Sphinx seems refreshed. Standing strong again. I point: the torch disappearing in the distance. Follow? Maybe it’s time to run? To where? Which way? Probably into the arms of death. Crushed likely. Could be buried or diced. Wherever I go, easy death here I come.
We clamor through the maze of haphazard metal until arriving at a door. Colonel Black pulls a crowbar out of his shuck and applies it. Outside: concrete and more concrete. A concrete hallway and windowless concrete walls. Light grey and featureless in the crisp primary light of antiseptic LED strips that run along the floor of concrete and concrete and concrete and concrete. This must be the city. We must be inside, not outside. I walk behind Colonel Black and next to Sphinx, my hand on his side. We move down the hallway and through several crossroads. Eventually we come to another door, which Colonel Black also crowbars open.
We enter a large, high-ceilinged room filled with several rows of small tank-like vehicles too small to fit a person. In the second row, a woman is inserting a metal wire into a tube mounted on top of the vehicle. Skim white, white as a tablecloth. Over-the-ankle white boots, skintight short-shorts and a white tube-top. Large, round breasts. Straight white hair to the mid-point of her back. She’s solid, muscular, and lean. Do I know her from somewhere?
“Sista!” cries Colonel Black.
She looks up. She closes and opens her eyes, rubs them.
“Hail!” says Colonel Black.
He draws his cornucopia and puts the small end to his mouth.
She is speaking to us—“………”—I am shouting: “NO! STOP!”
He blows into the end and there is a sound like the blat of a trumpet as spittle flies out of the bell and splats on her cheek. She steps back as if embarrassed, puts her hand to her face. She convulses, and a gagging sound chokes from her throat. She removes her hand from her face—her mouth is now in her forehead and her face has vanished. She leans forward, her hair falling from her head in hunks—skin turning spotty grey and blue—her eyes now on the back of her head—she is tearing at her shoes when her hands vanish, arms shrinking—turning to flippers—webbed toes erupting from her shoes, frog toes—spotted fur growing madly out of her body all over.
Ice-cold air comes in quick short stabs against the back of my throat. I grip Sphinx’s fur in my fist and whisper, “Let’s go, go”—backing up to the door, turning the knob—Colonel Black whooping, “Tally ho!” We are out; yank myself onto Sphinx’s back as he runs and runs, turning corners, running, running, running. My legs sit over his furry shoulders, his wings are my saddle, and my arms wrap around his downy neck.
“Okay! We’re good, we’re good!”
He finally stops. I dismount and look around. Concrete. I will smash my skull on this concrete. Another crossroad of sidewalks. The air is still as death. The concrete: abrasive and cold. Grey, grey god of cities, what the fuck do I do now? I close my eyes. Listen to the silence. A distant sound. A humming sound. Open my eyes; I’m facing Sphinx’s golden brown axe-head and stern eyes. Disapproving elder statesbird.
“There,” I point.
Travel two blocks. Hello there, bank vault. Turn the metal wheel at the center, pull the heavy door open. Beyond: a clear, thick, plastic tube ribbed at intervals like an intestine. At the far end is movement, two-legged movement. I dismount.
“You ready?”
Sphinx could open my arm like a book with the wicked sharp hook that punctuates his beak. Instead he blinks and lets out a single cry.
“You’re speaking my language.”
I lead the way. Half a city block down the tunnel before it opens into a semicircle-shaped area … filled with people! Humans, more real humans. It’s a miracle. The floor is dirt, the ceiling and walls are some olive-colored fabric, tent-like. The people, they look like—exactly like—the tank woman. Young-faced men and women, crisp and starched, muscular and strong. Silk-haired men, solid and blowing with health, massive cock bulges in their short-shorts. Women: noses small and faintly upturned, those same outfits, same as hers. An orderly line against the tent wall. Absolute white blonde … indistinguishable. Except one in a red jumpsuit just like mine. He’s alone; the rest stand in couples—male-female couples—in lines to the left and right that meet at a podium straight ahead. A few of the couples have a child with them.
In the middle of the space is a large banana-colored peddle car and—what’s in it? A clown? Holy crap, have I found the circus? Yes, a clown steps out of the car. Dressed in a garish purple-and-red fleece jumpsuit with a silver moon surrounded by stars on the front. He’s got a lopsided egghead crosshatched with jagged black marks as if a shark nipped his naked pate. Moist flaps of meat for lips, no ears, and a round red nose. His one small eye looks wistfully inward toward a pinkish eyehole gored like a broken heart where his other eye should be. Above them, black Xs stand in for eyebrows while below, red mascara bleeds down his cheeks.
This One-Eyed Jack goose-steps forward—no—he makes a 180 and slams face-first into the rear door. He stands dumbfounded while the crowd laughs. Pulls back to reveal the closed door has caught his sleeve. He wags a stunted finger at his sleeve as if to reprimand it. Yanks, but it does not come out. Tries to pull the door, but it won’t open. Puts one leg up on the side of the car and pulls. Now the other, leaning back and straining with all his might to extricate his sleeve.
He falls back, his arm torn right out of its socket. Son-of-a-fucked-up-bitch, course it is.
The arm dangling from the door has left behind a spewing hole. He pulls the torn arm out of the sleeve that cradles it and jams it repeatedly back into its socket in order to plug the geyser from his shoulder … and repeatedly fails. It won’t stick. The people are laughing as he puts his foot back on the car door for leverage and tries to tug the sleeve out with his good arm.
Why? Why bother?
His foot goes straight through the door. He’s bleeding all over the car and the dirt. Tries to stand, but can’t pull his leg free of the door—his foot is jammed? Ah, it’s a trick, of course, a trick. Puts his other floppy foot against the car door and makes a tremendous effort. There, his leg has dismembered at the knee. Crowd is roaring and clapping. Now he’s crawling around the car in a bloody circle, pausing to clench a fist at it now and again. He pulls a couple balls from his pocket and attempts to juggle one-handed, but the balls bounce off his head and roll in every direction.
I step off the plastic onto the dirt, and the crowd hushes. They all turn and look at me—a strip of blue candy dots—except for Redsuit, who is fixated on the woman behind the podium. They chatter and point.
Walk toward Redsuit—can feel the clown’s eye on me as I go by. Stop and turn. The left side of his eczema-encrusted face registers surprise while the other half pools like syrup. Do not talk to a bloody clown. Keep moving, keep moving to Redsuit. His hair is white; he looks like all the rest. Taller than me by a bit. Holds a fishbowl helmet under his arm. Where?—no, mine is gone. Somewhere.
“Excuse me …” as he turns, he shrinks in fear and drops the fishbowl.
“See you feel shock state I, I, I join suit to trade.”
“Uhm … I don’t want to trade anything. I’m just looking for some information. I feel like I’ve been running forever.”
“Suggest I also.”
“Uhm. So … what is this place?”
“Feel confusion see nullsuit consider pure kill.” His tone is flat and uninflected.
“Are you threatening me? What’s wrong with you?” Sphinx caws angrily just behind me. The couples in front of him and behind him abandon the line.
“Action escape clean join zirk request help.”
“Uh. Yes, I am requesting help. But I don’t … what am I escaping? At least tell me what this place is.”
“Consider exchange. Projection go with you.”
“Are you talking about him?” I gesture at Sphinx. “He goes where he wants to.” I point at the tent wall, “What is …”—we’ve moved up in line now until we are at the podium. Behin
d the pedestal is a female, human-like except for the four arms moving in a rhythmic blaze. Her skin has a warm pecan hue. A person on the other side hands her a small test tube.
Redsuit has taken out a small bottle, uncaps it, and hands it to her. He turns to me, “Query manager location.”
“Uh …”
“Command move it,” says the woman. Redsuit looks back at me then disappears through a vent in the tent. These humans have turned out to be less helpful than I had hoped.
“Is this some kind of show?” I ask her.
The woman continues selling tickets but looks me up and down. “Where’d you come from?” she asks.
Whoa. Good question. I’m from un-fucking-believable land. Here I am. Crowds of albino humans, a floor of dirt, walls of canvas, and a solar flare captured in the form of a woman with four arms, big almond-shaped eyes, and a river of golden brown hair. And a breathing Sphinx behind me. How did I get here? There was … Colonel Black … a city. Before that …
“What did you come here for?”
“Yeah, I don’t know. I’m looking for someone. I don’t know. A girl with wings.”
“Huh,” she says. “What about him?” pointing with one of her hands at Sphinx while continuing to sell tickets with her others.
“He seems to stick with me.”
One-Eyed Jack appears next to me, standing on one leg, gnawing on the fingers of his detached arm.
“It’s okay,” she says, waving off the clown. “Just look at ’em. Joey’ll find a use for ’em.”
The podium splits in half like French doors as she pushes the tent flap wide and steps to the side. I walk up the center with Sphinx behind me. Four-armed woman holds out a ticket as I pass her.
“In case anyone asks any questions, tell them Sarasephi let you in.”
I take the ticket.
A blur of blonde hair and blonde skin quavers like a heat mirage in the dim, undefined light. Something rumbles distantly as we walk on hard-packed dirt down a curtained corridor through crowds that part like bow waves before our prow. Eating scents of licorice, rot, and roses. Sex and sweet, pungent opium. Cat urine and old feet. Under a curved dome, we walk down corridors of curiosity through a maze of small, open-fronted, olive and tan tents. I’m attracted by performers who stand near the entrances: a trio of mystics in the lotus position, their bodies long and lean, intently squeeze their own legs into one thick leg, into four legs, or eight legs, braiding them into twirled cones, a ring, a sideways eight; several muscular snake-bodied men play brass flutes for veiled, six-armed dancers who gyrate on four legs with skirts and sleeves billowing and slicing circles in the air; a dirty leech corrals confused worms in a wicker basket—rolling and knitting them, the cement-grey annelids tearing themselves apart in fear; rashers of mildewed leaves bubble and spit, slur and slide to form and reform slush piles that give off light-blue fireworks before swallowing themselves anew; a trio of large squirrel-like creatures chitter and squeal as they hump each other heedlessly; a whirling dervish ascends in a mad dash like a rainbow nudibranch swimming into the air, a corkscrew ribbon of mollusk-fat wings; sand-colored sidewinders writhe in battle, S-curve snapping S-curve; rabbits ejaculate meatshrooms; smiling, fat babies float in barrel-shaped aquaria of brackish solution exuding acrid formaldehyde and roses—evil buddhas waving hello.
“Come in.” A figure has just exited a tent. As I walk past this black-bearded, turbaned man, he beckons and holds the drape up. I catch a glimpse of a small white pony sitting on its hind legs with a prominent ivory horn protruding upward from its forehead and a silky black-furred female smiling as if dazed, experiencing too much, her hand on the horse’s mane. She opens her mouth and gives forth a deep throaty moan. I rush on. “Come!” he calls, but I continue faster.
That tension again … I heard before. Coarse, stratal chimes like the ringing of dirt-brown earth. None of the norms (how do I know that term?) seem to notice. They bustle into tents and visit vendors of trinkets and action figures, push aside curtains, hold out eyedroppers above funnels leading into tubes. Tubes that skirt the walkway lead me onward toward the sepulchral gong, moving against the flow through the crowds along with irregular groups, a few going in the same direction until I’m walking alone under pale light from lichens hanging like lanterns from poles, nothing except the booming deep sound almost too low to hear. Like space breathing. Treading unknown territory with soundless footsteps, following the increasing power of the reverberation until I come to a single dark tent. The note hums through every part of my body.
A slit in the tent. I feel light as I pull it to the side and step
… will improvise. The song. Feel itchy. Different. Not sure why. Heavy vibe from Gnesh’s tent. Like a volcanic heartbeat. Got me frazd. Joey’s keyed. Kinks on edge. Nerves with spoor of hysteria. Wutafuk, I’ll drink it. Taste, trust, ride it. Toss aside the old, just this once and see what comes. Nerves. I can do this. Manipulate the crowd. Be the point of their view.
The entryflap yawns at me. Like the audience. Bored with waiting. Bored. The emotional lattice. Boredom. That could work. Scope it, that’ll be a challenge. Trust it, trust yourself. Valid instincts. But what if they’re wrong, I’m wrong? Can’t do that, can’t think like that. Parch me, I can do this. What about Moon Dragon? Never good as Moon Dragon because I can’t do one thing. Failure. Heed-heed. Preen carapace, bang them fat mitts together. Juice it.
Clamp a claw on the canvas and toss it. Less than a wisp against my exoskeleton as I pass through. The crowd’s emotions push at me. Fright. Fascination. Expectancy. Uncertainty. Irritation. Loathing. Exhilaration. The rectangled audience is full of pale dollheads. Stick figures with no meat on their jutting bones. Row after row. I let them gawk. Disturbed. Balance on the fat fan of my tail. Unfurl my antennae, the feathered feelers unrolling. The emoticons amplify, cascade through multi-channel connective filaments, neural knots amped up.
I open the net wide. Capture every member of the crowd. Leave the exec tier above for the moment. Pull in their feelings through my net. Give them time to soak me in. Soon they begin fidgeting in their seats. Repugnance. Irritation. Boredom. The key: one with the other. My net is charging, animating with sensation; pull them in and charge them. Time to charge them, connect them with my radical-empathy dot net. I will return their feelings, beginning with boredom. Amp it, feed it back, let it rise. Then play these players, conduct their sensations, their systems nervous, their nervous systems my instruments, and I’ll make them resonate in emotional symphony.
“… detonate their insides, their guts,” I say.
“Never saw your act.”—“That is fascinating.”—“It sounds lovely, it certainly does,” says the Twin.
They nod significantly at each other then turn their saucer eyes toward me, my snout reflected on the surface like a trapped fly.
“Raddle them into labyrinth shapes they didn’t know were possible, that’s what I do. It’s an orgy of demons. They love a horror show. Can’t believe you haven’t seen it.”
“Well, it’s not like we go out any more.”—“Indeed, it’s been so long, I don’t remember when we last made an effort,” they go on.
I head to the bar and ask Sarasephi for a drink. She flips four bottles in her four hands and pours a shot of each simultaneously into a mug. Pure and crisp. Just a taste before the show.
“Thank you.” She smiles politely, and the tassels on her leather vest flutter. I can’t help but marvel at her features—effortless yet refined.
“You want to juxtapose after the show?”
“You’re not my type. Go bother your pal Maphro.”
Life is tough on a chick with alligator lips. Dessic it, I’d eat her alive anyway. Literally.
Survey the greenroom. Handful of kinkers on break. The Dog & Cat Twin is arguing with itself again, butting long tube necks and big heads. Feh, I’d tear my own head off. One of my heads. Chubby furball panda Orfeo—another big-eyed bum—cries into his water as usual. The dancer, what’s
his name? The leggy featherhead sits transfixed by his own slender muscularity in the long mirror behind the bar.
“You give them what they think they want, and they’ll walk off cliffs for yah,” I toss out the side of my mouth.
“What?” she asks. “The stringers?”
“No, no, the Units. They were powerful. I’ll give’m that. So much, they destroyed the past and the future. They don’t get it. They’d phreaked. Still don’t know it. The very thing they fought to avoid. Gotta be insects. They’re so locust. Could be machines. Maybe they succeeded in their desire to be one with objects. If you pulled the plug on ’em, they’d collapse like electric dolls. Could you conceive of them trying to survive outside?” I gesture toward the wall.
“Uh-huh,” she says, non-committal.
“Come on now.” I turn to her. She’s wiping down two mugs. “You’ve heard? They’re why the outside is how it is. The Culling. They were testing genetic weapons on prisoners. Long and tedious experimentation that spawned many diverse forms—most died.” A sip of the water. So angelically invisible. Indivisible.
“Unable to stop breeding, stripping the bio until it became the burnt embers of time forgotten. The criminals, the unpropertied (right, interchangeable), everyone fighting for scraps. Eventually, all were just dumped out there, and they let loose the genetic revolvers, flinging material everywhere constantly. So they inverted nature, made a prison of the outside, and … and now there’s no place that isn’t. Can you taste the irony? Turn ’em out and turn ’em into animals. Food to be hunted. Higher intellect merely allowed them to distance themselves. Rationalize the selfishness. And the lower intellect, the instincts they supposedly outgrew gave the driving force. The whole house of cages was built on that.”
Do I actually think this? I’m trying too hard to impress her.
“That’s one story,” she says, looking at a mug. “There’s no telling the truth. Life may be how it is for a reason nothing to do with them. As things stand now, we’ve got a tent over our heads and water in our stomachs. Thanks to them.”
A Greater Monster Page 16
