Alicia lost her voice, cleared her throat and continued. “My daughter looked up at me. The shape of her head started to—”
With a shaking hand, the woman took the proffered handkerchief and wiped the tears from her face. The cloth warmed, evaporating the fluid.
“The last thing I said to Sammy was, ‘How could you let this happen to her? How could you!’ I-I-I wasn’t thinking.” Alicia looked at her right hand, the skin of which was scarred by the acid that had dissolved her daughter’s mind. “I regret that accusation—dumb and illogical and mean—more than anything I’ve ever said in my entire life.”
The crystal cylinder shone blue.
Alicia sniffed, shaking her head. “That was the last thing he ever heard—that terrible accusation. I loved Sammy.” The crystal cylinder turned magenta.
Fury filled Alicia, and she lunged at the white machine. Pseudopodia clasped her waist and wrists, restraining her, as two hairless women in gray hastened into the room, armed with migraine pens.
“Please calm yourself, Mrs. Martinez,” said the inquisitor.
Alicia glared at the verispectragram and resettled herself.
The hairless man waved his peers away. As they departed, the extruding pseudopodia retracted, releasing their grip upon Alicia.
“Continue your account whenever you feel capable of doing so.”
“Why did that fucking machine say I didn’t love my husband?”
“It did not turn red, which is the indication of a falsehood. It turned magenta.”
“I know—but you said that that color indicates a partial truth.”
“This is a very common reading, Mrs. Martinez. With rare exceptions, love—as defined ideally in our consciousness and by society at large—is not purely realized. When people speak of love for another adult person with whom they have had various experiences, the machine almost always registers a partial truth. This is one of several unfavorable insights proffered by the verispectragram that resulted in it being barred from courtrooms, despite its accuracy.”
“But magenta’s worse than lavender, right? Closer to red—to a false reading? But-but Sammy and I had a very good marriage: I loved him deeply.” The crystal cylinder shone magenta.
“I suggest that you continue your account,” advised the hairless man. “This result is neither extraordinary nor germane, and it does not in any way affect our appraisal of you.”
“It is very goddamn important for me to understand why that thing shows magenta when I say I love my husband. Can’t you understand that?”
Water dripped from the purity tanks onto the concrete floor, and the hairless man nodded his head. “I understand why it matters to you.”
“What color does it usually show when a person says he or she’s in love?”
“The device typically displays lavender or, if the person is in the first blush of love, deep indigo. The only pure results that I have ever seen are when a parent speaks of his or her love for a child that has not yet learned to talk.”
“Why did it show magenta for me?” asked Alicia.
“There are many possible reasons. For instance, in your account of the event, you blamed your husband for what—”
“But I was out of my mind at the time,” protested Alicia. “I regret saying that.” The crystal cylinder shone blue.
“Do you hold your husband partially responsible for what happened? Do you believe that he could have done something more than he did to save himself and your daughter?”
“He opened the package and those things leapt out. They move as fast as a person can think. Maybe faster.” The crystal cylinder shone blue. “He couldn’t do anything more than he did—I don’t hold him responsible.”
The crystal cylinder shone red.
Behind the machine, the hairless man said nothing.
Alicia Martinez stared at the luminous refutation, but did not remark upon it.
“Please resume your account whenever you feel capable of so doing.”
“They were dead on the kitchen floor,” Alicia continued, “their heads were…” She was unable to verbally articulate the expansion and subsequent collapse of their skulls. “I was starting to black out when the voice in my ear, Mrs. Dulande’s voice, said, ‘You and your associates will be killed if you pursue a case against my son. Inform them and any other like-minded individuals that death awaits those who come after Derrick W.R. Dulande. My son will be re-bodied and have a chance at life, if not redemption. I died, clasping this hope firmly to my breast.’ The recording ended. I heaved bile and passed out.
“I woke up, disoriented, and had a moment where I thought I’d dreamt everything that had happened.” Alicia shut her eyes and tilted her head forward. That brief period of disorientation had been the last time that she had felt something other than rage or despair. “But then I opened my eyes and saw. They were there…on the floor. Dead. It was all real.”
The woman opened her eyes. “I called the police. An airborne riot wagon was at the window in six minutes, and eight officers climbed in. I told them everything, but there was nothing to do. That spiteful old crone was guilty, but she was dead and nobody else could be connected to the double homicide. Derrick W.R. Dulande was still in the mumbling phase of recovery and in no way responsible for anything that his mother did.
“What a fucking family.
“I called Saul and Werner. It was hard to talk—I kept breaking down—but I told them they had to drop the case immediately. They protested until I explained what had happened to me, to my family. They believed in the case—in our cause—but there’re lots of causes and they didn’t want to die for this one. They still had families and lives to live.
“I felt so fucking helpless,” Alicia admitted, “like-like a baby thrown into the arctic.”
“I know,” said the inquisitor, nodding his barren head. There was genuine empathy in his voice and in his eyes.
“I had no family, no job, no belief in the law whatsoever, in society or anything. I needed to do something—something that was real and something that was substantial—or I would kill myself, end it all, because this fucking world is so awful. It’s a place where a company like Corpus Chrome, Incorporated can exist, presiding over life and death, and where people like the Dulandes can murder people from behind walls of money. I hated it. I hated it violently.”
The crystal cylinder shone blue.
“That’s why I’m here,” declared Alicia Martinez, eyeing the hairless man in gray.
“Many of the people in our organization share your hatred.”
Chapter XIII
Holy Shits
Awake for three minutes, Champ Sappline sat up on his malleable bed within the purloined kitchen below R.J. the Third’s bathroom. The garbage man yawned, stood, stretched, pulled his long blonde hair behind his ears, picked up a bottle of toothscrub, squirted two cubic centimeters into his mouth and swished the viscous paste around. Anti-plaque nanobrooms and fissure-sealing nanoplasterers prickled his teeth, tongue and gums until he spat the foam out into a mug, which rested upon the table that he had found last week on the sidewalk.
A knock upon the ceiling startled him. “You are going to get sandwiches with us or no?” the herpetology student inquired through the partially lifted trapdoor.
Champ looked out into the alley and exchanged glances with an unhappy brown and black turkey pigeon that was nestled beneath a fire escape landing on the opposite building, where spikes and razor wire adorned ladders and balconies, garnering bird corpses, gloves, rust and trash bags. (The war over there had been a “Class VI: Violent; Limited to Appendages” conflict for almost six years, according to R.J. the Third. Two people had lost fingers and one person had lost a hand and some toes [and because it was above Class III, the police were occasionally
involved.])
“You awake?” inquired the herpetology student. “It’s late and we leaving.”
“I’ll be up there in a minute,” said Champ. “I just woke up.”
“Muy bien.”
The trapdoor shut, and a moment later, the toilet flushed.
Champ, wearing jeans and a yellow t-shirt that read Available at a Discount, and the herpetology student, clothed in a turquoise vinyl outfit, followed R.J. the Third, resplendent in silver, down the stairs.
As they reached the fifth-floor landing, the popinjay halted and suggested with feigned nonchalance, “Let us linger for a moment.”
“I’m pretty hungry,” said Champ.
“Tengo hambre tambien.”
“I too have hunger,” R.J. the Third said, “but there is an opportunity here—a triumph to claim for the glory of floor six!” The fellow scratched his two-pronged goatee (grown a week ago so that he might “appear more intimidating to his enemies within the building”) and then tapped his index finger upon the three nose rings that adorned his right nostril. “Through the living-room floor,” he whispered, “I discerned the unmistakable tattoo of hard-soled shoes within the apartment below us. It is an established fact, that the enemy only dons such footwear when he intends to leave his dwelling.”
A wicked glimmer in his eyes, R.J. the Third cupped a hand beside his right ear. The reports of hard-soled shoes dimly echoed within one of the apartments.
“Hark!”
The fleximetal door marked 506 slid into the ground. From the open portal emerged a seventy-eight-year-old man in a plaid suit. The moment he saw the trio from the floor above, he shoved his hands—which were splattered with silver paint—into his pockets.
“I saw my mark upon thee!” said R.J. the Third, pointing derisively at the old man. “Thy hands show thee as an interloper! Thou art discomfited!”
Champ and the herpetology student pointed derisively at the old man; they did so unenthusiastically, yet remained respectful of war protocol.
The shamed septuagenarian retreated into his apartment.
“Victory,” R.J the Third cried, “and sandwiches!”
* * *
Champ and the herpetology student followed R.J. the Third into an erratic rain that smelled of algae, walked east for three blocks and proceeded north for two. The triumvirate circumvented a person who wielded a giant umbrella (to whom the popinjay said, “That’s dangerous and rude!”) and crossed an avenue by going between two raised stopwalls that dammed the foam-rubber traffic.
Soon, they arrived at a building façade that bore the name, “Sandwedish.”
R.J. the Third said, “Sponge!” to the living wall a moment before he plunged inside. To the right of the entrance, a drain tube shot the rainwater that it had claimed from the popinjay into the gutter. The tenants followed, calling out, “Sponge.” Nanodrones extricated rainwater from their hair, skin and garments as they transcended.
Smells of sautéed herring dominated the tea-green and teal establishment and elicited a growl from Champ’s stomach as he and the other sixth-floor victors passed benches, upon which dozens of people chewed, bit and clasped crispy savories.
“You have never dined at Sandwedish?” asked R.J. the Third, leading his tenants toward a counter that was shaped like a planetary ring, within which stood three men who looked as if they were Scandinavian and deadly serious about sandwiches.
“No,” said the garbage man.
The herpetology student shook her head.
“Fools!” proclaimed R.J. the Third, garnering more than a couple of glances from strangers. “The sandwiches here are life-changing. You have been wasting your lives. I pity you.” He shook his head dolorously. “I am glad Architect is oblivious of your negligence.”
“What do you recommend?’ asked Champ.
“The herring and lingonberries with horseradish paste on potato bread is superb and their signature dish. The deer sausage with rosemary-fennel sauerkraut, potato paste and rabbit jerky on a seeded pumpernickel loaf is a sandwich beyond—far beyond!—the adjectives of mortals.”
“I’ll get those,” replied Champ. “I’m hungry and they both sound good.”
“I am pleased by your decisions.” R.J. the Third then eyed the herpetology student and said, “The mushroom pâté with cornichons, pickled olives, caper berries and breaded shallots is what I recommend to you. Unless you plan on forgetting that vegetarian gimmick of yours.”
“I am vegetarian,” stated the woman.
“Vegetarians are bogus! Frauds! The history of the entire human race contradicts the herbivorous way.” The popinjay’s face was inflamed with the passion of the righteous. “The flesh-rending teeth that you used to utter that silly proclamation contradict such a choice in a most ironic manner. You may deprive yourself of meat in the stultifying vegetarian style, but you—as a member of genus homo erectus—are no more herbivorous than a person seated upon an airplane is a bird!”
“I am vegetarian.”
“It is fortunate for you—very fortunate!—that the mushroom pâté sandwich is terrific. My treat!”
R.J. the Third went to the counter. “Guten Tag, meine Freunde!”
“He once date a girl in New Queens who was vegetarian,” the herpetology student said to Champ. “He still angry at her.”
“Okay.”
R.J. the Third gesticulated histrionically as he placed his order—which seemed to be for no fewer than twelve sandwiches—and Champ contemplated for the twenty-fifth time in as many days whether or not he enjoyed the company of the grandiloquent jackass with whom he lived. A moment later, he was still undecided.
The herpetology student flicked her three-pronged tongue at a vacant table. “We sitting there,” she informed Champ.
“Sure.”
The tenants sat beside each other, and the woman’s vinyl outfit squeaked.
Champ’s opinions of the herpetology student were mostly positive. He appreciated her blunt manner and vibrant presence, and he thought that she was physically appealing, even though he knew that his attraction to her was not reciprocated. At a darkbar two weeks earlier, she had informed him that she did not like “blonde mens or mens with long hair or garbagemens or mens whose first names begin with the letter C.” (The odds really seemed to be against him here.) During the platonic evening that followed, he had learned what she did like: amphibians, reptiles, grappa and tall black men. By the end of the night, she had promised to set him up with a friend of hers, and he had accepted her pity.
“You sleeping late today,” the herpetology student said across the Sandwedish table. “You have the hangover?”
“I’m not hung over.”
“You was singing when you came in last night.”
“Was I?”
“Yes, you was. You no remember?”
“No.” Champ had gone out drinking with Mikek after they had stacked the garbage truck; the remainder of the evening was a wet watercolor memory. “Must’ve chewed ethanol-hydrate to prevent a hangover.”
“You are a drunk.”
“Drink enthusiast.”
(At the counter, R.J. the Third—for reasons unknown—was pantomiming the way a deer walks to one of the sullen sandwich makers.)
Champ asked, “What was I singing?”
“That song where it say, ‘I am waiting for you to come back’ over and over again, though you add some words about Candace and also some bad words.”
The garbage man dimly remembered the uncouth and embarrassing performance. “Was I good? At singing? Did I show promise?”
“You should stick to the jokes that make nobody laugh.”
R.J. the Third pushed a buoyed tray that supported five open sandwiches and seven vacuu
m-sealed specimens to the table. “Al is going to join us,” he announced.
The herpetology student took her mushroom pâté baguette from the ziggurat of sandwiches. “Gracias.”
“De nada, amigita.”
“Who’s Al?” asked Champ.
“He’s the senior vice president of my fan club.”
“You have a fan club?”
“There are currently four groups of R.J. the Third devotees, but Al’s group is the only one I have chosen to officially recognize. Sixty percent of the members are technically-proficient Negroes—that is my target audience—and one of them is my broker.”
“That’s helpful.”
The popinjay set a clear glass device upon the table, clicked a button on its circular base and said, “Connect to Al.” Pixels sprayed into the pyramidal stage and rendered the tiny bust of a plump black man who wore a t-shirt adorned with the officially licensed logo for The First and Final Rocket.
R.J. the Third double-clicked the base, and the pyramid began to rotate.
The tiny bust swiveled toward the popinjay. “Hello,” said Al, his voice clogged with phlegm.
“Hello, sycophant.” R.J. the Third pointed the tip of his herring-and-lingonberry sandwich at Champ and the herpetology student as if it were a rapier. “These distinguished masticators are my roommates.”
Al’s miniature face (and the lens beneath it) swiveled past Champ and the herpetology student and again faced R.J. the Third. “How come she’s got a shirt on?” he asked. “I thought you had a deal with her.”
“I do, but the deal only affects her apparel when we are inside the apartment.”
The herpetology student noisily crunched her sandwich in protest.
Corpus Chrome, Inc. Page 11
