Hunters & Collectors

by M. Suddain

  ‘Kill her.’

  ‘The plan was never to keep her alive. She’s like a piñata. Do you know what that is?’

  ‘Yes I know what a piñata is.’

  ‘It’s a container made from paper pulp and –’

  ‘I know what a fucking piñata is.’

  ‘The act of opening her would most likely be destructive? Which is unbearable, yes? And even if she miraculously survived, I have orders to dispose of her after. She has no other use once we know what’s in her head. Except to me? But it’s moot because now my Master wants her dead anyway. He’s had enough. Hence our need to act quickly. To save this precious flower.’ Twitch, swallow.

  ‘What do you …’ twitch, swallow, breathe, ‘… plan to do? Exactly.’

  ‘What do we plan to do, you mean? I want to use a chemical assault to put her into full sleep, then I can get the data I need? Right now she’s only part asleep, so I can’t do much more than paint her picture? Do you like my painting?’

  Twitch, swallow, breathe.

  ‘But once I get her into full sleep I can really start work. Getting the data I need should only take a few hours.’

  ‘Wait, I thought your Master had given up on getting her Bear-data. I thought he just wants her dead.’

  ‘Oh, he does. I’m not interested in those data? I don’t care about the stuff that makes her a Bear? I’m talking about the stuff that makes her Gladys.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t tell you. But we’re a team now? And I know you’ll understand? I mean I want to copy all the things that aren’t AXI-encrypted and hidden behind indeterminacy-driven firewalls. I want to make a scan of her? I want to paint her picture? Only this painting would be just like the real thing.’

  ‘Are you telling me you want to make a copy of Gladys?’

  ‘Is that so wrong? A little Gladys to call my own. Someone I can see every day. Someone to live through eternity with. Someone who’ll always be there for me. And most of all, someone who’ll finally help me stand up to you-know-who. We’ll show him he can’t mess with us? I’ve already seen what she can do. She’s powerful, hey? Much more than we allowed for. Catching her is like trying to catch a handful of smoke? She’s there, and then she isn’t? She knows all our strengths, all our weaknesses? This is the kind of woman I need at my side.’

  Insanity.

  ‘And here’s the genius part? If our plan works? The “real” Gladys can walk out of here alive. If I send her deep enough it’ll seem to the system like she’s dead. So that’s when you and I can get her in a cargo-pod without them knowing. Now, getting her out of duck sleep and into full sleep is the challenge. This is where you come in?’ He produced a small, purple vial from his jacket pocket. ‘Hear me out.’

  ‘The fuck is that?’

  ‘This?’ Like I’d just noticed his new tie. ‘It’s Tranquilax. Mostly.’

  ‘Mostly?’

  ‘Look, let’s be rational about this, hey? We can’t help Gladys while she’s conscious. It’s like trying to pull a tiger’s tooth without using sedatives. We have to put a dart in her? Two darts?… Don’t look at me like that. It’s a perfectly ordinary sleep aid. It has some additives to slow her wave-state. That’s it. Please stop looking at me like that. I’ve tried everything. But she’s too good for me. So what I’ll need, yes, is I’ll need you to drop this in her drink. Then we can get her to a lifeboat and away from danger. After I’ve finished scanning her up, of course. Which should only take three or four hours. Tops.’

  ‘You want me to knock Gladys out and just hand her over to you?’

  ‘Yes. Keep up. Once you’ve used my formula to knock her out, I need you to bring her straight to Elevator 1. Sam’ll help you bring her upstairs. I’ll have my best orderlies waiting? I can scan her while you’re off having your meal in the Undersea. Which is what you’ve always wanted, hey?… Say something! … Look, it isn’t complicated?’ He walked over to a blackboard on an easel I hadn’t even noticed was there and began to sketch a kind of Venn diagram on the blackboard. ‘What do you want, Jonathan? I’ll tell you: you want your meal. And for Gladys to be safe? Both those things.’ The chalk in his chubby hand tick-tacked across the black surface. ‘And what do I want? To help Gladys? And to have her help me. And what does she want? To not die? Obv-o? Oh, and one thing all of us definitely do not want is to disappoint our Master.’ Shiick! ‘Those are our objectives. We can make them happen. This is our Diagram for Success.’ He drew a circle around the part of the diagram where all our hopes and dreams intersected, tossed the chalk over his shoulder. ‘…Will you please stop looking at me like that, Jonathan?!’ Flecks of spittle flew from his face. ‘I don’t want to hurt her. Gods, that’s absolutely the last thing I … I’m offering, at huge personal risk, to try to save your friend? To get her to the only boat left? And for what? For a small, compliant Gladys I can call my own. I just … I don’t know how to …’ He took a moment. Looked like he was going to cry. ‘Haven’t you ever had someone, Jonathan? Someone who made all this worthwhile? That’s why we do this, isn’t it? For them?’ He turned to gaze at the woman on the bed. He pressed a chubby finger under his dark glasses and into the corner of his eye. Then he clasped both hands in front of his chest and shook them, as if he was giving thanks. ‘I can fix her, Jonathan. I can make it so that she’s happy. Not sad and angry all the time. And I can make it so …’ He pressed his knuckles to his full lips, ‘… so she can have children? I can make her whole, Jonathan. And she can make me whole, too? Is that so wrong?’ He smiled angelically down at her. He brushed a permawaved lock of hair from her forehead, then looked up at me. Tears had glossed his cheeks. The light of love poured from him.

  So then I broke his nose.

  It felt so real. I felt the delightful sensation of the nasal bone giving way before he crumpled to the ground with a goat-like cry. Blood sprayed across the yellow flowers of Gladys-in-sleep’s hospital robes, it streamed magically from between the man’s fingers. And I realised this was all I’d really been wanting since I got here. Not my meal. Not a larger apartment. Just to punch someone. In the face. Hard.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Rubin. I don’t know what came over me.’ I helped him up; he clasped his nose. ‘You broge by node, Jodathad.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m very protective of Gladys. It was a reflex action.’

  ‘Re-flegs?’ Legs wobbling, blood worming down the front of his shirt, it was a beautiful picture. ‘You broge … by NODE!’

  ‘Listen, please don’t take this out of context. I’m a thug. It’s my Traveller blood. Sometimes I can only talk with my fists. The fact is I object to you on a personal level, Doctor. You’re a little repulsive. You’re weird and creepy and you drug people. Here, take the armchair, try to breathe. I understand, you haven’t had an easy life. The isolation, the allergies. No sunlight. You need sunlight, Rubin. But please don’t infer from the fact that I’m opposed to you as a person, and that you have a face that begs for physical intervention, that I’m in any way opposed to your amazing plan. I’m all in.’ I crouched beside the armchair so I could look him in his eyes, which I could see now for the first time, and which were icy pale. ‘I just had to purge my hate for you so it wouldn’t adulterate our working partnership. Yes? Let’s do this. Let’s save Gladys. Hey? Are you with me?’

  (Let me be clear, Colette: by ‘Let’s save Gladys’ I meant, ‘Let’s pretend to go along with your plan in the interim, but only insofar as it furthers my goals.’)

  ‘Jodathad?’

  ‘What’s happening now?’

  ‘Dode go yed.’

  I was waking, I could feel it. I felt like something was smothering me.

  ‘Jodathad.’

  ‘Yes, Rubin.’

  ‘You hab do fide her. She’d id derrible day-ger. Dey dow aboud Oberaygin Wide Dred.’

  ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘Oberaygin Wide Dred! Dey’b sed a trab!’

  ‘OK, look, I have to �
��’

  ‘Jodathad!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Plede don’t leeb me alode here. Id’s so lodely here. Plede.’

  ‘I won’t leave you alone.’

  ‘Jodathad!’

  ‘WHAT?!’

  ‘Ib you bedray be I wil mage you subb-ah.’

  I leaned closer. ‘Come again?’

  ‘Ib you BEDRAY be … I will MAGE you … SUBBAH.’

  I began to fall back towards the waking land. I couldn’t breathe. As I felt myself struggling back from sleep, clawing up through that primordial jelly, I thought things through. Nothing made sense any more. You could make four right turns in this place and end up somewhere entirely different. ‘If you betray me I will make you supper’? What could that possibly mean? And what could Operation Wide Dred mean? When I woke I discovered that Beast was holding a rag over my mouth while he gently shook the life from me.

  NOTES ON NAP TIME

  ‘Wake up, Boss, it’s me.’

  ‘Gahbb!’

  Beast had one hand clamped over my mouth. He’d had the decency to use a clean washcloth. ‘The fuck are you doing?!’ I pushed his paw away and sat up. My head throbbed. I was not in the Rainbow Danger Club where I’d fallen. I was back in the familiar armchair, in the all-too-familiar living room. I’ve decided I don’t need to know what ‘Exophonic’ means. It’s just one of those nebulously reassuring words, like ‘heaven’, or ‘democracy’, or ‘national security’.

  ‘Come on, Boss, it’s time.’

  ‘Time? Time for what? How did I get here.’

  ‘I carried you back.’

  ‘Carried me?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Fireman’s or sleeping-child-style?’ I imagined the looks from the staff in the halls as Beast carried me home like some toddler who’d nodded off at a cartoon matinee.

  ‘Fireman’s.’

  ‘Good. The fuck are my trousers? Did you remove my trousers?!’

  ‘NO! Why the hell would I?’

  ‘Well, where are they?’

  He shrugged. ‘You weren’t wearing them when we got back. You passed out in the bar. Wanged your head on a bar stool. You need to watch your drinking, Boss.’

  ‘No, I won’t be doing that. Make us a drink. Where’s G?’

  ‘Still out. She went to create a big diversion. It’s Operation White Dress.’ White Dress. Of course. ‘She’ll meet us at the cargo bay. 12.15.’ He was pretty wound up. Operation White Dress, he told me as he scooped ice into the shaker, is an escape plan they’d been cooking up. Together.

  ‘So it’s true, she is plotting against me.’

  ‘It’s not like that, Boss. She’s trying to protect you.’

  ‘Protect me by running off to save Hunter?’

  ‘She’s not doing that, Boss. Why would you think that?’

  ‘Because it’s called Operation White Dress.’

  ‘Oh. I guess …’

  ‘You guess? Anyway, it’s not her job to protect me. I’m trying to protect her.’

  ‘It’s literally her job, Boss. We have to move. The system downstairs resets at 12.10 every night. It’s down for five minutes. Which means that from 12.10 to 12.15 they won’t be watching this apartment. That gives us time to get the pod. Here, drink.’

  ‘Listen, Beast, we have to find her. They know all about Operation White Dress. They’ll have set a trap.’

  He shrugged stupidly while pouring out our drinks. ‘Sure she’ll manage. She’s Gladys.’

  ‘She won’t “manage”, Beast, and in case you haven’t noticed she isn’t herself. She’s gone off the rails. She’s off stealing fire extinguishers. We have to find her before it’s too late.’

  ‘Sure, we’ll find her down at the pod. Come on, it’s nearly 12. She’ll meet us there. Get dressed.’

  ‘I am dressed, Beast, I have no trousers, remember?’

  ‘Oh.’

  I strode over to the phone set resting on the marble bar top. I needed to find someone who might discreetly be able to find out where Gladys was. There weren’t a lot of people here I could trust.

  ‘What are you doing, Boss?’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Twelve and six. We need to leave at –’

  ‘Yes, you mentioned it. Hello, I’m trying to locate Ms Zhivast, the registrar … Well, I need to speak with her urgently. Will you send her to my door?… What do you mean it’s almost nap time?’

  ‘NAP time,’ said Beast, hovering by. ‘Nocturnal Automated Patches. 12.10.’

  ‘Well, if you could raise her I’d be grateful.’

  There was instantly a knock. I still had the receiver in my hand.

  ‘Get the door, Beast.’

  ‘I’m not doing that.’

  ‘Fine.’ I peered through the spyhole. Three large men stood in the corridor.

  ‘Who is it, Boss?’

  ‘It’s three large men.’

  ‘Don’t open it.’

  Another knock, more insistent. ‘Hello! Open! Is new bed for delivery!’

  ‘It’s Massimo.’

  ‘Don’t open it, Boss.’

  ‘He has my new bed, Beast.’

  ‘It’s a trick. You can’t open it.’

  ‘I’ll open it, but I won’t let them in.’

  The men stood in the hall, hands behind their backs. Two wore barber’s uniforms. The younger barber had a round red face and a well-lubed pompadour. The older barber had tanned skin and an immaculately groomed beard. I recognised the third man, obviously.

  ‘Massimo, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. So you’ve finally come to bring me back my FUCK-ING SHOOOOES!’

  He was caught completely off guard by me screaming at him. He took a step back. ‘Don’t know your shoes. We come to bring bed.’ He nodded to a large wooden crate on a trolley just down the hall while conspicuously keeping his hands behind his back. He wore earrings made from craft wire and actual human ears. More ears were threaded on a length of string around his neck, and he had a gladiatorial smear of blood under each eye.

  ‘Bed? My bed? Is that what you’ve come to do? Bring me my bed? Well, I couldn’t give a fuck about my bed! You’re supposed to bring my FUCK-ING SHOOOOES! That’s your FUCK-ING JOB!’ It was working. The three men passed confused looks. ‘Why don’t you come back when you have my shoes? The real ones. Yes?’

  ‘You need bed to sleep in, yes? To dream of Ginger.’

  ‘I have a perfectly good armchair. And I won’t be sleeping tonight, I assure you.’

  ‘You call for Ginger? Why you call for Ginger?’

  ‘I didn’t call for any Ginger.’

  ‘You have bruise on head.’

  ‘Yes I do.’

  ‘Is funny.’ He was trying to win back lost ground. His friends looked uncertain. ‘Where is pants?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘We come in, just for talk.’

  ‘That won’t be happening.’

  I assessed and ordered the threats – as Gladys had taught me to do during a long boat ride to Indus Cities. They each had a weapon, nothing so big it couldn’t be hidden behind their backs. All I was armed with was a cocktail. Massimo was the biggest, though beyond his powerfully muscled forearms he looked soft. The younger barber’s face looked enticingly frangible. But the older barber looked wiry and mean. He was the one to worry about. He had something interesting behind his back, I was sure.

  ‘We come in. We build bed,’ growled the older barber, finally regaining his sense of purpose.

  ‘Oh? Where are your tools? Show me.’

  The old barber smiled sheepishly as he drew the small hatchet from behind his back.

  ‘A hatchet? You want to build my bed with a hatchet?’

  They were trying not to laugh.

  ‘Is for opening crate!’ said Massimo.

  ‘And you?’ I turned to the younger barber, who revealed his tool: a cut-throat razor.

  ‘For cutting cord on crate!’
/>   ‘Nearly 12.10, Boss!’ I thought Beast was still at my shoulder, was surprised to hear his voice come from somewhere near the bar. I knew I couldn’t count on him for help. ‘And you? What have you brought for this marathon bed-building session?’

  Massimo smiled as he showed that he had a roll of electrical tape and a wrench.

  ‘To fix lamp.’

  ‘Our lamp isn’t broken.’

  ‘I check.’

  ‘Not going to happen.’

  ‘She will crawl inside your head.’ He leaned in, tapped the side of his head with the wrench. Tink-a-tink.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You think she’s just nice girl, but she know all kind of mind tricks.’ Tink-a-tink. ‘We come in now. You invite us.’

  ‘No, that won’t be happening.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because Mr Tamberlain doesn’t want to talk to you, Massimo, and nor do I.’

  She came down the hall in a black housecoat trimmed in leopard-print fur with matching hat. She carried a small purse, had a sheaf of paper tucked under her arm, and she wore what appeared to be monster slippers. Her bright round face illuminated the hall, even while she was frowning.

  ‘Was only delivering bed, Ginger.’