by John Zakour
“I get it. It’s my fault. I accept that.”
“You should!”
“Not just in this particular case either,” I said, still fighting back the horde. “All the danger I’ve put you in over the years. It’s all on my head.”
“You’re darn right it is!”
“And I’m sorry for all the times I’ve embarrassed you and all the times you’ve had to apologize to people for whatever I may have done. That’s my fault too.”
“You can say that again!”
“But you know what’s not my fault? The fact that you loved me.”
“What?”
“That was your choice, Electra. I may have encouraged it. I know that I welcomed it. But you knew who I was when we met and you fell in love with me of your own volition.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“And I loved you back as well as I could. So we’re both to blame, okay? I may have messed things up for us and you may not love me anymore but you chose to love me then. And that part is not my fault.”
“Who says I don’t love you anymore?”
Despite everything, my heart skipped a beat.
“Don’t toy with me here. I’m not in the mood.”
“I just said that I couldn’t live like this anymore, Chico,” she said. “I never said that I stopped loving you. Believe me, I would if I could. Gates knows, it would make my life a lot easier.”
The Goo were around us tightly now, for every hand or body that we’d knock away a dozen more would take its place. Electra’s pants had been shredded below the knee and her legs and arms were scraped and cut. My trench coat had been torn off me, my jacket was ripped up the back, and my arms felt like they were ready to fall out of their sockets. And yet none of that seemed to matter at the nano, because Electra was still in love with me.
“Do you have any plans after we finish up here?” I asked.
“I hadn’t really planned that far in advance,” she answered.
“Good. Let’s go somewhere, I have something for you.”
“Get us out of here first,” she said. “Then we’ll talk.”
“Can you remotely control your hover?”
She nodded. “I need both hands to work the control though.”
“I’ll buy you the time,” I said. “Bring the hover directly over the hole in the roof but go high. The force field probably has a ten meter height range. We’re going to have to get to higher ground so head for the stairs.”
“Ready when you are,” she said.
I wanted so badly to kiss her then. Just one brief taste of her lips would have given me such strength. But she had only just now stopped yelling at me so I figured that I shouldn’t push things.
So instead, I turned and leaped from the table into the Goo horde. I knocked half a dozen attackers off their feet as I landed, making a momentary pathway through the fray.
“Go!”
Electra jumped from the table and used me as a stepping stone to skip past the horde on her way to the stairway. A few of the Goo tried to follow her but I swatted them aside from behind even as the ones around me began pulling me down.
“Zach!”
I looked up at her from the floor and saw the conflict in her eyes. She was ready to jump back into the fray to help me (and I loved her for it).
“Go!” I shouted. “I’m right behind you.”
I threw my bat at a Goo who was climbing the stairway behind her, hitting it in the head and knocking it back down to the floor. Then I started to go under as the Goo surged again. I grabbed the coatrack and swung it around like a quarterstaff, clearing enough room for me to get to my feet. Then I held the hefty rack horizontally and charged; pushing at the horde like a pigheaded snowplow against a trillion evil snowflakes. I pushed a dozen Goo into the weapons closet, slammed the door shut, and activated the lock. I changed course and pushed another few into the crater in the floor. I threw the coatrack at the ones in front of me, leaped over the prostrate bodies, and finally headed up the stairway.
Electra was waiting for me on the second floor, just beneath the hole in the roof, maneuvering the hover into position. It was no easy task, guiding the hover remotely past the energy fence, especially since the house was now shaking with Gray-Goo fury.
The horde was hot on my heels as I reached the second floor but the hallway was narrow so it was impossible for them to swarm, which is what I was counting on.
“Throw me your bat!”
Electra tossed me the bat without looking away from her work piloting the hover. I caught it and spun around quickly, knocking the nearest Goo pursuer to the back of the pack.
“You know, this isn’t the way I imagined this going,” I said, battling back the horde.
“Imagined what going?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you later. How’s the hover?”
“About ten meters straight up,” she said. “What’s your plan?”
I popped my gun into my hand.
“Big Bang.”
I put a blast into the hallway ceiling. The entire upstairs shook as the ceiling supports gave way and the hallway collapsed around the Goo.
“That will buy us some time but my insurance agent is really going to hate me.”
I went to the end of the hallway, stood beside Electra and looked up through the hole in the roof at the hovercraft above us.
“Tarzan.”
I took careful aim and fired. A tiny magnetic grappling hook and cable shot from the gun toward the hover and latched onto the craft’s underbelly. I turned and held out my arm to Electra.
“I’ll hold you,” I said. “You’ll have to drive the hover.”
She walked into my arms without hesitation and wrapped herself around me. I held her tightly for dear life (in more ways than one).
The Goo were close to digging through the rubble now. I could see their malletlike hands beginning to poke through. They’d be clear in a few nanos. But they’d be too late to catch us.
“I’m taking us up, Chico.”
“Wait, hang on.”
I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out the tiny black box that I’d taken from Bushy’s vault. Then I wrapped my arm around her and slipped it into the pocket of Electra’s jeans.
“A little something for later,” I said.
“Fine,” she said. “Now hold on tight.”
“Gladly.”
The strain on my arms was enormous as the hover lifted us into the air and up through the hole in the room, but there was no way I was letting her go. I saw the Goo finally dig clear of the rubble. They swarmed the hallway and leaped at us as we were lifted higher, but we were out of reach. The Goo let out a collective sigh.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said as we cleared the top of the energy cage, “but I’m glad you were with me for this.”
“Why? Is Sexy not so good in a fight?”
“Are you kidding, every time there’s been one of these Let’s Kill Zach things, she’s been cowering in the corner. No help whatso …”
And that’s when things started coming together.
40
“Hey, you can’t go in there!”
“Lady, if I had a credit for every time someone said that to me I’d be as rich as your slime-sucking boss.”
My foot hit the center of Rupert Roundtree’s door like a sledgehammer on a melon. The door was real wood, and I felt a little bad splintering it but there are times in this world where you just have to break a few things for the sake of drama.
Roundtree was at his giant desk (more real wood), scanning some data on his floating computer screen. He turned to me as I broke open his door and smiled widely.
“Zach-acappa Johnsonccinno. I was just thinking of you.”
“I hope it didn’t tax your brain too much.”
“I tried to stop him, Mr. Roundtree,” the assistant said, scampering into the office behind me. “Should I call security?”
“That’s all right, Jessie,” Roundtree said, d
ismissing her with a wave. “The Zachtathalon here is going to be the network’s biggest reality superstar before long. He’s allowed a little idiosyncratic behavior. You can go now. We’ll be fantacuous.”
The assistant backed out of the office and did her best to close the broken door behind her. Once she was gone, Roundtree sat back in his chair and smiled.
“Honest to ingenuity, Zachtastrophe, I was just looking over the Let’s Kill Zach results from the test screenings. You are going to be so hot when this show drops, you’re going to have to start wiping yourself with flame-retardant toilet paper.”
“I survived your Gray-Goo, Roundtree.”
“Like I knew you would. And I’m sure it was triumphastical.”
“Sexy wasn’t with me, by the way,” I said. “Unlike all the other times you’ve tried to kill me, she was safely at the hotel when this one hit.”
“She was? Oh well, she can’t be in every episode, right? We don’t want her stealing your spotlight.”
I popped my gun into my hand and brought it down hard on his desk.
“Here’s how we’re going to play this,” I said. “You’re going to tell me the truth because every time you lie to me, every time I even suspect that you’re lying to me, I am going to break something very expensive in this office. Lie enough times, and it will be your kneecaps. Got it?”
“Gotta hand it to you, Zachtinium, you have the star tantrum down pat.”
“You expected Sexy to be at my house today based on the morning’s news reports. That’s why the Goo was programmed to attack everyone in the building rather than just me.”
“I’ve told you before,” he said. “The drama quotiency heightens with the addition of potentially collateralized victimization. It’s all good for the show.”
I lifted my gun and blasted a hole through his computer screen. It fell to the floor, sparking and fizzling where it melted a small portion of the carpet.
“The show is a front and you know it. You’re not trying to kill me. You’re after Sexy.”
“Zachquiescence, that’s utterly preposteronious.”
I blasted a hole in the computer screen that covered the northern wall of the office.
“It wasn’t a coincidence that Sexy was at the Kabuki Palace the night that your droids attacked me. You lured us both there, but she was the one you wanted killed in the chaos. That way it would be written off as a tragic accident during a crazy Zach Johnson adventure. When I saved her and became her bodyguard, you just kept trying to get her under the guise of the Let’s Kill Zach show. That’s why all the attacks came when she was nearby; at the hotel, in the limo, and at the HV studio.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I turned and shattered another of his computer wall screens.
“I know about the memo from the governor’s aide, Roundtree. I know that one of Spierhoofd’s main contributors put out a hit on Sexy because they feared that she was a threat to the governor’s reelection plans. And I checked the records. Your corporation contributed over five million credits to the governor’s last election campaign. You’ve gotten some sweet corporate tax breaks out of it so far and there’s huge media deregulation legislation in the works now that will make you a ton of credits if it passes. You couldn’t risk losing that. So you put the hit out on Sexy.”
Roundtree moved to speak but stopped when I aimed my gun at his third (and last) wall monitor.
“You hired a hitman,” I continued. “That’s who’s been sending the PATA threats. And that’s who put the bomb in the flowers and gave them to that kid during the concert. But you don’t trust the hitman to get the job done. So you’ve been using the Let’s Kill Zach idea as insurance and to do the job yourself.”
“Are you finished?” Roundtree asked.
“Yeah,” I said, taking a seat in one of his guest chairs. “And so are you.”
“I don’t think so, Zachariasis.”
He leaned back in his chair, put his arms casually behind his head and his feet up on his huge desk.
“First of all, the whole scenario is preposterous. True or not, it’s just too crazy to be believed.”
“Which is exactly how you planned it.”
“Second of all,” he said, holding up a hand to quiet me, “you have no proof. It’s all wild supposition based on the idle speculation of an unreliable reality HV actor who is currently in bitter contract negotiations with me over his show.”
“We’re not negotiating anything.”
“Give me a nano to call the press and the story will be running in the evening cycle. Zach Johnson, seeking a pay raise for his upcoming reality series on the Faux Network, shoots up the office of the network’s president while spouting conspiratorial gibberish. It’s actually a great publicity piece for the show. I’m surprised I didn’t think of it myself.”
“You’re not going to win this one, Roundtree.”
“I’m sorry, Zach. Can I call you Zach? But I already have. I’m squashing you like the insignificant little bug that you are because that’s what happens when you come at Rupert Roundtree alone.”
“He’s not alone, Rupert!”
The already broken office door burst open again, this time coming loose from its hinges and falling to the floor as Hans Spierhoofd dramatically entered the room.
“He’s with me.”
Roundtree nearly fell out of his chair.
“Hans, what are you doing here?”
“I’m here to set things right, Rupert,” Spierhoofd said, striding confidently toward Roundtree’s desk. “I don’t condone murder for hire in my administration.”
I have to admit that I used to like Spierhoofd’s movies and HV shows. He’s not a good actor. He wouldn’t know subtlety if it was in the form of an anvil and fell on his head, but in his early days, nobody this side of Robert Mitchum did a better badass tough guy. You’d think that after a few lousy movies and nearly two terms as governor the guy would have lost a step, but I had to admit, standing in that office, he proved that he could still bring on the A-game.
“Don’t tell me you believe what Johnson is saying …”
He slapped Roundtree hard in the face with his ham-sized open palm.
“Everything Johnson has said is true and we all know it. So don’t embarrass yourself by lying.”
“I made you, you self-righteous steroid addict.”
Spierhoofd slapped him again, harder this time.
“Don’t threaten me,” he snarled. “I saw the Soviets roll their tanks down the streets of Austria when I was a boy. Believe me, there’s nothing you can do that would frighten me.”
“Hans, you idiot, you’re Danish, not Austrian,” Roundtree said. “And the Soviets occupied Austria fifty years before you were even born.”
“I’m a politician, Rupert,” Spierhoofd said, slapping Roundtree again. “I’m allowed to embellish my past for the sake of drama.”
“I got you elected,” Roundtree sneered. “Your career was sinking when I talked you into running for governor. If it hadn’t been for me you’d be doing infomercials by now.”
Spierhoofd’s face turned red with anger and he put his large hands down hard on the edge of Roundtree’s massive desk.
“I don’t do infomercials,” he growled.
He pushed the desk forward, sliding its great bulk into Roundtree’s stomach and pushing him all the way back to the office wall, pinning him hard against the clear Plexiglas of the windows. Roundtree, gasping for breath, tried to free himself but Spierhoofd’s hold on the desk was too strong.
“You are going to answer every one of Mr. Johnson’s questions completely and truthfully. Do I make myself clear?”
Roundtree nodded and Spierhoofd eased his grip ever so slightly on the desk.
“Let’s Kill Zach was on our list of shows to be developed anyway,” Roundtree said. “We were just hoping to find someone better looking to be the lead.”
“Hey!”
“I’m sorry,�
� Roundtree said, “but you didn’t poll well with the eighteen-to-twenty-nine demographic.”
“Who is the hitman you hired?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
Spierhoofd pushed the desk a little harder, squeezing Roundtree’s midsection a little more.
“I swear, I don’t know. It was done through intermediaries. I spoke to him once over the net; audio only and on a protected channel with voice masking. It wasn’t even a good connection. I could barely understand him when he said the word ‘kill.’ I paid half his fee up front to a New Cayman account. The other half was promised on delivery. Honestly, I don’t know who he is.”
“When is he going to try and kill Sexy?”
“He was supposed to do it at the first concert. Make it look like a crazed fan. We thought that would be most dramatic. If he couldn’t do it then, he promised to do it straight out at the third concert.”
“That’s tonight.”
“Everyone would be expecting it to happen at the last concert. We wanted to be a little more unpredictable. You get a bigger bang that way.”
“Call off the hit.” I said.
“I can’t. I don’t know how to contact the killer. I can’t stop it.”
I turned to Spierhoofd.
“The concert starts in half an hour,” I said. “We have to stop it.”
“You go,” Spierhoofd said. “As I told you at our last meeting, I can’t be part of this.”
“You’re all heart, Mr. Governor.”
Five minutes later I was back on the street, the pedal of the Kaiser hard to the metal, heading flat out to the Fart. Whether Sexy wanted me or not, in my mind I was still her bodyguard. And there was no way I was letter her die on my watch.
41
The area around the Fart was jammed with pressbots, flesh-and-blood media, and wannabe concertgoers even five minutes before curtain time. I pushed my way through the crowd as best I could (making more than a few enemies along the way) and made my way to one of the police officers stationed at the entranceway.
“My name’s Zach Johnson,” I said to the officer. “I’m Sexy’s bodyguard. I need to get in right away.”
