I only barely paid attention to her. I wanted to keep my eye on the Rasceta kid.
“I said, do you have a child here? Sir?”
When I looked at her, at her fat rubbery face, I almost said something vile but noticed the lineup standing at her back, all in pecking order. Suddenly I didn’t feel as inconspicuous as I’d hoped. Even the kids had slowed their games to watch me…except for that Rasceta kid. He didn’t do anything at all but stare. Things were suddenly worse.
“Why are you looking at our children? Who are you?”
“I’m just relaxing in the park, lady.” I hoped my indignation allayed their suspicions. The Rasceta kid went back to playing, but it was calculated. He wasn’t watching me directly but he knew exactly what was going on.
“I’m not relaxing until you tell me your name and why you’re watching these children.”
“Goddamn it, will you back off? I didn’t—”
“I will not back off,” she said, and I knew I’d slipped, that I’d made too much of a spectacle of myself. It was time to get gone.
“Fine, fine. I’m leaving, see?” I held my hands up and turned to walk away. She clamped down on my arm to stop me while her hens advanced.
“Oh no, you don’t. Not until the police get here.”
This wasn’t going to end well for anyone. Especially anyone around that Rasceta kid when he started feeling murderous again. I had to make a choice: fight now or fight another day. As usual, it wasn’t much of a choice at all.
I have many faults, but not being aware of all the tools at my disposal isn’t one of them. I know what I can do and I have a good sense of how far I can push things. This woman who was grabbing my arm, for instance: I knew how far I could push her. I could push her right the hell over. She was a sight, falling backward after I shoved her, throwing her into the grass and dirt, stunned like I’d just slapped her across the face. It shut her up, and her hens too. Long enough for me to hightail it out of there, but not before I gave them all the stink eye. I hoped it would be enough to buy me some time. I didn’t know for certain if they’d called the police when they said they had, but if they hadn’t they sure were going to once I was out of sight, so I had to make myself scarce until things blew over. It was back to the bushes for some cover. My home away from home.
Things were a mess, and I wasn’t sure why I was bothering. No one had asked for my help; even if Rasceta had, it wouldn’t exactly have done much for him or his wife. I wasn’t completely sure what their kid was, but I suspected it was what I like to call a cuckoo situation – something had managed to finagle a flesh-and-blood suit and use it to infiltrate this world. It was probably just biding its time, and my unfortunate appearance caused it to escalate its plans. That, or once again I was in the wrong place at the right time. If I were smart, I’d have left Collingwood right then and there. I was already a suspected thief. Last thing I needed was to be accused of being a child molester, too. I needed to get back home. I even missed Detective McCray, that righteous bastard. But I couldn’t do it; I had to stay. If not to keep that thing from destroying Collingwood, and afterward probably the world, then at least to satisfy my curiosity.
Two things happen when you hide out in bushes for a long period of time, listening to sirens and chatter from somewhere outside your vision. First, you get bored. I used to carry a paperback in my pocket to read when I was just sitting around doing nothing, but I’d read everything I really wanted to read and couldn’t find anything new. It was all just trash, really. Instead, I ended up drawing over the tattoos on my arm with the stem of a leaf. For some reason, tracing those wards relaxed me. That led to the second thing: you fall asleep. I’m not quite sure when I slipped out, but I know when I woke up. It was when I was being dragged into the open by the scruff of my coat.
It took me a few seconds to figure out what was going on wasn’t good; by then I had received a few kicks to the ribs to clue me in. Around me stood a circle of men, screaming at me to stay out of their neighbourhood. For a brief moment I wondered if I could suck my way out of the situation, but I didn’t think they would go for it in front of each other. So instead, I rolled up into a ball and tried to cover my face and my balls. I didn’t get kicked more than a few more times though, and when it stopped everything went quiet. So quiet that I didn’t really want to uncover my eyes and see why. But I did, because I realized that was exactly what I wanted. One of my eyes was already swelling shut, so it wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped, and I hurt like a son of a bitch, but I managed to stand up and look at what awaited me on the lawn: about a dozen men, all lying in pieces on their backs, dead eyes wide, staring at the empty sky.
Across the lawn, I saw the Rasceta kid. He was crouched down over one of the bodies, doing something to it I had no desire to see up close. His tiny arms were covered in gore, but not nearly as much as his face. For a second, I forgot that beneath that little boy suit was something old and soulless, until he looked at me with a gaze that made my nuts crawl up into my chest. He ran right at me, those smiling teeth getting sharper with every step.
Imagine being charged at by a vicious dog. Then imagine something worse, all long teeth and crazy eyes. The kid was practically on four legs and moving quicker than he had any right to. He leapt at me – and my brain finally kicked in and my closed fist connected with the side of the kid’s face. He fell, but it only knocked him off balance temporarily; I’d done no real damage. So I dropped down and wrapped my hands around his blood-caked throat. His jaws opened and closed, revealing at least three rows of the craziest teeth I’d ever seen; his tongue darted out, short but seriously forked. His eyes were cloudy to the point of white, but they focused on me while I struggled to stay on him, although not at the same time. Like a lizard’s, those eyes moved independently of one another, while the kid hissed and spat and tried to push me over. I felt the muscles in his neck as I squeezed – they were like rock. I couldn’t even dig my thumbs into them, which did not bode well. There was nothing I could do to contain the kid and yet I was stuck on top of him. If I let go and ran, how far would I get? No more than a few feet before he tore me open. If I stayed, could I really outlast him? Already my strength was leaving me, but his bucking and thrashing did not seem to be slowing down. I’d put myself in bad trouble and I had to quickly figure out a plan to get out of it. Otherwise, I was going to end up on the menu. But I didn’t need to bother worrying; the kid’s bucking made the decision for me. With a final jump, he threw me into the air and I careened forward over the dead men on the ground. The kid watched me like a hunting dog watching a wounded duck.
I was better prepared when he charged at me again. I’d already removed my coat and when he got close, I tangled him in it, then dropped him to the ground. He was strong, but I didn’t need to hold him forever. Just long enough to cinch the belt tight and form a makeshift straightjacket. He still bucked with unheard-of strength, so I put my knees right into his ribs, where I knew they’d be weakest, and put all my weight down on them. I heard the thing’s muffled screams as it died in agony, shattered bone cutting though flesh like a thousand razor blades. Beneath me, my coat turned the darkest shade of red, and though the bucking stopped, the gurgling didn’t. It took the kid a lot longer to die than I expected, even after I jumped on his chest a few times to make sure, digging my knees in deeper with every jump. Eventually, I had to stand to prevent a cramp, so I stomped his head a bit. That ended things a lot quicker.
I wiped my forehead. There was no way I was getting my coat back. I reached in the pockets and took out whatever I could. The rest couldn’t identify me anyway. Still, to be safe, I lit the kid on fire. Then, for kicks, I took off the pants of some of the dead guys lying there. I figured it was better for all involved if it looked like some crazy circle jerk that had gone horribly wrong. At least people would understand that. I felt bad for them, but I felt worse for Rasceta. He hadn’t wanted my help, and in the end it probably got him killed sooner. At least I did a favour for the rest
of the people in Collingwood. They’d never know it, but I saved their lives. More or less. Still, I wasn’t going to wait around for a ticker-tape parade. Instead, I got myself to the station as quickly as I could and then caught the first bus out of there. It wasn’t until I saw the WELCOME TO COLLINGWOOD sign fading in the rear window that I began to calm down. To be on the safe side, I needed to lie low for a while. I checked my pocket for the rest of my money before realizing I’d left whatever I had in my coat pocket, the same coat I’d burned along with the kid.
I knew a way I could make some more cash, at least enough for a room at the YMCA. This time I vowed: no more small talk. It wouldn’t be the last time I had to remind myself of that. I ought to get it tattooed across my fucking chest.
ROOKER
Laird Long
It was a dive off B Street. A dingy, dirty bar filled with sweaty, stinking men yelling and laughing and swearing, drinking copiously. Where there’s water, there’s booze.
Voltumus had plenty of water, deep beneath its sunseared surface. Thanks to an ancient ice age that had long ago melted into the planet’s cracks and crevices. And now Voltumus had plenty of “drips,” the roughnecks shipped out from Earth to drill and pipe and tank the cool, crystal-clear water, barge it back to an increasingly parched home planet. Watertown was the centre of it all, a boomtown in the middle of a vast and desolate nowhere, a rugged oasis.
My drip, Kit Misker, was crowded up against the brass-railed bar that ran the length of one side of the stifling room. He was shoulder-to-shoulder with other broad-shouldered cohorts, yet strangely alone. He’d take a sip from his shot glass, then fling the lethal moon mash down his throat. Like he was building up the courage to do something out of character, perhaps out of bounds.
I watched him from a tiny round table in the corner. My table rocked with the bodies of men stumbling or shoving against it, so I held my drink in my hand, untouched.
Misker finally set his latest empty shot glass down and pushed away from the bar. He elbowed his way through the raucous throng, to the saloon-style swing doors, out into the night. I followed, getting challenged to more than one fight as I muscled my way clear of the room. Voltumus was a hostile environment.
The street was almost as packed as the bar. It was Saturday, pay had been distributed, and the drips were sloshing their money around before they returned to the dunes and the underground on Monday. Misker made his way along B Street to the canopied entrance of the Hotel Largo. He glanced right, left, stared straight ahead at the heavy, frosted glass doors.
The Hotel Largo was five storeys of sandstone brick and pulsing pleasure. The ground floor was lit up neon-bright and noisy, the other floors sporting shade-drawn windows that leaked just a little light, but throbbed with excitement. It was a brothel, thirty rookers or so inside to choose from.
I leaned against an undertaker’s storefront window and waited for Misker to make his move, one way or the other. He at last gulped his protruding Adam’s apple and walked forward, pushed through the front doors of the brothel.
“Pleasure dreams,” I murmured, mouthing the Hotel Largo’s blazing red signage.
I cooled my heels while Misker heated his loins. I’d have to break the bad news to his jealous wife back on Earth. She’d hired me to find out if her drip was cheating on her way out in the galactic wastelands. And she hadn’t differentiated between real women, of which there were few, and rookers, of which there were more. She was the possessive type, a rooker as good, or bad, as the real thing.
For most, it was a fine line: was having sex with a robot-hooker actually cheating? They weren’t humans, after all, just shrewdly crafted along those lines. I pulled a deck of cigs out of my jacket pocket, shook one out, getting all philosophical. Never a wise thing to do in Watertown.
Sure enough, a beefy hand slapped my cig away, another huge mitt jarring the deck down to the ground. My arms were clasped in twin vises. “Tony Galanto wants to see you, Diamond,” one of the thugs growled.
They were big men, even for Watertown. They walked me over to a vehicle waiting by the curb, and we all got in as a threesome.
“I’m not swilling enough moon at Tony Galanto’s joints, that it?” I cracked, when the vehicle hit zoom.
Their faces were as cool and blank as the sky.
“I don’t give a damn what your business is! You’re working for me now!” Tony Galanto jabbed a sausage finger down at me for emphasis, blowing smoke and garlic.
The notorious business, brothel, and bargain game owner-operator towered over me in my chair. His round face was filmed with grease and sweat, like everything he touched, his corpulent body encased in a tuxedo that strained its stitching and his credibility.
“You don’t have any right to hijack me off the street and into your operations,” I protested. “I—”
“Shut your hole! Two-bit gumshoes don’t tell me what I can’t do – not on this or any planet!” His beady blue eyes glared down at me out of his fat-laden face.
I sat back in the chair, waited. At least I was still alive. Many of those called upon for conference with the galactic gangster never surfaced again, or so I’d heard. The sands of Voltumus ran deep.
Galanto barked, “One of my rookers’ been stole!”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Ebony. Cost me a cool million! The latest and greatest model – fully functional.” He gestured obscenely with his hands. “I can’t get a replacement from Earth for another six months. I’d use the missus but, unfortunately, she’s a real woman.” He hacked out a phlegmy laugh.
Prostitution was legal on Voltumus, but only if robots were employed.
“What do you—”
“I want you to find Ebony, get her back! Then I’ll take care of the asswipes who stole her.” He turned and rumbled around his desk, sat down in his shiny brown leather chair in a whoosh of stale air. “I hear you’re pretty good at jobs like that. And since you was on Voltumus anyway…” He hefted his ham hocks and grinned.
“Who do you—”
“Bim Starrett or Sedge Mackey. They run the other joy houses in town.” He pursed his mouthflaps. “Tough part’s going to be making sure it’s her. See, with these newer models, you can easily change their eyes and hair and skin. Their tit size, too, of course. Even their body shape and length.”
He grunted, his pig’s eyes gleaming with obvious fond remembrances of Ebony. Then he pointed at me again. “But that’s your job – to figure out how to find her and get her back. Hedge’ll help you.”
He looked at the screen on his desk. Our meeting was over.
Hedge was a house mechanic. Every brothel had one – a computer and mechanical whiz who kept the machinery of commerce functioning, maintaining and repairing rookers. Some of the customers could be a little rough on the merchandise, and there was always normal wear and tear.
Tony Galanto’s number one mechanic was a gnarled gnome of a man with a twisted grin. “Maybe you should test drive ’em all, huh?” he quipped. “There’re only about five hundred spread out in fifteen different houses.”
“Did Ebony have any tells? Pull to the right or anything like that?”
Hedge chortled. “Naw. That’s old-school, early-model. Ebony had eight distinct personalities, from shy to sultry, all designed to give pleasure. She didn’t have any flaws.”
That was the thing about rookers, the way they were built: their personalities had to be friendly, accommodating. They couldn’t pout or mope or get angry or murderous. In that respect, they weren’t like real women at all.
I glanced around Hedge’s workshop. It was in the basement of Tony Galanto’s brothel on F Street, the Okay! Corral. The claustrophobic room was cluttered with computers and tools, pornographic holograms projected all over the place. Against one wall, six rookers were lined up, five females and one male, naked and turned off. Their unseeing eyes glittered obscenely in the light, their bodies shining so.
Hedge scuttled over to an ivory-skinned, big-breas
ted brunette with wide violet eyes and lips as red and plush as rose petals. He grinned perversely at me, then pointed and clicked a remote control. The rooker shuddered to life, her long, dark eyelashes fluttering and sensual mouth opening, her body softening, breathing.
Hedge’s stumpy fingers danced on the remote, and the rooker’s hair went from black to blond to red, long to short, eyes brown and then blue, skin pale to olive to black, breasts pumping up huge, body rising up taller. “You’ll never find Ebony,” the mechanic drooled. “Their Business Identification Numbers are easily removed and replaced. That’s so they can be easily stolen – so the manufacturers can sell more units. But their software – what really runs them – is proprietary, of course.” He frowned like a petulant teenager. “Even I can’t hack into it, to make ’em really unique.”
The rooker was now caressing Hedge’s face, and other working parts due south.
“We’re going to have to wait for them to steal another one, then,” I grated.
Hedge looked at me, his expression sublime. “What’ll that accomplish?”
“In the old West it was called rustling. Know how they stopped it?”
Hedge nestled into the rooker’s arms, settling his head down on her rising and falling breasts. “Hanging?”
“Branding.”
Two weeks after I’d been shanghaied by Tony Galanto, another of his rookers turned up missing: Angelica, a blue-eyed pixie-faced blonde. Also going missing at the same time, perhaps coincidentally but probably not, was Galanto’s wife.
I went on the prowl.
The Filly Ranch was located on the outskirts of Watertown, where the dust met the desert. It was one of Sedge Mackey’s brothels. The western motif shot straight through to the white cowgirl hats the rookers wore, the silver six-shooters slung seductively from their bare hips.
Clementine was a bubbly, fun-loving redhead. I crowded her up against a wall of our pen on the second floor before she even had a chance to unlatch her chaps and unholster my gun. I thrust my tongue into her open mouth and swirled it around inside, scouring her gums in back of her front teeth with the curled tip of my sticker. My oral explorations yielded no small T.
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