Stake glanced down at the Ha Jiin boy. His grin appeared wider.
“We all three of us were crying, very quietly so no one would hear us. Not the enemy. And not our friends.”
“But we did hear you,” the Ha Jiin broke in. “And we were watching you. And the woman had you in her sights all that time. Her finger on the trigger.”
Stake turned to him, not daring to believe it. “She could have killed them?”
“More easily than she killed your two officers, and the two other men you were weeping for.” He tipped his chin at Henderson. “But she waited. And waited. I looked at her. She let her gun down. I motioned to her – shoot them, shoot them. But she wouldn’t. And when I tried to point my gun, she put her hand on my arm. She made me pull away with her. And I obeyed her.”
“Why?”
“I had to obey her. She is higher in rank.”
“No, I mean, why didn’t she kill my men when she had the chance?”
“Why? Because she is a woman.” He snorted. “She was strong when she was killing you from a distance, but she became soft when she was close enough to smell your tears.”
Stake looked away then, as if he could see the Earth Killer through the walls that separated them. “She showed my men mercy, because they were defenseless just then. And because their loss touched her,” he said. “That makes her human, not weak.”
“Human, like you? She is fighting to keep our nation whole! She is fighting against demons that step into our world out of the air, from some hell we can not see! She kills your officers and soldiers, and then spares the men who weep over those same dead men? She is a traitor. And someday I will be back with my own people, whether it takes me a year or ten years. And I will report her to my superiors as the traitor she is!”
Stake lunged forward then, and stood over the boy, and pointed the sidearm he had ripped out of its holster. Pointed it down at the surprised hole where those bright teeth had been gleaming seconds earlier. “Who’s soft now, huh? You’ll be smelling your own tears in a minute. Probably your piss, too.”
“Sir,” Henderson said.
“Don’t,” the young man blubbered, shielding his face ineffectively with one hand.
Stake backed off slowly, and returned his jungle-blue pistol to its holster. “You owe that woman your ass, punk, whether you want to admit it or not.” He turned to leave the room. “Come on, Henderson.”
Returning to the Earth Killer’s cell, Stake found its door standing wide open. The room was empty. For a moment, his eyes went wild, but one of his men close by told him that Privates Martin and Devereux had taken the woman to clean herself up. Stake himself had given his people orders to allow her this. He headed toward the single large room where the monks cared for themselves. There, he found the two Colonial soldiers posted outside the open door. He heard water splashing against a body inside, but didn’t see her from this angle.
“I was talking to the male prisoner,” Stake said to the unit’s only female. “Good job using your womanly wiles, Martin.”
Private Martin nodded. “I’ll try to find out anything else significant. He hates our guts, but it looks like he wouldn’t mind bedding down with an Earth woman if he had a chance.”
“Speaking of womanly wiles, sir,” Devereux spoke up, “some of us are getting concerned about you and this woman. The past couple of days you’ve been in there with her more than out here with us.”
“Don’t worry about what I do, Private.”
“I worry because you’re our commanding officer now – Corporal. And you’re our commanding officer because that woman in there killed Babouris and Lindy. Is that so easy to forget, just because she’s beautiful?”
“I haven’t forgotten that. But did you know that woman spared your life a few days ago?”
“Martin told me. I don’t believe it. Yes, we were reading letters in the clearing. Looking at pictures of Lindy’s kids: a boy, five; a girl, two. Who’ll never see their dad again, because that woman shot his face off. If you ask me, she didn’t kill us just then because she thought it would draw too much fire, and her partner was already wounded. Not because she felt sorry for us.”
“Believe what you want to believe.”
“I will. And I believe you’re fraternizing with the enemy. Or is that sodomizing the enemy?”
“You will show me respect, Private!” Stake roared. He thought he could hear the Earth Killer tense her body motionless, just then, as she listened to them in the next room.
“When we get out of here, you may find yourself reported, Corporal.”
“If you do get out of here, you’ll have that woman to thank for it.”
“Yeah?” He smirked. “Like I say, it isn’t just me who isn’t too happy about how chummy you are with her. You know, you can’t be with her every minute, as much as you might like that. And who knows; she might just try to escape. One of us might just have to shoot her in the back.”
Stake stepped closer, until his face was inches from the other man’s face. So close, that his features were starting to mold themselves into Devereux’s angry reflection. “If someone makes that serious mistake, they might find themselves shot, too. In the front.”
Martin put a hand on Devereux’s shoulder. “You better do as the Corporal says. No one has witnessed any improper behavior. We have to stick together, here. The Ha Jiin could move on this position at any time.”
Stake’s compack beeped just then. It was affixed to his belt, and he glanced down at it. “I’m going to take this call. See that woman safely back to her quarters when she’s done, and get her some food.” He then stalked off with Henderson in tow.
Stake detached the little computer and thumbed it on in front of his face. Another man’s visage appeared on its little screen. That visage was covered in a camouflage of blue patches, ranging from pastel to indigo. But the camouflage was not makeup, Stake knew, nor was it even tattooing. It was the man’s natural coloration, if natural were the right word. Stake understood straight away that he was looking at a clone. Many of the Colonial Forces infantrymen were copies cloned from belf masters – soldiers bio-engineered to be better fighters. Stronger, hardier, with enhanced hearing and vision, and in this case better equipped to blend into their surroundings. Since the Earth Colonies had only been involved in the so-called Blue War for three years at this point, the man’s blue-based camouflage meant that this clone was probably only a year or two old. And yet, a moment later Stake realized that this being outranked him.
“Corporal Stake? I’m Sergeant Adams, of the 5th Advance Rangers. We’re the men headed to rendezvous with you at the enemy temple.”
“Yes, sir. Good to talk with you, Sergeant,” Stake said. In reality, though, he was always wary when dealing with clones. They tended to be grouped into their own units, and so there was often resentment or even hostility between them and the “birther” soldiers, as the clones had nicknamed men like Stake. The birther men felt superior for not being a mass-produced product. The clones felt superior knowing that they were, in general, the better warriors. Stake tried not to fall into childish tribalism and counterproductive rivalry, as so many others did, but it was easy to get swept up in it when the derision was directed one’s own way.
“Stake, we’re in the Kae Ta Valley and things are a bit intense down here.” In fact, Stake could hear a distant crackling of gunfire in the background. “I estimate we’re going to be a few days behind in merging our unit with yours.”
“Understood, sir. We’ll continue to hold this position until you arrive, or until we receive new orders.”
“Good man. Hey – we heard you caught the Earth Killer. Nice work, Corporal.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Got to run. Places to go, people to kill. I’ll get back to you ASAP.”
“Thanks, Sergeant.” The man’s patterned face vanished from his compack’s screen, and he returned it to his belt.
A short while later, the soldiers ate some dinner and sett
led in, restlessly listening to the sounds of the darkening jungle as diurnal animals made way for nocturnal. Stake stole back toward the room in which Thi Gonh was kept. There, he found Devereux posted outside. The man looked agitated when he saw Stake coming toward him.
“Go get Martin to replace you,” Stake told him harshly. “I don’t want you guarding this woman anymore.”
“Okay, sir,” Devereux stammered, sounding strangely less cocky all of a sudden, “but why don’t you go get Martin, and I’ll wait here until...”
Beyond the thick door, Stake heard a muffled voice. A man’s.
He pushed past Devereux, threw the glossy blue door open.
The Earth Killer lay on her belly on the mattress, her face squashed against it in profile. She was naked, and so was the man lying across her back. Private Cortez had his pistol in his fist, and he kept its muzzle pressed against the blue woman’s skull. Hearing the door open, Cortez had raised his head. “Dung,” he hissed. Thi Gonh opened her eyes.
The tip of Stake’s boot caught the Earth soldier under the jaw. He then descended on Cortez with his fist. When he had rolled Cortez’s moaning hulk off the small woman, Stake stomped him between the legs, and then on the face. He heard his nose break. Blood sparkled on his boot.
“Stop it!” Devereux shouted, trying to grab at Stake from behind.
Stake’s pistol smashed across Devereux’s jaw in an arc as he tore it out of its holster. He then aimed the weapon at the stunned soldier’s face. Blood started to run into the palm Devereux clamped over his mouth. Cortez’s faraway moans sounded like he was having some terrible nightmare.
“Anyone touches this woman again, I will kill them. I will...absolutely...kill them.”
“She’s using you!” Devereux sobbed. “She doesn’t give a blast about you, or me, or any of us! She’d kill us all if she could!”
“Get out of here. And take your friend to the medic, before I decide to shoot his stinking jewels off.”
Devereux dragged Cortez’s nude body from the room, leaving a swath of blood. And Stake turned to look down at the prisoner. She had pulled her clothing to her, but held it balled up in front of her in clenched fists. For the first time, he saw her eyes were moist with tears that she was fighting to restrain. For the first time, she revealed to Stake that she knew some words of English, after all.
“T’ank you, Ga Noh,” she said in her dark voice. “T’ank you, take care, take care of me.”
Ga Noh. He remembered it now. Henderson had told Stake she’d referred to him this way, after seeing his face change the first time. Ga Noh was something like a chimera or a shapeshifter. A mystical kind of being; part human, part god. Maybe good, maybe evil.
“I’m sorry,” he told her.
She held her hand out to him. He stared at it.
Using you, Devereux had said. Only using you.
Why had he found himself attracted to her, even before he’d learned that she had spared three of his men? Was it indeed just her beauty blinding him? Was the shapeshifting mutant so desperate for the attentions of a woman? Any woman? He felt a moment of contempt for her. Contempt for himself.
And then he took her hand.
***
Private investigator Jeremy Stake awoke to find that Buddy Balloon had been replaced by a late night talk show. A naked starlet sat giggling in the interviewee chair, luminous green tattoos twined around her overly large breasts like the vines of pumpkins. He turned his head to see that Yuki Fukuda’s biology teacher, Janice Poole, had dozed off in her purple silk robe beside him. He stared at her profile for a few moments. Private Devereux had been dead for ten years now – killed the first day that Stake’s unit and the cloned Rangers ventured out from the monastery together – but his words still echoed in Stake’s mind. Using you.
He stole out of bed, gathered up his clothing. He was afraid that the sound of showering would rouse Janice, but this was not so much out of consideration for her. He just slipped into his things, buckled on his gun’s holster, and stepped out into the chill of Punktown’s night.
TEN: THE FRIEND
“I saw an elephant, Mom!” the little Choom boy said to his mother as she pulled him along the sidewalk, away from the mouth of the alley he was pointing into. It wasn’t good to linger too close to alleys in Punktown, whether above or down here in the sector called Subtown, lest one be pulled inside that alley by a mugger or rapist, drug addict or addled homeless person.
The homeless person leaned forward out of the shadows a bit, watching the child point back at him. The boy’s words meant nothing to him. He did not know he was being confused with an animal that the boy had an inaccurate understanding of, but which the homeless person did resemble in the most superficial of ways. For one thing, he had grown larger. He was taller now than most of the people he saw on the streets. This made them look at him more. That was why he preferred to venture out of the maze of alleys only when the lights in the concrete sky dimmed and artificial night fell over the twinned, shadow city of Subtown.
He turned away from the mouth of the alley, which teased him with its view of the lively bustle of traffic and people. People who, unlike him, seemed to know exactly where they were going. No, he turned the other way, deeper into the network of passageways behind and between the squat buildings that rose from the cavern’s floor like stalagmites.
Behind an atypically wider structure called Fallon Waste Management Systems, the homeless person ducked beneath some thick pipes that ran out of the building’s flank and curved to disappear into the floor of the back lot like gigantic tree roots that had nourished the building’s growth. He passed through a gust of warm air blowing out of a huge fan behind a protective grille. There was something of a grotto back here that he hadn’t chanced upon before. It looked very promising as a shelter, though the fan made the climate-controlled air warmer than he liked.
There were more pipes of varying thickness; a nest of them. Red valves locked inside clear plastic security boxes. Nevertheless, steam hissed out of leaks here and there. The homeless person had to get down on hands and knees to proceed deeper, and at last he came upon a little bower made from these pipes and a projection of the building that formed a corner. He discerned two eyes, brightly reflecting the light back at him, watching him approach. At first, when he noticed these eyes, the homeless person paused. But then he understood that this was one of those metal people he saw on occasion. He did not know words like automaton or robot, but he could comprehend that it was a creature not quite alive like himself. Usually they were moving. This one didn’t move at all, and looked to be missing some of its parts. Though he knew these metal people were not alive, he also suspected that this one had in its way crawled into this hidden nest to die.
As the homeless person drew nearer to the robot, it spoke to him in a wary, shaky voice. “Who is that? What do you want?” it demanded.
The homeless person froze, confused. When another being poked its head out from behind the dead robot he realized that he had been mistaken, but he still did not know whether to withdraw, or wait for the hidden person to say more. Before he could do anything else, the person spoke again. More of her came into view, also. She was a woman, with matted yellowish-white hair, a wool hat pulled down over it. In one blue-veined fist she gripped a piece of pipe. Or maybe it was a piece of the robot she hid behind.
“This is my place. Can’t you see that?” she rasped at him. Then, her nervous face twisted in an exaggerated expression of befuddlement. “What the hell are you? A mutant?”
He had heard that word used about him before, when people saw him on the street. The word didn’t have the excited wonderment of the word “elephant” that the little boy had uttered.
The woman took in the homeless person’s frayed, dirty poncho fashioned from a blue plastic tarp. “You’re like me, huh?” she grumbled. “No place else to go?”
He didn’t move. He was timid, because her voice was harsh and she still held that pipe, although she
probably weighed as much as one of his stout limbs.
“I used to have a place, a nice place!” she blurted, as if accusing him for changing that situation. “I was born on Earth, not here, not down in this hole! I had a husband, and a good job – can you believe that? But we never had kids. Pollution got in my system. Oh, we couldn’t afford to fix that, and we couldn’t afford to adopt. Things went downhill when he lost his job, and then I did, too. Can you believe the way people are forced to live in this city? While those rich scum sit in their fancy restaurants looking down on the rest of us?”
The homeless person felt his insides gurgle with that unending, nameless hunger. Could the old woman hear it? He felt vaguely embarrassed at his own abject state, as if he were inferior even to her.
She took him in again with that crumpled squint. And as if she had indeed heard his guts churn, she said, “You’re a big boy, aren’t you? But you can’t be eating well. Our type don’t eat well, do we?” She lowered her makeshift weapon at last. “A big boy like you might keep the punks away from me. Do you know they steal my medicine? It’s hard to get my medicine! I don’t have a job like I once did, see! I have to sell scrap.” She motioned toward the partially dissected robot. “Good thing I used to assemble electronics. I know what I’m doing, damn it! But these punks steal my medicine.” She eyed the homeless person craftily. “A big boy like you, they wouldn’t come close. Maybe we can help each other, huh?”
He said nothing. He was unable. But he thought he could make sense of her words, or at least her intentions, in some intuitive way. Using some latent ability.
“You can’t understand a damn thing I’m saying, can you?” she grumbled. “Or can you? Come here. Come over here. I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me.”
She gestured. He hesitated, still meek, a cowering giant. But at last, he crawled closer to her.
Deadstock: A Punktown Novel Page 12
