruit-sized object came through the window, bounced off the desk and skittered on the floor. Unconsciously counting the seconds, Elvis reached for it, but Shiba was there first. The exec took the grenade in his jaws and tossed it back.
It exploded in the air outside, blowing in the wall of the prefab hut, and filling the room with fragments of plasterboard and wallpaper.
Gunfire poured into the office, scarring the opposite wall.
Papers flew. Reuben was shoved back against the bulletmarks, bloody holes stitched across his chest.
"Reuben," shouted Shiba, scuttling towards the indentee.
The old man's lungs weren't working. Bloody froth leaked from his mouth. Shiba tried to press his paws to the indentee's wounds, but wasn't coordinated enough to do it properly. It would have been no use anyway. The man-thing was dead.
A figure came through the smoke, gun cradled in his hands, and checked the place out for resistance.
The Josephite saw Shiba and Reuben before Elvis, and took aim on the 'gator man's head.
Elvis got off a shot that tore through the Josephite's shoulder, spinning him around. He fired a burst into the ceiling. His hat came off as he steadied himself and brought the machine gun up again.
Elvis went for the head shot, but knew it wouldn't do any good.
The Josephite was Donny Walton. Another one. Blonde and smiling, he had a hole in the middle of his face where his nose had been. He shook his head as if to get the ringing out of his ears and aimed the gun. He pulled back the catch, setting his weapon on single-fire. He was going to take out Elvis and Shiba like a surgeon performing an operation.
Donny Walton pointed the gun at Elvis, and pulled the trigger…
III
She swam through the thick mud, reverting to her animal self. The Ancient Adversary was stirring inside, ascending within her mind. She was near the Cape, and would have to go on, with or without Colonel Presley. She was sure he would make his own way. Their twinned destiny had yet to be fulfilled. They would come together again.
As the Adversary grew, so did her awareness of Nguyen Seth. The Elder was trying to shield himself from her, to shut her out. But he was thinking of a ring around the Earth. That had something to do with the Cape. He was in Salt Lake City, but his catspaws were out there at the launchpad.
He had to be stopped.
Krokodil surfaced, and wiped the mud from her face.
She was in a quiet lagoon, alone with an old friend.
The fates were drawing her close again. The pink Cadillac was half-grounded on an island, its bodywork streaked with dried mud.
She waded ashore, and looked through the windscreen. An old man, his face wrinkled and scaled, was asleep in the driver's seat, a half-full bottle open against his belly, sloshing moonshine into his lap. It must be the porch-sitter from Donny and Marie's Deathtrap Diner.
Elvis had given her the emergency override entry code for the car door. She opened the keyboard hatch under the doorhandle, and tapped in the number sequence.
The door opened outwards, and a waft of alcoholic reptile body-odour hit her. The drunk grumbled, and made a grab for the jug. It tumbled out of the car and rolled into the swamp.
"Out," she said sharply. "No arguments, Pops."
She took him by the arm, and pulled. He came free and staggered into the sunlight, blinking sideways. As the light hit him, he started screeching. Obviously, the mutation was rendering him abnormally photo-sensitive.
He plunged into the water and immersed himself, leaving only his eyes above the surface. The jug bobbed against his head, and he pulled it down, presumably making a suck for the last of the liquor.
The joyrider hadn't done any harm to the Cadillac when he ran it aground. Krokodil initiated a complete systems check, just to be on the safe side. The car cleared itself.
She braced herself and got a grip on the front bumper. She lifted the three-ton car and eased it off the island and into the water. Dr Threadneedle's augmented muscles did their job.
The joyrider was gone now. Krokodil wondered who he was, and what he was turning into, but she had no time to go into that.
She stripped off her Filthy pyjamas, and washed with non-potable water from the Cadillac's tanks. She found a leech attached under her ribs, and pulled it off. Its teeth hadn
't quite penetrated her skin, but it did leave a red suckermark. She hadn't even felt the thing.
She only had one outfit left, a black, green and brown camouflage danskin catsuit. She pulled on jungle boots and a padded vest over it, and then strapped herself into the holster harness. The guns and knives balanced her perfectly.
Ready for everything, she towelled the stinking booze off the driver's seat—it left greyish stains etched into the tough pink leather, so God alone knew what it did to your stomach—and slipped into the car.
She was reaching for the ignition keyboard when the brainstorm hit her…
She was sucked back through her life. In the Denver NoGo, Bruno Bonney, her Dad, thrashed wildly with his willow switch, spittle falling from his mouth. Somewhere on the road, Andrew Jean embraced her, long tongue poking into her month, pressing the zooper-blast ampoule against the roof of her mouth as it exploded. Andrew Jean dissolved into Dr Threadneedle, his face burned off his metallic skull, then into Hawk-That-Settles, singing his song of death, and then into Colonel Presley, singing "One Night With You." Through her one eye, she saw the world Nguyen Seth perceived, thick with hidden wonders and horrors. In Spanish Fork, she saw demons dance bloodily in the air as the preacher's spectacles fell from her face. She felt her face pounded against the hard tarmac, blood spattering around her. In the Katz Motel, she faced the risen corpse of a murderer's mother, and felt her mind fleeing. In the desert, she chased lizards for food and took on a Miss America contestant in a swimwear single combat. Miss America's face was superimposed over Mrs Katz's rotten skull, and was displaced by others. A preening prettyboy Op hiding in his machine while she killed her way towards him. Dr Ottokar Proctor, the erudite monster, smiling as the cartoon Tasmanian Devil displaced his features. Then, in its terrible grandeur, the Jibbenainosay blossomed, blotting out the sky, calling a challenge to the being cocooned inside her. She did not know which frightened her more, the monster on the outside, or the thing that expanded to fill her mind and body…
Krokodil gripped the wheel, and tried to clear her mind of the unwanted images. Her entire body shook.
