by JJ Zep
“Someone shut this bitch up,” Roland said without looking at her.
“I won’t stand for it,” the doctor said. “These children…”
“In case you haven’t heard sweet Lilith, daddy’s gone bye-bye. I’m calling the shots now. So if I say Justin goes out every day, then he’ll go out every fucking day, capice? Who knows maybe I’ll even be able to coax a performance out of that burnout Ruby, that you’re so fond of.”
“But, but…that’ll kill them,” Doctor Gish said.
“Like I give a fuck. Your little freak show’s just about run its course anyway. Once the trigger’s ready, we won’t need your demon kids anymore.”
“You bastard,” Doctor Gish repeated.
“Oh please, if you’re going to try and get a rise out of me, at least be original.” He turned his attention to Joe then and any levity evaporated from his voice. “My father may have thought you were some kind of whizz bang hot shot, Thursday, but to me you’re just a washed up actor and a fifty dollar murderer for hire. I’m going to enjoy breaking you.”
“Don’t hold your breath, pecker wood.”
“Get them the fuck out of here.” Roland said.
eighteen
By the time we left Beverley Hills it was almost dark. Joe and I had been held in separate rooms and as they dragged him out to the chopper I could see that Roland Pendragon had taken an advance on his threat. Joe’s face looked puffy and battered, and there was blood on his nose and lips.
There was a second chopper on the tarmac too, and I saw Dr Gish directing operations towards that one, with Justin being carried in strapped to a stretcher.
The helicopter lifted off into the late evening sky. Out west the embers of the day were etched in gold and crimson against the deepening blue of the heavens. We approached the cluster of skyscrapers where we’d been earlier and I could see the black helicopter reflected in the mirrored façade of the building.
On the bench opposite me Joe Thursday started coughing, a hacking cough that soon developed into a spasm.
“Sir?” one of the guards said uncertainly, “you okay?” Joe didn’t answer but the cough became more intense, he seemed to be in the grip of a seizure. Then his head slumped forward and he hawked a mouthful of bloody bile onto the floor.
“Jesus!” the guard said, “ Sir, are you okay?” He leaned forward, putting a hand on Joe’s shoulder. As he did, Joe brought his head up, catching the guard under the chin and knocking him out cold. Even before the man had fallen, Joe was on his feet and had taken his carbine from him. The other guard raised his weapon and I threw myself into him, pushing him off balance. He got off a burst that rattled through the cabin before Joe put a bullet in his brain. The helicopter lurched sideways and its tail seemed to clip the building sending it into a spin.
The lifeless body of the guard slammed into me, throwing me against the wall of the cabin. From the front I heard Joe shout, “Shit!” and climb the seat into the cockpit. The helicopter suddenly plummeted and I felt my stomach lurch. Then it seemed to stabilize and Joe shouted, “Hold on back there, amigo! This bird’s going down!” There was a sudden burst of machine gun fire that sounded like a stick being drawn across a corrugated iron sheet. One second I could see the chopper reflected in the mirrored glass of the building and the next the glass seemed to explode and the helicopter accelerated forward.
“Brace!” I heard Joe scream and with my hands cuffed behind me I grabbed a handful of bench as we punched through the plate glass. There was a deafening screech of twisted metal and the engine raced to a crescendo before spluttering and dying.
The chopper slid across the floor in slow-motion and I heard Joe shouting, “Get out! Get out!” as flames began to crackle from the fuselage.
I pulled at the door, still working with my hands behind me, and felt it begin to slide and then jam. “Get the fuck out of there!” I heard Joe scream, but the door simply would not budge.
“What the fuck’s the problem, Collins!”
“Fucking thing’s jammed!”
“Get out through the cockpit and fucking move it, this bird’s going to blow!” To the fore I could now see flames casting shadows on the wall and I moved quickly towards the cockpit, clambered over the dead pilot and out.
The office space was quickly filling with smoke as I followed Joe down a corridor and into a reception area. Suddenly an explosion rocked the building and I was thrown to the floor and sent crashing into a counter. I surfaced with my ears ringing and my throat and eyes burning from the smoke and dust. Somewhere I heard Joe cursing. When the dust cleared I could see all the way back to the gaping hole where we had entered the building.
“Bet they heard that back at the Hotel California. Which means we’d better get out of here,” Joe said getting to his feet and slapping the dust from his clothes.
“Wouldn’t that explosion also have brought every Z for miles running?”
“Yeah, well you’re damned if you do and your damned if you don’t. Story of my life.”
Joe opened my cuffs with what he called his ‘skeleton key’, a ladies hair clip. Then, we worked our way down the darkened fire escape moving as fast as we dared. There probably weren’t any Zs in the office tower, but the last thing we needed was for one of us to take a tumble in the dark.
And once we got out on the street, we had another problem. The M-16 carbines Joe had taken off the guards only had about thirty rounds between them, and that wasn’t going to be enough if the Zs mobbed us. I said as much to Joe.
“We got more to worry about than the Zs,” he said, “Roland knows by now that his chopper isn’t on route to Pendleton, and he’ll have seen or heard the explosion. He’ll put two and two together, which is about the only math he knows by the way, and send out a few squads to investigate. Fortunately for us Zs are dumb ass fuckers and Corporation squadies are not far behind, so all we have to do is let our two problems cancel each other out.”
We’d made our way down to the ground floor now and pushed through from the stairwell and into a walkway with elevator doors to either side. Even from here I could see we had company. The reception area was glass walled on all four sides and pressed up against every inch of glass were the hungry faces of hundreds of Zs.
“Looks like Halloween came early this year,” Joe said. He walked towards the glass and ran his hand along its surface while the Zs snapped and clawed on the other side. “Ugly motherfuckers,” he said and then took a few steps back, dropped his pants and mooned them, wiggling his ass like the world’s least accomplished exotic dancer. “Yeah, baby, you like that,” Joe said and slapped his butt.
Frightening as the scene was outside, I just couldn’t help myself and I collapsed onto a couch laughing.
“So what do we do now,” I asked Joe once I’d regained some composure.
“Now we wait,” he said slumping into a chair and placing his hands behind his head, “Now we wait.”
nineteen
“You ever wonder if this is it?” Joe asked. “If this is the new world order. If we’ll be running from Zs for the rest of our lives?”
“I’ve never really thought about it. Guess I’ve been focused so much on getting through the next day, the next hour, the next minute sometimes. I’ve been focusing so hard on getting back to Ruby, that I’ve never allowed myself to think about much beyond finding her.”
Joe was quiet for some time and then he said, “You ever consider that you might not like what you find?”
I had thought of that. Many times. “You have any kids, Joe?”
“None I’m aware of compadre, maybe one or two I’m not.”
“Then you probably won’t understand this, but no, I’ve never considered the possibility that I might love my daughter any less just because she’s different.”
“I’m not talking about love here, Chris, of course you’re always going to love Ruby. What I’m talking about is whether or not you can settle down to a life with her, raise her as a normal kid.”
“I guess I...”
“You saw what Justin did out there today.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Ruby is a hundred times more powerful than Justin, a thousand times. Ruby could probably clear L.A. County of Zs all on her own if she wanted to. Ruby is like a nuclear bomb to Justin’s hand grenade, Chris.”
“Jesus, Joe how did this happen? She’s just a kid, my kid.”
“You trust me, Chris?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then I’m going to ask you to hear me on this. We’re going to do everything we can to get your little girl back. And when we do we’re going to do the best we can for her. But you’re going to have to start preparing yourself to let her go.”
At the window the Zs were becoming restless. Some of them were pounding on the glass with the palms of their hands, others were running their tongues across the surface, others squabbling among themselves.
I could now hear the heavy thrum of Humvees approaching. “Showtime,” Joe said and walked towards the rotating door in the middle of the glass wall. He pushed at the door and it moved slightly and he gave a satisfied grunt.
“You mean that thing was open all the time?”
“These dumb asses will never figure it out.”
The noise of the Humvees was louder now and it had attracted the attention of the Zs. Some of them had already started to move in the direction of the sound. Suddenly a heavy machine gun opened up and those still at the window charged off into the darkness. We walked quickly towards the rotating door, slipped through and walked away from the building without even having to break into a run.
“We need to find a place to hole up until daybreak,” Joe said. “We stand a much better chance if we can see the fuckers coming. Shit, what am I saying? You probably know better than me.”
“No, your town, you lead.”
“Okay then. You a golfer?”
“What?”
“Do you play golf?”
“What’s that got to do with…”
“Neither do the Zs. Let’s head for the course.”
We spent the night sleeping in a bunker on a golf course, with the profiles of the skyscrapers we’d just left behind looming over us. A few times during the night I heard gunshots and once a helicopter passed overhead, but other than that it was the best sleep I’d had in a long while.
twenty
“Fore!”
I woke with a start, crawled towards the edge of the bunker and peered over. The man approaching me was wearing a pair of plaid pants, a striped polo shirt and an argyle-patterned sleeveless sweater. He was swinging a club and whistling to himself, and it took me a while to recognize Joe Thursday.
“Mornin,” Joe said cheerily, “Thought I’d get in a few holes before breakfast. Oh, and I stopped off at the club shop.”
“I can see that,” I said. “You look like an explosion in a paint factory.”
“Really?” he said with a mock pained expression on his face, “Well, perhaps the sweater is a bit much.” He pulled it over his head and tossed it aside, then was suddenly more serious. “We need to talk about what needs doing.”
“Are we safe here? Shouldn’t we get moving?”
“Safe as anywhere, and we need a plan before we go rushing off.”
“And I’m assuming you have a plan.”
“I had a plan. A plan I’ve been working on for the last fifteen months. Get the right people on board, stage a bloodless coup, ease Knox into retirement, give Rolly the heave-ho, and then start getting the Corporation back on track, creating safe communities for people to live in, trying to find a long-term solution to the Z situation.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Problem is it won’t work. Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because Rolly’s probably cleaning house as we speak. Clearing out my people, getting his own people in place.“
“So we’re basically fucked.”
“Not by a long shot. As Mother Thursday, used to say, ‘when life throws you a lemon, toss it right back, and put some stank on it’. All the situation calls for is a change in focus.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know the people Rolly is likely to promote. They’re a bunch of incompetent assholes, just like him. And I know Rolly, he’s not going to go for a gentle transition. Most of the military commanders and quite a few of the board members are likely being shuttled to the Pendleton Hilton as we speak. They’ll be in disarray. So while a bloodless coup may no longer be an option, a short and bloody coup most definitely is. This is the perfect time to hit them.”
“The Pendleton Hilton? I heard Rolly mention that yesterday.”
“Oh, that’s his pet name for the little torture camp he’s put together on the base. Just one of his many amusements.”
“One other question Joe, you say now is the perfect time to hit them. How are we going to do that with just the two of us, a couple of M-16 carbines and 30 rounds?”
“Ah, I was just getting to that. You see that’s where Joe Thursday’s cunning plan for world domination falls short. You wouldn’t happen to know of anyone with some heavy hardware to spare and a beef with the Corporation would you?”
“As a matter of fact I do.”
Joe looked at me with a grin on his face before suddenly realizing that I was being serious. “You’re shitting me right?”
“Think you can get us to Yorba Linda?”
“You’re not shitting me. Yorba Linda, you say. On foot, through Z Central, with the Corporation trying to hunt us down? Piece of cake!”
twenty one
The best way to get through a Z infested city is to use the freeway system. Actually, scratch that, the best way to get through a Z infested city is in an Abrams tank but, as we didn’t have one of those handy, the freeway system was going to have to do.
We worked our way to the Santa Monica Freeway, eight lanes of blacktop now jam-packed with bumper-to-bumper vehicles baking in the mid-morning sun. We’d seen a few Zs getting there but mostly we had avoided them, conserving our ammo and trying not to attract attention. The one Z that had gotten a bit too friendly had earned a face full of Callaway putter from Joe.
“We’ll keep working east,” Joe said, “Join up with the Santa Ana Freeway and Interstate 5, that will get us in the vicinity.”
“Sounds like one hell of a walk.”
“It is, but we won’t be walking all the way. I got a plan.”
“Which is?”
“Just a little something, I have in mind.” Joe said and I left it at that.
I’d been wanting to ask Joe for more information about Ruby, and with the long walk ahead, and no Zs in the immediate vicinity I took the chance.
“What you said last night about me being prepared to let Ruby go, what did you mean by that?”
Joe walked for a while before answering, “You ever see that movie, Rain Man?”
“Yeah, not my kind of movie, but Rosie rented it one time. Tom Cruise wasn’t it?”
“Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. Do you remember the end?”
“I don’t think I made it that far,” I laughed, “Think I dozed off, I remember Rosie was pissed.”
“Well, I’ll give you the abridged version,” Joe said. “Basically Tom Cruise kidnaps his autistic brother, Dustin Hoffman from an institution, they go on a road trip and get up to a lot of shit, including making a shit load of money counting cards in Vegas. In the end though, Tom realizes that he’s not equipped to take care of Dustin. So he sends him back to the people who can. It’s a real fucking tearjerker I can tell you.”
“So what you’re saying is, I won’t be able to care for Ruby and I should leave it to the people who can.”
“In a nutshell. Look, I know your heart is in the right place on this. I’d be thinking along the same lines in your position. But Ruby has special needs and, I’m not going to bullshit you here Chris, she’s dangerous.“
“Dangerous
how?”
“You saw the little show with Justin yesterday.”
Yeah, but taken out of that environment, Joe. Without people handling her, without them making her to use her powers.”
“Nobody can make Ruby to use her powers.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Do you know why they use Justin for field exercises and not Ruby? Because Justin is stable. He can turn on and off at will, as easily as operating a tap or turning on a light switch. Ruby is different, unpredictable.”
“How do you mean unpredictable?”
“Ruby switches it on when she’s under emotional stress. There’s been a few minor instances in the last three years, and one major one, when Rolly Pendragon tried to have Dr. Gish removed as her caregiver.”
“What happened?”
“She hurt some people, Chris.”
“People? Not Zs?”
“People.”
“But still, Joe…”
“Can you imagine what will happen if you have to scold her, Chris? Can you imagine what will happen when she goes through hormonal changes in adolescence, when she starts having her period?
“So who would look after Ruby? If not me?”
“We would Chris, the corporation. Dr Gish specifically.”
“Because you’ve done such a great job so far you mean, using these kids like they were loaded weapons.”
“That’s not fair, Chris. Dr. Gish is a good woman. You don’t know how many times she’s gone up against Rolly to protect these kids. If it wasn’t for her they’d probably all be burnt out by now, like Fiona.”
“I wanted to ask you about that, Rolly mentioned the name yesterday.”
“Just one in a long list of Rolly’s fuckups. He pushed the kid too hard despite Dr. Gish’s warnings. A few months ago during an exercise Fiona just collapsed, curled herself into a ball and started sucking her thumb. She’s been that way ever since. Excuse me Chris.”
