“But if I could only get back even a trace quantity of the microbe, Mister Matson,” Hernán explained, “I could prove my ownership. Establish a patent and market my invention to help my country.”
“How is that?”
“I have encrypted my proprietary information into the genome of the microbe. It cannot be removed without ruining the best features of the bug. Any readout of the genome proves my claims.”
Kioga thought about this story. The clever hack appealed to him, a natural extension of his industrial metabolics concerns. He felt sorry for this ingenuous guy, up against corporate perfidy. And being able to help Avianna’s brother—
Kioga regarded the woman with what he hoped was a righteously indignant glower that communicated, with high semiotic wattage: You deliberately led me along by my dick and abducted me and now you have the nerve to ask for my help!?!
Avianna looked deeply and sincerely and adorably contrite. “Mister Matson—Kioga. Please forgive us. We do not know any powerful people who could come to our aid. The local authorities are all in the pockets of Conquistador. Someone like you represented our only hope. When you descended among us, it was like an angel arriving from heaven. But still, we suspected you would brush off any solicitations we made openly, so we had to bring you here under our control. Our tactics were heavy-handed, yes. But can’t you accept them as a genuine expression of our helplessness?”
Exercising his imagination and empathy, Kioga had to admit to himself that he probably would have followed the same course, were their situations reversed. Life outside the Science Parks, he already knew, bred desperation and ethical shortcuts, and this incident merely confirmed his estimation of the scene.
“No, I guess not. Your intentions weren’t evil or selfish. But still, kidnapping someone—”
Avianna hurled herself around Kioga’s neck, squeezed him tightly, kissed both his cheeks, then unpeeled herself and bounced back, before he could possibly even respond with any gesture, fraternal or lewd. All the Colombians were smiling, even the anonymous muscle.
“Oh, I knew you would be on our side, Kioga! Surely, victory is ours now!”
“What exactly am I supposed to do?”
“We will reveal our plans in a moment. But first, let us have a small meal. It is well past noon.”
Kioga pondered this previously unremarked passage of time: long hours after he was due back at Parque Arví. What would Mallory be feeling? She would surely be worried, instrumental in searching for him, raising hell. Best to get this unanticipated chore over with quickly, so he could resume his normal life.
Lunch practically brought tears to Kioga’s eyes, it tasted so good: arepas, those ubiquitous corn pancakes, filled with salmon and shrimp, with a big cool glass of fresh guanabana juice.
“I am so glad you like my cooking,” said Avianna.
Wasting no postprandial time, his captors bundled Kioga into a Baolong Motors SUV. Blinking in the sunlight, he discerned that Hernán’s lab was still within the city. No point in hiding its location, he guessed, since he knew Avianna’s identity already.
Hernán, driving, and Avianna, shotgun, sat up front, Kioga sandwiched behind between the guards. They headed southwest, steadily climbing out of the valley-nestled city center.
“What we wish you to do,” Avianna said, “is merely to present yourself at the offices of Conquistador. Explain who you are. They will be very impressed. Everyone knows and respects the Science Parks. Ask for a tour of the waste stream processing. We are betting that Hernán’s bug will be present. Steal a sample somehow. This is the only tricky part. But it can be as simple as getting your sleeve wet in the slurry. Just do not arouse their suspicions. Then, when you leave, we will pick you up, claim the sample, and your part in the affair is over. You can go back to the Science Parks with our thanks, and forget you ever knew us.”
Kioga contemplated the chore. It seemed trivial, harmless, safe. “Okay.”
Climbing, twisting, climbing, Kioga noted changes in terrain, vegetation and human settlement. Amid the fantastical foliage, he witnessed large swaths of poverty and rampant want, suffering and a makeshift, make-do existence. Here, firsthand, as impactful as a trash fire, was the backwardness and lack he was intent on ameliorating. Alien and incomprehensible in many respects, the scene nonetheless whispered enticingly to him, a parent calling back a changeling son.
Surprisingly, despite the squalor and material scarcity, many of the people looked happy and content.
“Avianna.”
“Yes?”
“You really picked me out of all the Science Park people?”
Looking back, she smiled. “There is much public data about all of you. But your profile was the most congenial.”
Kioga sat silent for a while.
“Avianna.”
“Yes?”
“What will you get out of all this?”
“If my brother is a rich man, I am sure he will be good to me.”
“Si,” said Hernán.
“I think I might like to study medicine. I trained as an EMT for a time, but I had to cease my courses out of necessity.”
“Well, maybe I could help somehow. That is, if I ever returned here.”
“Perhaps.”
Two hours passed in relative silence. The SUV finally stopped at an empty portion of road high in the mountains. Fenced-off property stretched along one side of the tarmac.
“This is our rendezvous spot. We will come back in three hours. The gate to the Conquistador operations is about half a kilometer down the road, around that bend. We must leave you here. Otherwise, we will come under their surveillance.”
Kioga let himself out of the vehicle. “How do you know I won’t just get help and never return?”
Avianna bestowed a broad smile. “But you gave us your word, Kioga.”
The SUV made a gravel-crunching three-point turn.
“Goodbye, Kioga. Thank you, and good luck!”
Kioga watched them go, then walked around the bend.
He could see the gated entrance and guard shack, all razor wire and robotic antipersonnel emplacements.
The booth was manned by three armed security workers. Kioga straightened his rumpled jacket and went up to them. They regarded him vigilantly until he explained himself, then seemed to relax a trifle.
“Señor Matson, we will take your biometrics now to confirm your identity.”
“Of course.”
After he had been tera-scanned, Kioga grinned.
Then the alarms sounded, louder than Armageddon.
Kioga took a step or three backwards.
“Mister Matson, stop! You are under arrest! Please come peacefully.”
Kioga was ten meters away and running before he had formed any conscious impulse.
The taser barbs caught him in the butt and lower back. He spasmed like a gaffed fish and went down, head aimed, he noted clinically, straight at a sizable jagged roadside boulder.
* * * *
Jimmy Velvet arrived in Kioga’s Parque Arví hospital room while Kioga was replaying for the nth time on his phone the news accounts of his embarrassing escapades. His friend beamed, carrying a bottle and several gifts. Kioga ignored him momentarily. He was too intent on marveling at what an allegedly humorous spin the announcers had managed to put on his near-fatal contretemps.
Missing person alert! Unflattering photo flashed onscreen. Last seen in dodgy native company. Anonymous accusation delivered, proclaiming sudden terrorist sympathies and affiliations in the Science Park renegade. Grudging admission by his fiancée that he might very well have gone dingo. “Just not himself lately.” Then all revealed as one laughable chain of mistakes, once Kioga had been apprehended and debriefed.
Of course, Mallory’s reactions hurt the most. Her swift betrayal. And then her non-apology. And when she had asked Kioga, fresh out of the ICU, to donate his sperm for an early insemination, given the unavoidable delay in their wedding—
Well, journ
alistic accuracy would have demanded an update to amend her status to ex-fiancée.
Jimmy set down his offerings. He unwrapped one of the packages and helped himself to a chocolate. Munching contentedly, he looked inquisitively at his friend before speaking.
“You really are a right mug, aren’t you?”
“Say what?”
“A sucka. Gullible to the bone.”
Kioga took offense. “I don’t really think so! I just employ common human decency, and a willingness to expect the best of everyone. At least, until they show me they’re malicious.”
“And that naïve philosophy almost got you killed. That brain hemorrhage you incured in tumbling tasered arse over teakettle nearly did you in. It didn’t help that the Conquistador guards took close to an hour to summon medics. Lots of dead neurons you could ill afford to lose. Well, perhaps that little replacement wodge of cloned cortical cells out of the vat will render you good as new!”
Kioga ran a finger along the healing surgical incision on his skull. “I certainly hope so.”
“Maybe you’ll be better than before. Less naff. I just hope there are no side effects from the new bits! Any sudden desires to crossdress? Maybe some fresh new talents emerged from the subconscious, such as the ability to speak Khmer, or to dance en pointe?”
Jimmy had Kioga laughing so hard, tears rolled down his cheeks. “No, Jimmy, nothing like that!”
“Splendid, then! Wonderful to have you back, more cautious or not!”
For the first time since his surgery, Kioga felt as if he might live down this dumb brush with infamy.
Jimmy forked up another sweet, and changed the subject slightly. “I take it there’s no chance of you and Mallory getting back together? Normally at such a decisive break, I’d ask how she was in the sack, in pursuit of my own interests.”
Kioga made a rueful face. “You’re welcome to her, Jimmy.”
“No, I think not, given the altogether too utilitarian and disloyal face she’s shown.” Jimmy ran a finger around one incisor to clear away some sticky caramel. “That Avianna gal, however. Another story entirely. And rich to boot! Why, she and her brother practically own Conquistador Mining now. Not to mention his patents. Even the countersuit against them for property damage and trespass was dismissed. Devilish sly. Positively Machiavellian! Sending you as a diversion, while they broke in elsewhere. Brilliant!”
“Agreed. Though being the actual catspaw makes one slightly less appreciative of their ingenuity.”
Jimmy arose. “Well, it’s all water under the bridge now. It’s not like your world will ever intersect with hers again. Cognitive homogamy rules, after all. So long, Ky. Until we next share a conference table.”
Kioga’s lunch arrived half an hour after Jimmy’s departure. The young male orderly placed the tray reverently on the bedside table and made sure to direct Kioga’s attention to it.
“Something special today, sir.”
Kioga lifted the aluminum dome off the plate. The heady aroma of salmon-and-shrimp-stuffed arepas wafted out.
And the meal came with a note in a feminine hand.
KAREN COXSWAIN
Or, Death As She Is Truly Lived
You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. But of course I ain’t talking about that pile of YA puke we all got shoved at us in middle school back on Earth, sometime between our first boyband crush and our first sloppy blowjob. The sappy, cornfed book that old Mark wrote in 1876. No, the Adventures I’m holding up as a not-totally-authentic introduction to my current life—afterlife, really—is the second one that Mark wrote—here in Hell, just a few years back.
You see, at that time, I had taken a lover onboard the Ship of Shadows, my first infernal beau, and after our brief honeymoon our carryings-on soon escalated to such hysterical, fucked-up, window-smashing, curses-bellowing, biting, screaming, flailing, lowblow-throwing melees, followed by makeup sex nearly as destructive and outrageous, that I began to acquire a certain seamy reputation in all the cities we regularly visited, from Beetleburg to Crotchrot. Just imagine, said all the righteously and proudly damned infernal citizens: that nice Karen Coxswain, Captain of the Shadows, previously such a respectable gal, consorting with a lowlife yeti from Tibet, one who had been moreover the righthand man and mystical advisor to none other than bloody Kublai Khan hisself, and who was plainly now such a bad influence on the previously serene and pleasant Captain. (Khan hisself doesn’t actually figure into my story, since he was then living in the city of Scuzzy Ashenhole about forty thousand miles away downriver, far from my stomping grounds.)
What those scandalized citizens didn’t realize, however, was that I had never really been anything like a good girl, back when I was alive. Really, if they had thought about it for even a minute, why else would I’ve ended up in Hell? I had only appeared docile and meek and mild-mannered for the past ten years, since I had been taking that amount of time to more or less mentally adjust to my death and to process my feelings about my new role in the afterlife, the job of ferrying folks from one side of the Styx to t’other, and up and down its blasted, cindery, jizz-bespattered shores.
I’ll never forget my entry interview with the Marquis Decarabia, when the stinking old goat (and he was at least half goat, for along with his naked, brick-red, totally ripped human upper half, big as a Cadillac Escalade SUV, went an actual billygoat-style bottom half, and he stunk of garlic, curry powder, lanolin and Axe body spray) discovered that when I had been alive I used to work on a shrimper running out of my hometown, Apalachicola, Florida, often taking the wheel when the Captain got loaded. The Virgin Berth, that woulda been, under Skipper Israel Shuby, a fine man, but with a weakness for Jägermeister.
“Why, this is more than splendid!” boomed the Marquis, then belched like a thousand underwater gator-frightening swampgas farts in the deepest Everglades. “Sorry, just had a heavy lunch of banker entrails. Where was I? Oh, yes, your past maritime experience! We’re right this minute in need of a cross-Styx pilot, and with the first name of Karen, you’re practically destined from birth! We’ll get you your ‘papers’ and you’ll be on the water—if you can call that toxic sludge water—before a devil can shake his dick!”
And then, just to illustrate matters, he peed all over me and disposed of the last few droplets across my wet face with a vigorous waggle of his pointy goat member. Luckily, the demon piss tasted just like Kool-Aid. Unluckily, it was the world’s worst flavor, Kickin’ Kiwi-Lime, endless pitchers of which had been forced on me as a child by a cruel Mama Maybellene at the Home, before the Kool Aid honchos came to their senses and discontinued the raunchy flavor.
So that’s how I found myself in my new Hellish job. As I say, it took some getting used to the notion that I was stuck here for all eternity, cruising these cursed waters under a smoldering sky or canopy or cavern roof that looked exactly like that kind of grey Corrections Department toilet paper made from one-hundred-percent re-re-recycled older toilet paper, which had then been used to clean up the butts of one million pureed-spinach-and-mashed-bananas-fed babies. But by the time I finally met my yeti man, I was pretty well accomodated to my new position, and ready to have me some fun.
Did I mention yet that the old horny, hot-headed ’bominable called hisself Tom Sawyer? Yup, that he did. Turns out he had met up with Twain a century ago and become good friends with the writer, glomming onto all Twain’s books like Holy Scripture. Apparently, there was some kinda simpatico link between Twain’s brand of humor and the typical yeti way of looking at life. So whatever my hairy boyfriend’s original furriner Tibetan-Mongol name had been, he was now called Tom. And when I met up with him he used all his borrowed downhome American wit and humor to sweep me plumb off my feet.
And so as that beatup old steamer, Ship of Shadows, with its boilers fired by the catalyzed and condensed screams of succubi, plied its slow way up and down its few thousand assigned miles of the Styx, de
livering its motley passengers to such stops as Rat’s Alley, Bone Palace, Migraine Gulch, Toadlick, Culo de Sciacallo, Twitterville, Clayface, Vuht, and Hernia House, Tom and I conducted our intense bunk-busting affair that veered all over the emotional map, from whispered sweet-nothings to black eyes and bunged-up heads. When we weren’t easing along like two Junebugs riding a leaf, all goofy smiles and hand-holding, we just grated on each other like Democrats and Republicans, or weeds and Roundup. I acknowledge I was wound pretty tight and could be kinda demanding, a go-getter with ambitions—whatever that entailed in Hell. Whereas Tom was an easy-going slacker, interested mostly in getting plenty to eat (mostly stray dockside cats, watermelons, Twizzlers and Rusty Humphries Ol’ Southern Style Beef Jerky, which I had introduced him to) and scratching his grapefruit-sized balls en route to a long nap. No way we coulda made a longterm go of our mutual thing, and I guess I knew it all along. If that sugar-tongued, Muppet-furred bastard hadn’t featured a bone inside his furry ten-inch cock, I woulda ditched him a year sooner than I eventually did.
But by the time we did finally split, our shennanigans, as I hinted at, had become somewhat notorious along both banks of my route, and somewhat inland, toward the Debatable Territories and the Impossible Zone. And that’s when Twain decided to put the two of us, thinly disguised and grossly misrepresented, inside his new Adventures of Tom Sawyer. (And why the guy half of the romantic duo should’ve gotten star billing in the novel, I leave up to you to figure out. Men! If they didn’t hang together, we could hang them all separately!)
Mark later confessed to me, half apologetically and all puppy-dog-eyed, that he had been in a bind. He was under contract to Hades House to turn in a new novel in less than a month (having frittered away over the course of the past year his advance of 100,000 chancres, mostly on hookers, cigars and gambling at billiards), and he was just plumb dry of ideas. That’s when he hit upon fictionalizing the relationship between Tom and me. I must admit, he did a good job, however sensationalized and gossipy it turned out, and he got a bestseller out of the novel, even making enough to gift me a few thousand chancres out of guilt when I needed the dough. (And I mostly always needed the dough.)
The Paul Di Filippo Megapack Page 37
