by M. K. Gibson
“Cheers,” I said, puffing on my own.
“So, this is the mystery man, huh?”
I had forgotten the two of them had not met yet. “Yeah. Jensen, Father Grimm. Grimm, this is Jensen.” The two of them shook hands for longer than they should have. Then they both refused to be the first to let go. Aw hell.
“I’m not impressed,” Jensen said.
“Neither am I,” Grimm responded. The air was cold for a moment. The two of them had just met, but there was a tension that was tangible. They eventually let go of the prolonged handshake, but continued to stare one another down. Grimm’s gaze was unflinching and Jensen’s Neuro-visor betrayed no emotion.
“OK, awkward. When you two fellas are done with your big-dick competition, I’ll be inside getting a drink. Please let Ricky know we need to talk to him.” I walked past them and headed in. I didn’t bother waiting for Grimm. If those two wanted to out-macho one another, let them. Jensen was still butt-hurt following the Kitsune incident. Grimm, hell, I don’t know what was up his ass. Probably that he did not enjoy Jensen snooping into his past. But I really didn’t want to play peacemaker. Blessed they may be, it sucks balls to be stuck in the cross-fire between a cyborg bouncer and an immortal mage.
By this time of night, Dante’s was usually packed nuts-to-butts. But tonight it looked a little thin. Damn near anemic, really.
The music was blaring QuadCult at top levels. Imagine old-school dubstep mainlining adrenaline and gasoline, with power synth rhythm, four percussion artists, and a male industrial vocalist paired with a female goth songstress. They were one of the last bands to produce music during the first war. Our soldiers were amped on the stuff. Now when I hear it, no matter how fast the beat, it makes me a touch blue. With that little burn in my heart, I needed a drink to put out the fire.
I made my way to the center of Dante’s, where the Spinoli sisters were holding court. Tonight the sisters were a contrast in fire and ice. Theresa wore her hair in snow-white micro braids with a flame-red leather halter top and matching pants. Caitlin, however, wore a volt-blue color-shifting synth-skin bikini top and thong bottom. She had her hair in a sable bob. Modern pharmaceuticals and cosmetics let you change your appearance as easily as changing your mind.
That was the way of the new world. With no activist groups or religious ethics committees barring scientific endeavors, amazing modern marvels came into existence. And if advanced cosmetics was the byproduct of augmented stem cell research, so be it.
Theresa saw me coming and I gestured for a drink. She made my beloved whiskey sour.
“Thanks, ’Resa. How’s it going tonight?”
“Slow. Haven’t seen you in a while. You’re looking a little more rugged than usual.” I realized that basic grooming hadn’t been on my “to do” list for the last few weeks. I ran my hand over my head and my normally buzzed hair, which had grown out a little, as had my short beard. With the added bulk from Nicky T’s upgrade, I looked like a different man.
I had a sip of the drink Theresa poured for me. She made it the right way—medium ice, three fingers of whiskey, two splashes of sour and no fucking fruit. My inner cheeks began to salivate with the first tart taste. I thanked her for it. For just a moment the last few weeks were washed away. And then of course Caitlin had to ruin it.
“I never thought whiskey sours were very manly. Figures you like them,” Caitlin said as she came over to where I was sitting. Theresa gave her a look, but Caitlin ignored her.
“Cat,” I started, choosing my words carefully, “I always thought a girl who tried to brag about how much she could drink or how tough she was kind of sad.” I paused long enough to light a smoke, take another sip of my manly drink, and let my words soak in and sting.
“I figured those girls acted that way in order to compete in what they thought was a ‘man’s world,’” I continued. “And you, sweet Caitlin, are the queen of the Penis Envy Legion. So please, for once in your butch life, get railed by someone who makes you happy, drop the bravado, and act like a decent person.”
Theresa looked at me and took a slight step back. Obviously I had stepped over the line and Theresa wasn’t going to sit at ground zero. Caitlin swayed over to me, all sex and violence. Her biomechanical arm was glowing, warming up while several servos and actuators bristled. I could tell from her synth-skin bikini top that she was “excited.” She placed her elbows on the bar counter and got down low, nearly nose-to-nose with me, her ass swaying in the air.
“Salem, dear, are you volunteering for the job?” Caitlin purred.
“Cat, honey, I think you’d break me,” I said, being careful not to move too quickly. Caitlin was at heart a predator. Theresa kept her in check, but Cat was a different animal than her sister. And you don’t give a predator a reason to attack.
“Well, if you are not the man to end my ‘pathetic ways,’ then SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DRINK YOUR GODDAMN PUSSY DRINK!” Caitlin screamed, then stomped away to the other end of the bar. The heels she was stomping in made her exposed ass jiggle in that sexy, carnal way.
“Well, that was subtle,” I said. “You sure you two are sisters?” I asked Theresa.
“Oh hon, you knew better than fooling around with her that one time. This is your decision coming back to haunt you.”
“You’re just jealous,” I told Theresa.
“Maybe a little. All the fellas go after Cat.”
“I asked you out once, remember that?” I asked. “Actually, I asked you out first.”
“Yeah, and what happened when I turned you down? I played a little hard to get, and what happened?”
Ouch. Theresa was cutting close to the bone on this one. I remembered, all too well. She turned me down and I got drunk and slept with Caitlin. Finding out that she just wanted me to pursue her a little harder was kind of a kick in the nuts.
“’Resa, I…”
“Just drink your drink. That was then,” Theresa said, as she fixed me another. She put the fresh drink in front of me, and walked away also.
“Aren’t you on a roll tonight?” I heard Caitlin say from across the bar where she was serving another customer.
“Fuck off,” I said.
“Maybe later, bitch boy.”
I finished my drink with quiet grumbling and started the fresh one. This one was not up to Theresa’s usual standard; she must have used a different sour mix for this one. Well, booze is booze. Grimm was next to me. I hadn’t noticed him come up. I chalked this one up to the bar’s sound dampener and not Grimm’s super groovy spooky shuffle.
“Drink?” I asked.
“Sure. My guess is that Ricky will see us soon. I am sure he knows we are here. However—”
“However, Ricky moves at his own pace.” I gestured to the Spinolis and they ignored me. Well shit. Guess it was going to be that kind of night. I looked at Grimm and shrugged. I dropped a few credit coins, grabbed my drinks, and moved toward an open booth. It wasn’t hard tonight; the place was just kind of off. I saw some off-duty hellion police giving Grimm and me a look, so I gave them one back. They turned back to their drinks and their conversation in guttural Denochian. I don’t speak much of it—wrong biology to make the correct tones—but what I picked up sounded like Grimm and I were of interest to them.
We sat in the same booth where we’d first met. The sound dampener was still broken. A succcubai waitress came by in her thigh-high black patent leather boots and bra and took Grimm’s drink order. After she came back with his scotch, I felt the air around us pop as Grimm put up his own soundproof field.
“So, back here huh?” I said.
“Indeed. You seem to have come around, opening your eyes a little. At least, to your own purpose.”
“I don’t like purpose. Makes it sound like destiny. I prefer to believe we still have free will,” I replied.
“What good is free will without a sense of purpose?”
I didn’t feel like going round and round in a rhetorical argument. So I changed the subject.
“How do you know Ricky?” I asked.
“Rictus? I have known him for a long time. Before he was known as Rictus, and long before this land mass was ever known as America. And you?”
“I met Ricky toward the end of the first great Demon War. I was a soldier then, doing a little war profiteering on the side. Using the big trucks to start storing stuff in various caches even back then.”
I sipped my drink. “So anyway,” I continued, “I was doing a convoy run, munitions and supplies with my platoon, when a horde of hellions overran us. They had an Abomination with them. One of those giant walker types, before they were exiled.” I finished off my drink and took out a smoke. Before I lit it, I looked at Grimm. He just smiled and my smoke lit on its own. I took a deep pull. Thank God for regenerating lungs.
“You were saying?”
“So yeah, there we were along a supply line we thought was safe and this hellion cohort came out of nowhere. The Abomination came over the hill and flipped the lead Humvee. Hellions came rushing in after, tearing and slashing. The Abomination crushed another Humvee and it exploded, thankfully killing the stupid beast, but the blast knocked me and my crew unconscious. When I came to, they were already feeding on my buddies. They had made a cooking pit right there along the road. A fucking BBQ picnic for these clowns. I was next on the menu. I was still groggy and piecing myself back together.” I paused to suck on the ice of my empty drink and light another smoke. The succubae waitress dropped off another drink for me that I didn’t ask for, but obviously needed. Maybe an alcoholic apology from Theresa. It still tasted a touch off.
“As I was coming around, that’s when I saw Ricky for the first time. He moved so fast I could hardly make him out. He waded through the Hell legion like a surgeon. Guns, blades, and eventually fists. In no time he had slaughtered them all. When I finally got a good look at him, he looked like he does now. Short, stocky, shaved head and sunglasses. Even at night. He was wearing fatigues and a sleeveless workshirt. But he was covered in demon blood and smiling. He came up to me and said, ‘Well, aren’t you the lucky one.’ From then on, it was a very mutually beneficial friendship.”
“So I see.”
“So, who is Ricky? Really? It’s obvious you know,” I asked. I had never asked before. I wasn’t really sure I wanted to know.
“Rictus’s secrets are his own. They are not mine to divulge,” Grimm said, and I rolled my eyes.
Grimm only winked at me.
An imp flapped up to our booth and perched on the scaffolding above us. Grimm released the sound barrier. We could hear its high-pitched cackle.
“Rictus will see you now.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Old Days and Old Ways
Grimm and I stepped off the elevator at Ricky’s level. As we started walking toward Ricky’s door at the end of the corridor, Grimm turned to me.
“Oh, there was something I wanted to tell you about your friend Jensen,” he said.
“Now? You choose now to strike up a conversation about Jensen? You know we were just sitting in a booth five minutes ago?”
“Yes. However, you would not shut up. You just kept chattering on. I am beginning to think you have attention deficit disorder.”
“You’re an asshole,” I said, and Grimm chuckled. He sobered quickly.
“You know, I have a gift. I can always tell when people are lying.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, your friend Jensen told one lie when we spoke to him,” Grimm said.
That rattled me. Jensen was one of the closest things I had to a friend. I began to replay the conversation. Nothing stood out.
“Which part?” I asked.
“When he said it was good to see you. He is holding something back from you, I am afraid. Be careful.”
When we got to the end of the corridor, Ricky opened the door.
“Fellas, we need to talk.”
********
Grimm and I sat in very comfortable chairs at a long rectangular desk in a large dark room with wall-to-wall monitors. Hell, there were some on the ceiling. Power cables littered the place and it all smelled like an old moist basement with a strong hint of electrical current. Industrial AC vents were blowing hard to keep the computers cooled. In essence, I was freezing my nips off.
The room was adjacent to the small command center where I’d met Ricky a few weeks ago. The monitor feeds seemed to cover all of New Golgotha, at one point or another, flickering from place to place. It kind of gave me a headache to look at. Hell, it almost gave me a seizure. But the weird part was that in front of each monitor was a giant octopus in a tank. Their heads were neuro wired into the monitor feed and what looked like quantum hard drives. At the main control center was a man.
At least, it looked like a man. It was hard to see him past all the empty aluminum energy drink cans that littered the place and an ashtray that overflowed with old cigarette butts. The man was stocky, with short curly black hair, tattoos, and an old ball cap that read “Antihero.” The man had wires running from his head into various monitors and systems. And I was pretty sure he was also playing an old school MMO from back before G-Day.
“Hey, Ricky.” I held up my hands and gestured about the room. “What the fuck?”
“Grimm, Salem, this is The Field. He is my main Observer and Controller. He hacks the Ultra Net, and maintains cognizance and OPCON over my other eyes and ears.”
“Uhh, hi,” I said. The Field ignored me and continued monitoring… well, everything.
“Forgive him. He is very good at his job, but not much for small talk,” Ricky said. He pulled out a large black cigar and lit up. The thing reeked of expensive tobacco. A nauseating sweet stink.
“But why the squids?” I asked.
“Octopus,” The Field corrected. He spoke, not at me, just aloud. “Octopi brains, while not having the one billion small neurons humans have, do contain 500 million large neurons. They are endlessly curious, abhor boredom, and frankly, are bitchin’.”
“OK, sure. Calamari code jammers. Isn’t the most freakish thing I’ve seen. So, Ricky, we have some questions for you,” I said.
“I know. You want to know about the strike on Midheim, specifically who sent the order, who is searching you out, the use of soul power in demons and angels, and whether or not I am of a divine nature. Did I leave anything out?” Ricky asked.
“No, that about sums it up,” I said.
Ricky sat back in his chair and swiveled around and watched the monitors, as if ignoring the fact that he had just spoken to us. He seemed to bask in the glow of the feeds from all around NG. He puffed the cigar and watched.
“Rictus. Do you know the answers? Who attacked Midheim?” Grimm asked, his tone steady.
Ricky turned back to us, as if he had just remembered we were in the room. His ability to focus seemed to wax and wane. I hadn’t seen him this excited in some time. Like a child before Christmas.
“Ricky?!”
“Yes?” Ricky asked. His eyes came into focus. “Oh, yes, questions, questions. You have the questions and you seek my answers.”
“Rictus, what is wrong? You are not yourself,” Grimm said, his voice concerned. I tended to agree with Grimm. In all my time knowing Ricky, I’d seen him be aloof, like his mind was working in overdrive solving many things at once. But never this bad.
“Oh, dear old friend, nothing is wrong. Just the culmination of years of groundwork. Potent plans placed precariously. Shhh. Don’t you hear it? The sound of change is upon us. The creak of a breaking dam. The wail of the mother before birth. Oh yes, change is coming. You can almost taste it. Smell it.”
I gave Grimm a sideways look. He shook his head slightly. He obviously had no idea what Ricky was going on about. The Field never looked up from his monitors. Ricky continued his rambling.
“Oh yes, yes. Soon, very soon. They will know, they will tremble. They will remember the old days.”
Old days? What was this psycho babbling about? It was then t
hat I saw Father Grimm had gone a couple of shades paler than normal. I could sense his body heat rising. He knew something.
“The Old Days and Old Ways are long gone, Rictus. You know the Pact. You swore the oaths,” Grimm said feverishly.
“Bah, Pact, Pact, Pact. They broke the Pact first. They steal what cannot be given. They take what was never theirs to have. No, my Pact was to not directly interfere, and I have kept to that, as I always have. They started a game they cannot win, against an opponent they never truly faced.” Ricky was heated, his cigar was ablaze, and the room was acrid with the smoke.
I lit my own smoke just to fill my lungs with something fresher than Ricky’s cigar. “What the fuck are you two talking about?” I asked. I was getting a little annoyed that I was being ignored.
“Nothing that concerns you,” Grimm said tersely.
“Of course it does,” Ricky said. “Poor Salem, little pawn in a big game. You know why I chose you, don’t you? Why of all the people I know, I chose a self-loathing, cyborg, pack rat smuggler to be Grimm’s assistant? Because you were expendable. Formidable, yes. But ultimately something to be used and discarded. Like double-ply toilet paper. But then Grimm took a liking to you. A kindred spirit. I figured it was only a matter of time before you ladies started synching up your menses.”
Ricky’s words hurt. Fuck me, they hurt a lot. That arrogant prick all but admitted to using me to draw out some old enemy of his. I was a chess piece, a pawn. And I had been played.
“Oh, don’t look so hurt. You think people keep your acquaintance because they like you? Because you’re a swell guy? No, they keep you around because you have a knack for getting stuff. You are Templeton the rat from Charlotte’s Web. Vermin. Even Grimm here. How much has he really shared with you? Let me guess, he only told you just enough to keep you guessing. Just enough to keep you hanging on his next word. Scraps from a master’s table, and you gobbled up his bullshit like a good little hound, didn’t you?”
I wanted to vomit, or kick in his teeth. In over two hundred years, no one’s words had ever made me feel that weak, that low. He knew every button I had and he hit them. Hell, the motherfucker cut them open, poured in the salt and then pissed on them. My buttons were worn down to nubs. I started to stand, but Ricky came across the desk with alarming speed and slammed me back down. I felt a pressure against me and I could not move.
