Corpus Chrome, Inc.

by S. Craig Zahler

  “I’m sorry that your—”

  “Why haven’t you introduced us?” Osa asked with pain in the corners of her eyes. “Is she not interested in me at all?”

  “She said that she will meet you when she’s granted autonomy.”

  “I’m glad she’s so fucking enthusiastic.”

  “I wasn’t aware that you—”

  “You’re right. You’re not aware. You’re aware of what Ellenancy needs, and how well she can play goddamn scales on a lute, but I’m crying every night and you’re not aware.” Osa stood from the table. “I think this talk’s over. I got my answers.”

  “Please sit down,” said Lisanne, reaching for her mate.

  Osa batted her hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Please sit down. Please. We’re in the middle of a discussion.”

  “You are—not me. I knew it was gonna go like this, from the moment you got that call in New Orleans. She’s too big, and I’m just some Brooklyn City teacher you think’s pretty who you like to play with. In two months, you’ll have some other woman—or man—for a pet.”

  “That isn’t the case. I love y—”

  Osa turned away and thundered across the room.

  Mind and cheeks burning, Lisanne hastened after the woman in burgundy. “Bitte, stoppen Sie—stop! Osa, stop!”

  The tall beauty paused beside the couch and turned around. “What?”

  “You have blamed me for everything, but you are making this happen, too. I should have been more considerate of your feelings—yes—but you are not without fault. You said that you knew we were doomed since New Orleans, and to me, it was very apparent that you felt that way. You never gave us a chance to change.”

  Eyes filled with fire, Osa took a menacing step toward her mate. “I wasn’t gonna say this, but fine. Fine! The last time I was here—after we went to bed—I woke up in the middle of the night and was really upset about what was going on with us, and I started to cry. I couldn’t stop, I felt so goddamn awful. And you heard me—I know you did because you breathe different when you’re asleep—so the whole time I knew you were awake. Your lover, your mate, your friend is crying beside you for an hour, and you act like you’re asleep! I’m crying about us—about you—and you just lie there and fucking ignore me!”

  Osa slapped Lisanne.

  The room wobbled all around the petite blonde, and she stumbled backwards, toppling onto the couch, her right cheek aflame and her vision blurred.

  “That’s when I knew for sure how things were!” yelled the tall beauty. “And if you deny it, I’ll fucking choke you!”

  Ashamed of her own actions on the aforementioned evening and stunned by the violence, Lisanne said nothing.

  “Send my shit with a messenger service—I don’t ever want to see you again,” said the tall beauty, tears running down her face.

  Osa turned from her mate, strode up the hall, and passed through the living wall.

  Crackling nanobuilders removed her silhouette.

  Bright pains pricked Lisanne’s struck cheek, and her stomach roiled as if filled with coffee grounds. The hollow dizziness that was a combination of anger, regret, relief and grief was familiar to her from her other breakups, although it was somehow rawer and sadder in this instance. It was painfully clear to her that she and the tall beauty would have lasted as a couple for a very long time had her sister’s mind remained in cryonic storage.

  This contemplation made her weep openly.

  The woman sat with her hollow dizziness for two slow hours before she stood, walked to the bathroom, and took a long hot shower.

  * * *

  Clothed in a cashmere robe and refreshed, Lisanne walked to the dining room table and drank the glass of wine that Osa had earlier poured. As the floral fluid traveled down her esophagus, she thought of a name for the new composition that she had been working on with her sister.

  Into her lily vault recorder, the petite blonde said, “‘The Line That is Central to the Soul and Stronger Than All Radiating Spokes.’”

  Chapter XVII

  Saturday, August 31, 2058

  A raindrop fell from the clouds, passed its reflection in a turkey pigeon’s eye, struck the windshield of an airborne fire wagon, dripped from the vehicle, sped past the one hundred and fifty floors that comprised the Corpus Chrome, Incorporated Building, struck the brunette wig affixed to the shaved scalp of an anonymous female pawn, slid through follicles to the woman’s nape and descended the bumps of a protuberant spine to the small of her back.

  Today, Alicia Martinez would pay off her debt to the Brokers of Extralegal Acts.

  The widow watched the flying craft speed toward the ceremony that was being held in northern Nexus Y for the twenty-seven firemen and eleven police officers who had perished in the burning high-rise on Wednesday.

  Shortly after the fire, the ponytailed sixty-six-year-old Israeli American had called a meeting at the Pennsylvania compound. Elad had explained to the gathered pawns, “We will raid the Corpus Chrome, Incorporated Building on Saturday. Because of the funerals that afternoon, an unprecedented number of officers will have the day off and there are not likely to be any airborne riot wagon patrols, which are our primary concern for obvious reasons. The day will be cloudy, which also gives us a great advantage.

  “It is our organization’s hope that not one person will be killed during this raid…but if CCI employs violent force, so shall we.

  “Either way, on Saturday, the thirty-first of August, we will emancipate the resurrection technologies from the bonds of business.”

  A drop of rain spattered upon the tip of Alicia Martinez’s nose as she leaned against a U-shaped tree that grew in the park across the street from the Corpus Chrome, Incorporated Building.

  The widow double-tapped her lily and said, “Telephoto: five hundred.” In her left eye, the image dimmed, flashed and displayed glaring glass.

  She double-tapped her lily. “Telephoto; five hundred; polarize.” The glaring glass disappeared, and she saw into the lobby. Seated behind three inverted-pyramid marble desks at the rear of the lobby were six ethnically varied receptionists who wore sky-blue wool sweaters and slacks. To their right, a little chromium homunculus escorted a tall man toward a living wall, beyond which lay the impenetrable security gauntlet.

  The Asian and Indian receptionists were talking.

  Alicia double-tapped her lily. “Telephoto: two thousand; image auto-stabilize; read lips; convert to audio.”

  She waited for the remote computer to process all of her commands. Two seconds later, the mouth of the male Asian receptionist shone diaphanously in her left eye.

  A dry voice that was the remote computer’s default male timbre said in Alicia’s lily, “—don’t think so. She said that she wanted to get a cat, but I’m allergic to cats. And then she said that I was giving her an ultimatum. And I said if she already had a cat, and I told her to get rid of it, that would be an ultimatum, but her not buying a cat when—” The Asian man’s mouth stopped, and the computer voice halted.

  A moment later, the receptionist resumed his complaint, “She says she doesn’t want one of those hypoallergenics. She says they’re not natural and she wants natural, though she didn’t have any problem getting those tissue implants in her—”

  Alicia double-tapped her lily, said, “Natural view,” and saw clearly from both eyes.

  Heralds of a greater precipitation spattered upon her wig, a turkey pigeon’s beak, a garbage canister, a discarded mandolin string and an empty cylinder of peanut elephants.

  Upon her lily, Elad said, “Contact in two minutes.”

  Alicia looked up. The white sky was littered with dirty gray rags that were swollen rain clouds. From the aggregate of lazing tufts emerged a lone stratocumulus
that moved with the deliberateness of a shark.

  The widow looked back to the lobby, double-tapped her lily and said, “Telephoto: one thousand.” The Asian receptionist, oblivious of the coming storm, spoke to the woman who was seated beside him. Suddenly, the pair laughed.

  Alicia resented their mirth.

  In her ear, Elad said, “Contact in one minute.”

  A woman with a saccharine brogue said, “Unless you have priority information, leave the line open.”

  In the lobby, a guest was escorted through the living wall into the security gauntlet. Two drops of rain spattered upon Alicia’s wig, and underneath the porous adherent, her bare scalp sweated.

  A heavy shadow slid across the traffic.

  Alicia looked up. Overhead, the tip of the dark stratocumulus touched the top of the CCI Building. The widow could not see the vehicles that were hidden within the artificially generated cloud, but she knew that they were there.

  The lily in her ear was silent.

  Rain poked her shoulders.

  Alicia surveyed the lobby and the abutting areas, but saw nothing that concerned her. Again, she looked up. The top thirty floors of the Corpus Chrome, Incorporated Building were concealed by the dark gray stratocumulus.

  The widow felt a terrible dread.

  Something crackled.

  White explosions flashed within the dark gray mass. A piece of molten steel plummeted one hundred and twenty stories and impaled the trunk of a parked car.

  Two more explosions illuminated the stratocumulus. Green fluid dripped down the side of the chromium edifice like blood.

  Alicia surveyed the receptionists in the lobby. All six of them remained oblivious of the violence above.

  Again, the widow returned her attention to the unnatural cloud.

  Thirty pinpricks of yellow light crackled within the stratocumulus, and six large red flashes replied to the barrage. Suddenly, an object that glinted and weirdly wriggled dropped from the cloud.

  Alicia double-tapped her lily, said, “Telephoto: two thousand; auto-stabilize,” and turned her gaze to the plummeting thing. The lens dimmed for a moment and then brightened.

  “My god,” said the woman when she saw the thing that fell.

  In her left lens shone the magnified image of a headless quadrupedal black and chrome robotic construct that had eight arms, six of which terminated with revolving-barrel machine guns. Sparks and smoke trailed from a gaping wound in the machine’s chest.

  Seven of her peers (pawns in purloined military gear) plummeted from the cloud. Their smoking heads resembled burnt matches.

  The falling robotic construct crushed a parked car that was less than half its size, and nearby, the septet turned into red paste. Pedestrians fled the area.

  Alicia looked into the lobby. People with white worried eyes emerged from the living wall, hastened past the inverted-pyramid desks and exited the building.

  The widow double-tapped her lily. “Open line: they are evacuating the building.”

  Twenty pinpricks of light crackled within the cloud, and four red bursts replied. Somebody yelled half of a word on the open line and was silent thereafter.

  The intensity of the rainfall increased.

  Wet clothing clung to Alicia’s chafed skin. The woman had lost her appetite and more than twenty pounds since the night that she had seen the slug, and the dreadful thing that haunted her mirrors was a bald, emaciated creature that had loose teeth.

  Something exploded within the stratocumulus. The gaunt widow looked up.

  From the cloud fell a ten-limbed black and chrome robotic construct, which was orbited by three brilliant fire spheres. Two blue thrusters in the machine’s underside flashed, hissing, and sped it back to the obscure battle.

  Shortly after the metallic aggressor had returned to the stratocumulus, four men with heads like burnt matches fell from the sky and painted the pavement with their insides.

  A deep explosion resounded, and hasty evacuees yelled.

  One of Elad’s purloined military vehicles fell from the artificial cloud, three sundered thrusters trailing behind it like the cans from a newlyweds’ bumper. At street level, evacuees ran away from the plummeting craft’s shadow toward the park where Alicia safely observed the conflict.

  “Run, Mrs. Albren, run!” shouted a neatly bearded black man in tweed to a thin old woman who had once been beautiful.

  The vehicle smashed into the ground behind them and exploded. A spinning piece of metal shot from the wreckage and took the black man’s right arm from his shoulder. Groaning, he fell to his knees and clutched the wound with his remaining hand.

  Crimson ribbons drained between his fingers.

  “Mr. Johnson!” screamed the thin old woman, hysterical.

  “Go. Get out of—” were the last words that the man in tweed uttered before he fell to the ground and spilled his red life upon the pavement.

  Alicia Martinez stomped upon the spirit of compassion that threatened to make her useless.

  “We’re almost in,” announced the Irishwoman on the open line.

  Frightened people careened from the building, shouting and coughing and yelling. The Asian receptionist saw Alicia and said, “Run! Can’t you see what’s happening!”

  “My husband’s inside.”

  “Uh…he’ll come out,” said the fellow, who then continued his beeline.

  Men, women and mannequins hastened from the besieged skyscraper.

  Alicia double-tapped her lily and said, “Open line: full evacuation in progress.”

  A wind blew, and the rain fell aslant. Wet cloth rubbed upon the sharp points that were Alicia’s shoulders, elbows, hips and knees. Suddenly, she began to shiver.

  The gaunt widow double-tapped her lily and said, “Remote view: vanguard.” Her right eye received a visual transmission from a pawn who was seated within one of the stolen military vehicles.

  The man undid his pseudopodia, stood up, checked his razor gun, surveyed nine armored pawns, listened to what a red-headed woman said, nodded in affirmation, filed in line behind his peers, ran up a gangway, stepped over six corpses whose heads had been charred, strode through a nascent hole, splashed past a viridescent waterfall, scrambled down a rope ladder, landed upon his feet, pivoted and surveyed an enormous teal enclosure that accounted for fifteen floors of the building.

  Spherical lights illuminated the green fluid that leaked from the broken hoses and cracked chromium vats in the high ceiling, and drifting about the room were three dozen kidney-shaped chrome objects, each far larger than a truck.

  None of what Alicia saw through the man’s contact lens made any sense.

  “What the hell am I looking at?” somebody inquired on the lily’s open line.

  The pawn zoomed his lens at a wobbling chrome kidney. Green fluid dripped from a crack in its side.

  The Irishwoman said, “We need to get these to—”

  A black and chrome robotic construct dropped from the ceiling and landed upon the floor, fire spheres orbiting its sixteen arms. Somebody yelled.

  Pawns sprayed the construct with lava bolts. The defender flung flaming orbs at six pawns and instantaneously blackened their heads.

  An anonymous pawn said, “It’s gonna ki—”

  A missile sped into the enclosure.

  The man through whom Alicia saw the scene raised his hands in front of his face.

  Somebody yelled, “Don’t!”

  A thunderous explosion shook the building, and the image in Alicia’s eye went white. People screamed. Detritus, eleven burning pawns and two molten robotic constructs fell from the cloud and impacted the pavement.

  At that moment, Alicia knew for certain that the Corpus Chrome, In
corporated Building was going to be obliterated.

  The remaining evacuees bolted from the building as quickly as they could. Amongst them, she recognized three lawyers from the firm where she had once worked, including Morton Goldman. Alicia hid her face from her old mentor, who fled, panicked and bleeding.

  The stratocumulus lifted from the cylindrical edifice, revealing stories that bled green blood and exhaled black smoke through gaping holes. A few specks that were people clung to riven steel.

  Two sizzling missiles emerged from the artificial cloud and sped into the building. Thunder boomed. Windows spat scintillating glass, and boils erupted upon the chromium façade like a disease. A giant chrome kidney arced from the structure, plummeted one hundred and forty stories and flattened a box truck.

  Alicia looked at the lobby and saw that it was empty. Beside one of the inverted-pyramid desks laid a dead elderly man, his hands clutched to his failed heart.

  The gaunt widow double-tapped her lily. “The lobby is clear.”

  She knew what would happen next.

  Nine missiles shot into the Corpus Chrome, Incorporated Building’s open, smoking wounds. White fire overpowered retinas, and the world shook. Warts and pustules ran up and down the façade.