King Henry’s Nerd Nirvana.
Fuck yeah there is something very wrong with the store.
It’s too damned small!
Got me a partner.
T-Bone came through big time for Team Don’t Lick the Vamp Clit.
Okay, so the name’s a work in progress.
Got him set up in the main room my ‘shop’ used to be inside. All them computers and servers and stuff I don’t understand. Try really hard not to break them, being as they’re so expensive. There’s that base level of technology that all people in my generation intuitively grasp and then there’s whatever T-Bone does. I cap out at setting up WiFi. Servers and firewalls and proxies and all that shit, I leave to T-Bone.
Got my actual shop underground now, accessible only by a trapdoor ladder. Sneaky, sneaky. And no I did not clear it with City Hall. Hollowed out the space on my own, with a precision only a geomancer could manage. Snapped up the supporting steel beams on my own too, constructed some walls—plastered them and painted them—installed my metal table and I even disassembled and reassembled my containing wall for all my anima vials, just six feet under where it used to be. Did let T-Bone put in the wiring and the lights though.
With all the rock and dirt and earth surrounding the room, it’s mostly soundproof, so you can’t even hear most of the explosions my experiments occasionally create. Not that there are many explosions nowadays. Getting good at this shit, better each day. Catching up, coming on strong at the Guild’s bumper, sizing up first place to leave them in my wake.
Business is a boomin’.
Lucky me.
Got so many people to sell to nowadays. Always thought the Guild blocked my potential business, but I got to wonder if maybe Ceinwyn didn’t control the flow of who ended up at my door too. Probably to keep me safe . . . we’ll give her the benefit of the doubt, I suppose. Ignore that it also kept me poor and indebted to her. Ignore that it also kept me all blissful and ignorant.
Some of it is Ceinwyn being gone; some more of it is that my stock with the Vampire Embassies rose with the whole Divine Eresha debacle. Vamps have a really incestuous political situation going on, but from what I can tell: those with ties to Nii-Vah viewed me as ‘their guy,’ and those that used to have ties with Eresha viewed me as at least the enemy of their enemy, being as the Divine Inanina hates my guts.
Still hasn’t tried to kill me, kind of insulted about it.
Vamps . . . who can understand ‘em?
For whatever reason, I have dozens of more customers from their part of the supernatural world, begging for cryo-anima sex toys or SDRs with strong enough charges to take down a fellow vampire. Even with T-Bone’s buy-in to the business, I wasn’t in a financial situation to turn them down, so I sold them what they wanted and called it a good deal.
As for my other clients . . .
Killing Horatio Vega’s nephew had consequences.
Never seen Vega happier than when we made the deal to open up my entire catalogue to the Coyotes. Makes me wonder if he would've forced me into killing Hector eventually, or if Hector wasn’t maneuvered into my path at the Auction of Illicit Wonders somehow. Or maybe I’m just searching for an out. Some way it wasn’t my fault for killing his stupid ass.
Society says that’s a no-no after all.
Me . . . still felt bad about the guy’s wife and kids, but dumbass gets killed by a punch then he wasn’t much longer for this world anyway.
Hector’s death did screw me over though. Forced more strings around my hands. Make them work for slimy Uncle Horatio on occasion. When we made that deal, you could almost see it in Vega’s eyes—weighing what Hector’s mortal coil was worth when it came to supernatural diplomacy.
What’s one fuck-up, rebellious nephew compared to arming your Were Nation with premium defensive artifacts?
And a second contract of floro-seeders on top of it.
King Henry’s Nerd Nirvana.
It’s a lab, but it ain’t a drug lab, officer.
Why don’t you go on your way?
Cuz Walter White don’t got shit on King Henry Price.
And I don’t need a sidekick to do any cursing for me . . . that’s my fucking job, bitch!
[CLICK]
King Henry’s Nerd Nirvana.
So sayeth the sign above my head as I ran out the front of my store and gave Pocket a bear hug. Or better to say I jumped into a bear hug, being as Pocket was a good size bigger than me—tall, muscled, brown-haired, green-eyed, good-looking All-American Hero that he is. Guy hadn’t changed a whole lot since the Asylum, except maybe he was more tanned.
“You look like crap, dude,” was the greeting I got, along with a boyish grin, “but I guess that’s just the usual with you.”
I slugged him on the shoulder. It barely moved him. “Shouldn’t you be saving some stupid ass camper?”
Suppose I haven’t been very good on the infos about what some of my classmates have been up to since graduation. Guess I like leaving you in the dark. Most of it is boring. Can’t all be a super spy like Eva or replacing Ceinwyn like Val. Others I don’t know. Don’t keep up on the grapevine if you will. Or the Facebook-vine. Or the Vine-vine. Internet trying so hard to connect people, don’t it know that people are full of shit?
No idea what Welf or Quinn or Hope are up to. Suppose Hope could have a job at Hunting CryoTech, maybe in Project Cassandra with her dad. That’s where Raj is, I’m pretty sure, though he’s very hush about it when I bother to call him. Jason Jackson and Ronaldo Silva are both Recruiters like Val, Miles Hun Pak joined ESLED with his buddy Estefan. Asa is with the Rejuvenation Society, Curt Chambers works for a holographic tech company, Jessica Edwards’ rich ass parents set her up with a dog-grooming-for-the-stars type business in Los Angeles, and Samuel Bird joined the Army.
Pocket and Jesus though, joined this special mancer only scout and rescue group that is part-forest ranger and part-bounty hunter called FIND. Works legally through the FBI, kind of like how ESLED pretends its CIA or NSA or whatever other government agency will most scare the shit out of normal people that happen across the Mancy. FIND is set up as a bunch of two-man teams, one floromancer and one faunamancer being the most common pairing. Between talking to animals or talking to the trees, they can track down just about anyone, be it a criminal through a city or a camper lost at Yosemite.
Watch out for Yosemite. Fucker starts talking and he never shuts up. Might want to also keep an eye on his tail and his wings. And his really big mouth. No idea if he breathes fire, hope to never learn one way or the other.
Pocket seems to like the job though, so good for him.
Jesus is just happy he’s not back on the street and that the job lets him talk to a bunch of stray animals all the time. After they finish a job in whatever place they are, he likes to clean them up, give them a talking to, and see them adopted to a nice family.
Maybe he is the Lord and Savior, he just ain’t saving mankind.
Fun and rewarding job, but they’re busy at it, just about as busy as Val, so I don’t get to see them but maybe once a year. Hadn’t seen Pocket or Jesus or Raj since my birthday last June. Usually we meet up in a place and hang out for a few days. I hunt college girls. Raj predictably falls in love with some redhead. Pocket and Jesus laugh at us.
First time Pocket had ever shown up in Fresno with an RV though. He nodded at the transportation. “Nah, I’m on vacation. Thought I’d come and see if you’re still in one piece.”
“I’m not that bad off,” I complained. “Tyson just overreacted since he’s never seen me break up with Val before. Be back to normal in another month, I promise.”
T-Bone and Prunella had both exited the Nirvana, hanging just behind my back while I did my greetings. Now that they were over, T-Bone walked forward to shake Pocket’s hand. Wow, that’s weird. Like . . . two different sets of friends meeting for the first time. Never felt that before. It’s oddly terrifying.
Never had friends before, Price. Think any of your
bet-on-me-buddies are still alive?
What was that stupid nickname that one had?
Dynamite Dicky?
What a bunch of losers.
Greetings ongoing or not, Prunella wouldn’t leave the shop door. She kept staring at Pocket like he sparkled in the sun, eyes wide and on the edge of an already forming crush. She’s a good kid. An eighteen-year-old sciomancer, she originally lived in San Diego—half-WASP, half-Chinese from a Navy family with lots of brothers and sisters. She’s the weird one out of the group. Got herself a free ride at a strange boarding school. After she graduated as an Intra a few months back, she didn’t like the fit on returning home. Now she was here, working at keeping the real business of King Henry’s Nerd Nirvana a secret.
Good kid . . . when you turn into the old man, Price? After you made a deal with a dragon or after you saw a blood god die?
T-Bone led the job search over the Internet and did Prunella’s hiring, set up her wages and all that; even found an apartment for her. Not sure her having a DOTA 2 MMR over nine-thousand or being able to recite The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy word for word is a good job qualification, but she seemed to be doing okay at keeping the nerds at bay while I worked on my artifacts.
Whatever DOTA is . . . sounds like some pill that gives you anal discharge or penile leakage or something else equally horrible.
“Wasn’t just Tyson who called me,” Pocket explained. “Miranda did too.”
“One little drunk dial never hurt anyone,” I pleaded my innocence.
“Ten,” Pocket rebutted.
“What?”
“Ten drunk dials over four nights.”
I gazed into the blackness of my memory and found nothing other than the first. “Huh.”
“You asked her what she was wearing on five separate occasions.”
I felt sick. “Now I know how drunk I need to get to sleep with a ginger.”
“Should I make a comment about how subconsciously you kept dialing a number you knew Val would never pick up, instead of her smart-phone that she kept? How maybe, very deep down, it was the Ginger—”
“Please stop.”
Pocket laughed at me, T-Bone joining in hesitantly. Prunella swooned slightly before disappearing into the store. “Who’s the girl?” Pocket asked.
“New hire. Runs the comic store,” T-Bone spoke up for the both of us. I was trying too hard not to throw up about coming on to Miranda Daniels.
I might never drink again, I thought for a second . . . but then remembered the Irish Coffee still sitting on my office desk and decided that even putting the moves on a pale-skinned-freckle-creature wasn’t a low enough act to get me to stop sucking on the nectar of life.
“Sciomancer?” Pocket asked politely, also giving me time to recover.
“Yes. She doesn’t like sunlight, loves dark clothes, all the usual anima influenced personalizations you would expect,” T-Bone said. “Huge gamer too. About the only time she goes out in public is to LAN.”
“Putting a young woman like that in front of King Henry is a bit of a risk, isn’t it?” Pocket teased me some more, especially my wandering eye. Wandering eye . . . never been my eye that’s the problem, always been my cock that causes the problems.
The Foul Mouth and the Wandering Cock.
There ya go, world, a porno title free of charge!
“I can control myself despite popular opinion,” I reminded Pocket. “Haven’t been with anyone but Val for the last eight months, have I? And I’d never be so far gone I’d hit on an employee . . . shit would cost too much once the lawyers got involved. Besides . . . can’t fuck anyone right now. Just feel guilty and dirty and . . . I need another drink.”
“Yup,” Pocket said, “you’re a picture of mental health, dude.”
“Don’t need sympathy,” I grumbled, “just need to get back to work.”
“Tyson and Miranda and Estefan all disagree.”
“What does Estefan have to do with this?”
“You called him and tried to blackmail him into giving you Val’s new address in London,” Pocket informed some more. “Something about sending cruise tickets to Debra for that miracle month of August if he didn’t give in. Whatever that means. And again I point out if you had tried her smart-phone—”
“Stop picking on my subconscious!”
Please don’t let me have married a stripper . . . well . . . maybe a hot stripper. Of course Fresno don’t got any of those . . . being it’s Fresno. The most popular titty bar ain’t even in town, it’s outside of town beside a highway out in the middle of nowhere. Which is even more depressing than you’d imagine it being.
I let out a defeated sigh. “Want to see the shop before you kidnap me or whatever it is the two of you planned behind my back?”
[CLICK]
I showed Pocket around the place. He hadn’t been to Fresno since before the storefront was opened the first time around. Back then it was all antiques in boxes, me trying to figure out where to put the teapots and whether I should have the shot glasses next to the glassware or the memorabilia.
The Dark Ages, I thought as I navigated down the ladder into my underground lair. Ladders . . . something else that makes life harder on short people. We need them more and the steps are a bigger pain in the ass for us to climb. Doesn’t make any sense really.
The ceiling was low, but the space itself was wider and deeper than my old shop floor. I’d extended it all the way out past my office, beyond even the backdoor. Meant having steel foundation beams to hold everything up, but another plus of being a geomancer was I figured I’d have enough warning of an incoming earthquake to get out of the deathtrap before the whole thing went under.
Or be the one causing the earthquake in the first place.
Pocket took a turn around the room, face alight with curiosity. In addition to my primary table, I had a small assembly station for SDRs and another for floro-seeders. There was a display stand for my many Magic Little Balls, every applicable anima type I could see a reason for, whether purely anima driven or as containers for anima’s natural equivalent. Corpus, necro, and menti-anima were all missing. Corpus and menti I couldn’t work out. What you gonna do? Have flashbacks if you turn it on? And since my last experiment on fauna-anima had every animal in fifty feet running forward to lick or sniff or peck the dispenser, I didn’t dare try a necro-anima version.
Braaaaains.
ESLED don’t look kindly on accidental zombie outbreaks. That’s the type of shit that turns into a lot of paperwork.
W18DS9 Foooooorms.
After practicing the art of miniaturization on the dispensers themselves and getting them small enough to hide in your hand, I was now working on adding multiple containing fields with counteracting anima types. For example: the SAD Mark 2 had a switch in addition to a button and one way you ended up with a ball of illumination and the other you had a field of darkness surrounding you.
Getting real tricky with your toys, but you still ain’t any closer to figuring out the cure for Anima Madness, are you, you fucktard?
I had to admit . . . I’ve been a total failure on that front. For all my bragging, I haven’t even really tried to tackle the problem. Sure, I found out some interesting relationships between a mancer’s anima, nature anima, and the scientific real world elements of what we manipulated, but the last few months of freedom had made me realize that at some point I’d gotten sidetracked.
It was like I’d started out trying to treat cancer with radiation and ended up in atomic theory. I was caught up in the war with Paine, or the Divine Court, or my asshole brother-in-law, or Ceinwyn being a . . .
A tight-lipped, manipulative bitch.
Not fair.
Don’t feel like being fair.
Been reevaluating my life a lot since that day in London.
What I was doing with myself.
People around me.
My enemies.
Counting strings.
Was just getting to the po
int where I’d been thinking about making some of my own strings, getting ready to open up, stop with my own self-enforced hypocrisy on all the secrets roiling inside me.
Now Val was gone.
I hadn’t talked to Ceinwyn since that day in London. Didn’t plan to in the near future. T-Bone was probably reporting on me despite all his insistence otherwise, but that was fine. Let her have a fragile little string. Maybe if she just admitted it was all bullshit . . . that I have a right to know the game instead of just a few of the pieces . . . maybe . . . what? Hopefully she did it before I turned thirty-three and the Asylum gave the legal go-ahead. I go that long without talking to her then I can go the rest of the way without talking to her.
Whether she becomes the Dean of the Asylum or not.
For the first time in my life I actually hoped for the Lady to live another fifty years. Val becomes Head of Recruiting and it really is all over. Won’t just be a halt in our relationship . . . will be the end for us.
I took a swig of my coffee.
Fucking women in my life . . . why they got to be so powerful and terrifying every single one of them?
Pocket put a hand on my shoulder, gave it a supportive squeeze. “Stop thinking about her and show me your new toys.”
“Wasn’t thinking about her,” I grumbled.
“You get this look on your face like you’ve been shot—” T-Bone started.
“Was not,” I repeated, but went forward to show off some of my other artifacts all the same. Quick, not in depth, since Pocket was never the best student. Not the worst either, but his talents were in people and clubs and leading a group to success. Captain Fucking America, except he throws ferns, not shields.
“You really suck at naming things, dude,” Pocket said after I’d shown half a dozen prototypes, including an improved hydro-slicer knuckle with a stronger hydro-blade but a lower duration. Time don’t matter as much as power when you’re trying to slice through something. Faster was better. Especially if it’s cutting through a Divine’s neck.
There was also an old idea repackaged in a new form. I’d taken the SEM-DEW with its web-like metal and extracted it from the same metal casing I used for the Magic Little Balls. Instead, I put it inside the lining of a geomancer’s coat and placed a button near the coat collar. I called it the SEM-Coat. Which proved Pocket’s point, since the SEM part of the name made no sense attached to a coat, but only served to link the product line together.
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 5
