Fabrick

by Andrew Post

  Due to recent events of disruption within our city’s supply line, the geyser, we at the offices of King Gorett advise you to continue as best you can to maintain normal commerce within Geyser. Certainly these are trying times, and with rumor of the Odium circling the streets and in the pubs, we need everyone in the service industry to remain vigilant. Goods should still be sold; orders for off-planet items should still be made.

  Commerce is the backbone of any civilization, the way by which we feed our children and carry on with normalcy. If any business owner, shopkeeper, or shipping house is seen with its doors closed, a fine will be issued. If you abandon your establishment, an even steeper fine will be issued.

  It is of dire importance that we carry on, stay the course, and keep Geyser going through these difficult times.

  Clyde read the message three more times, then folded it and deposited it into the trash bin. He felt a little bothered by the vibe the message gave.

  He searched the assistant manager’s desk for a weapon. All he could come up with was a tiny wooden club, about the length of his forearm. Soft leather wrapped its handle several times. The end was battered and dinged. What purpose it had served, Clyde couldn’t even begin to assume. He took it to the next office, deciding to carry it until he could find something better.

  Flam stopped loading his satchel with cheeses and walked to the next aisle, his curiosity finally getting the better of him. There they were, thousands of frisk mice struggling with a box of crackers. They moved all over it, chewing together, but stopped when they confronted the plastic bag inside. The mice, all together at once, seemed to take a deep breath and sigh.

  Paying no attention to Flam, they piled atop one another until they rapidly formed a rough human shape: two arms, two legs, a torso, even a head. The body stood tall for a moment, as if ensuring everyone was in place, and bent with an outstretched arm. At the end of the wrist shape, several of the frisk mice pointed their tails out like fingers of a hand. The collective creature took what was left of the cracker box in its fleshy tail fingers and tore the packaging. It poured the contents upon its chest, the score quickly distributed all over the body, a million teeth chewing at once. They cast the box aside, every member of the brood sated, and noticed Flam standing motionless at the end of the aisle, eyes wide, blunderbuss in hand.

  “Hello there,” the mice said together. The manlike thing straightened its posture, clasped its hands behind its back, and looked at him. Two of the frisk mice that were just a touch darker than the others stood in for the eyes.

  “What . . . in . . . the . . . blazes?” Snapping to, Flam took aim. Whatever was happening, he was sure these rodents could reduce flesh and bone to nothing, just as they had the crackers. A shoot-first tactic would be preferable.

  “Please don’t fire upon us,” the mice said in unison, speaking in a calm tone. “If anyone should fire upon anyone, it should be we who fire upon you since, as the saying goes, we were here first and whatever is left in this place is rightfully ours—or, in layman’s terms, finders keepers. But since we don’t have a firearm, nor do we condone them, if you should so choose it, you can fire upon us simply because you, sir, are actually armed. Please know, though, that it would be immoral. We understand within the bandit law of things it’s typically frowned upon to shoot anyone who is unarmed, for that would be considered cowardly, and pride is chief among a bandit’s flimsy so-called principles.”

  “What the plummets are you?”

  A thousand throats cleared. “We were given individual names, but since there are so many of us, it would take quite a while to list them all for you. But as we work together in such a way, we’ve adopted a moniker of sorts that we shall tell you, even though it’s less of a moniker and more along the lines of an acronym. Would you care to hear it?”

  Flam simply stared.

  “We are Rodents of Hive Mind, or R.O.H.M. Even simpler than that: Rohm. Which works doubly as a name and an identifier of how we exist, roaming in a nomadic fashion, being without a permanent home as we are.”

  “I see. One second?” Flam turned his head, not removing his gaze, and shouted, “Pasty?”

  “Ah, you’re accompanied by someone. Makes sense. Four arms are better than two when it comes to looting, I bet. That is, unless your compatriot is a Blatta, and those typically have six arms, yes? Being of the insect persuasion and all. Perhaps only four, since they would have to walk on two of those legs—but still, four arms to carry and two to walk upon is quite the bargain when talking about pillaging, don’t you think? We think so.”

  “Clyde!” Flam was unable to keep the warble of fear from his voice.

  Clyde came running, wooden club in hand. He looked at Flam, asked, “What’s wrong?” and nearly fell over backwards into the cheese display when the assembled mass of frisk mice turned toward him. “What is that?”

  “Oh,” they said together, “is this Clyde, your friend? It appears he could use some suns.”

  “Flam?” Clyde gasped.

  “They’re frisk mice.” Flam retained his distance from them, not lowering his blunderbuss. “They just sort of grouped together. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Rohm added, “Not a lot of people have—Mouflon or otherwise.”

  Clyde raised the bat in both hands. To Flam he looked more like he was keying up to receive the serve of a tennis ball.

  Rohm filled the silence. “We don’t suppose the two of you are bandits. Sort of an odd pairing, a human and a Mouflon working together. The best that we know, we’ve never seen a Mouflon work with anyone besides another Mouflon. And as for you, young man . . . You are a man, yes? Disregard the bluntness of the question, if you don’t mind . . . Are you ill? You appear to have something wrong with your eyes . . . and your skin. Perhaps you have what the ancient humans referred to as scurvy. You may want to wander to the produce aisle. There may be an orange or two over there. Those are rumored to be loaded with vitamin C, good for warding off such maladies, if that is, in fact, what you have.”

  “How can a bunch of mice be so Meech-damned smart?”

  Rohm turned their head back to Flam. “How? Consider this. You have the average build of a Mouflon. Which means your brain is eight and a half to nine pounds, roughly. Each one of our brains is approximately point zero five pounds, just a drop in the bucket compared to yours, yes, but we are using them together, all one thousand eighty-four of us—no, pardon us, one thousand eighty-nine of us; one of us recently had a litter. Which is fantastic—more the merrier. Once those pups are full-grown, we’ll be one-seventy-ninth smarter. But, long story short, the collected weight of our brains is over double that of yours—and unlike Mouflons, frisk mice use 98 percent of our brains.”

  Clyde whispered, “Should we run?”

  “Why?” Rohm retorted, even though the question hadn’t been posed to him. “We will not pursue you. In fact, it would be preferable to us if you did run, because then we wouldn’t have to share the contents of Third Circle Market with you.”

  “Is this some kind of fabrick?” Flam said.

  “No.” Rohm’s tone was mildly indignant. “All frisk mice can do this.”

  “You’re kidding,” Flam grunted.

  “I am, actually, yes. You didn’t laugh. We’re sorry. Humor isn’t really our strong suit.”

  “So it is fabrick that’s behind this?”

  “No, that much was the truth. We were actually an unexpected development of the Geyser scientists. You see, there are some sewer tunnels and water supply lines that are much too narrow for any human. And to dig up the lines would mean tearing up the street, which, if you know anything about Geyser’s sediment foundation, could be detrimental; one false move of a jackhammer might lead to a crack. And a crack, my new friends, is a four-letter word in Geyser.”

  Clyde had to ponder that. Crack is a four-letter word? What was the significance of a word being four letters, when it wasn’t made up for four letters? He’d have to ask Flam later. Right now,
some talking mice were telling a story.

  “At first they wanted to use us individually to check the pipes. But frisk mice—others, not like us—are easily distracted. They wanted us to work as a solid team, an affront against the tyranny of clogged pipes.” It shook a fist of collected tails. “They made it so we could work together. We were made by an adjustment of the genetics of a typical frisk mouse, our mother, and her offspring, which—poor lady—were all of us. We are able to communicate and work together in perfect, indissoluble harmony.”

  “Good Meech,” Flam said, slapping a hand to his forehead. He regretted coming to Geyser at all. The lockup in the slums of Adeshka was looking better and better.

  “So what brings you to the area? We heard Geyser was no longer operational due to its sudden lack of water.” Rohm’s two brown mice who stood in for pupils faced Flam and then Clyde and back again.

  Flam answered, “I’m looking for something worth selling.” He jutted a stony thumb toward Clyde. “And this one’s on some kind of vengeance trip.”

  “Vengeance? My word, what’s happened to you? Are you seeking the individual who did that to your eyes? My, come to think of it, they kind of look like ours. Completely black. Perhaps you’re a variation of what the scientists were working on as well, half man and half mouse. You’re about the right shade as well, except you have no fur.”

  “I’m not a mouse person, and the individual I’m looking for is none of your business.”

  “I apologize.” Rohm placed a collected hand of mice tails to its chest. “I didn’t mean to offend, but rarely does anything so scandalous occur here at Third Circle Market. The most excitement we’ve encountered was when a cat wandered in a few weeks ago. Naturally, we lost a few numbers that day, regrettably, but Rohm was the victor in the end, let us tell you. Of course, cat bones are incredibly hard to digest.”

  Flam stepped forward. “You were made in a lab? Did it happen to be in the medical ward, up the street apiece?”

  “Unless you know of another medical ward in Geyser.”

  “We’re looking for a way down to sea level. We’re trying to get out of here. I heard about an elevator in the medical ward that goes under the platter rim for emergencies only. Do you remember anything like that?”

  “We’ve studied many diagrams of Geyser during our travels. There are elevators in the city: one is for civilian use, another is in the medical ward—although we cannot say where, specifically—and another is near the palace in the government ward.”

  “We just want to get down to sea level,” Flam said. “You say there’s an elevator in the medical ward? Great. That’s all we need to know: it wasn’t just a rumor.” He turned to Clyde. “We can get down, get my auto, see if it’s in any kind of working order, find a way across the bay, head to Adeshka once we’re on the mainland, and get your frigate pilot.”

  Rohm took one step forward. “Are you this Clyde fellow’s employee? A bodyguard of sorts?” Rohm turned its attention to Clyde, looking closer with thousands of tiny eyes littered all over its collected body. “Are you royalty, young sir?”

  “No,” Clyde answered, “he’s helping me because he said he would and he’s held to it by Mouflon custom. My master, Albert Wilkshire, was a good man, and someone killed him, and I aim to find out who it was. I think it was a member of the Odium, and I want to get to Adeshka to hire a pilot so I can catch up to the murderer.”

  “Determination is clear in your voice. We believe you will find what you’re looking for, just by the way you answer. Let us join you two gentlemen. We could be of use. There is always a need for someone who has a good lay of the land, as we do.”

  “Hey now, I have a pretty good idea of what I’m doing. I’ve gotten us this far.” Flam thumbed his own barrel chest.

  “And where is it that you started?” Rohm inquired.

  “Residential ward is where I found this one,” Flam admitted, partly defeated. They had travelled barely two miles.

  “Well, we don’t suppose you could do much worse, then.” Rohm chuckled. “But, naturally, since we are a subspecies with an incredible grasp on how things are done when services are rendered, we have to ask one very particular question.”

  Flam and Clyde looked at one another, perplexed.

  “Yes?” Clyde said hesitantly.

  “What do you plan on paying us with?” The mice making up the chest swelled, and sank, mimicking a sigh. “You see, you can offer to give us all your spots, but money is of no value to us.”

  Clyde looked to Flam. “Well?”

  “Why should we even want you to come with us?” Flam snapped. “I mean, we’re doing just fine. Once the Patrol comes by and takes care of whatever’s going on with that idling auto up the street, we’ll be free to get to the medical ward whenever we please.”

  Rohm blinked, a set of white frisk mice temporarily covering the brown ones. “Here’s how we see it. You are bound to Mr. Clyde here, who is on an important mission. Time cannot be spared. You want to get to the medical ward elevator? Let us operate as a scout. We don’t always have to be in this communal form, you know.” One frisk mouse detached from the foot of the collected form and scampered away, returning to the group a moment later with one of the ardamire florets Flam had dropped. The morsel was dissolved within a heartbeat.

  Flam groaned. He reached into his satchel, removed a shrink-wrapped hunk of cheese, and held it out.

  Rohm’s right hand took the cheese, which absorbed into the wrist and was rapidly spread among the frisk mice. The plastic wrapper rained out in chewed confetti at its feet. “We wondered how long it would take you, Mr. Flam.”

  Chapter 10

  Protein

  Flam and Clyde waited just inside Third Circle Market’s doors and watched as Rohm disintegrated into individual frisk mice, went into the street in one smooth pack, turned the corner, and trekked up the street.

  Flam took out his pipe, mold, and matches. “Do you trust them?” Staring out the front windows, he waited for gunfire, screams, the Patrol sirens, Rohm’s plan going to pot immediately . . .

  “They seem bored to me,” Clyde said. “I can relate. I’d understand if they wanted to get out of here and be of some use. I can’t imagine how long they’ve lived here.” He surveyed the shelves. They had gone through almost all the crackers and other dry goods. All that remained were canned foodstuffs they had no way of opening.

  “Boredom doesn’t make someone trustworthy. And who’s to say that if one of them decides to turn on us, the rest won’t follow? I should’ve kept my arse home. Coming here was probably the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. Plenty of ghost towns on Gleese, and I had to choose this Meech-damned one.” He puffed on his pipe.

  “I believe they know what they’re doing.” Clyde balanced the wooden bat in his palms, approximated its weight. “If they know the way to the medical ward elevator, all the better.”

  “I got only so much cheese in my satchel, Pasty. I took merely what could travel, too. Who’s to say those things won’t gang up on us the minute we get to sea level and rip us apart? Maybe that’s what it wants: a meal that will move along on its own two legs, something to snack on to start its own journey on the right foot when it gets down there.”

  “I don’t believe they want to get to sea level,” Clyde said. “I doubt they’ll accompany us beyond the elevator. They’ll probably want to come back here to a place they know.” He wondered if he’d ever see the chateau again: Mr. Wilkshire’s books and grand staircases and wood-paneled halls. Without Mr. Wilkshire, it all meant nothing now. Motivation, he reminded himself. Use that terribly empty mansion as motivation.

  Something bellowed.

  Clyde and Flam instinctively ducked.

  Flam eased open the front door and listened. He looked up the south side of the street, where the Patrol should have come from. It was strange; they’d never come by. Perhaps they had passed while they were meeting Rohm.

  They listened, Clyde cupping his ears while Fla
m swiveled his pointed ones, trying to catch any sound on the humid air.

  “Do you think they’re all right? Should we check on them?”

  “Just wait,” Flam grunted. “Either way, it was bandits up there. Maybe our furry friends will come back with a little more appreciation for what I know about Geyser’s lay of the land.”

  “We should see if they’re hurt.”

  “Wait a minute. It was only a shout. Surely the Patrol heard that if they were anywhere in the vicinity. Just wait.”

  Clyde gripped the handle of his club tighter. He listened to the wind blowing over the surface of Geyser, through the streets. No sirens. No drone of a Patrol auto on approach. No flashing lights kicking up on the storefronts across the street. Just silence.

  “I’m going to take a peek,” Flam said. “You wait here.”

  Before Clyde could argue, Flam had edged out the front door, staying low. He got to the trash canisters and let the market door close behind him.

  Suddenly, Clyde felt very alone. He listened as Flam’s hoofed toes scraped the sidewalk along Third Circle Street until he was too far away to be heard. A moment later, Flam was in sight, waving for Clyde to come along.

  Clyde exited the shop and ran to catch up.

  “Prepare yourself,” the horned Mouflon said.

  “Why?” Then Clyde saw.

  There was the parked, idling auto and what remained of the bandits who had laid the trap: two bloodied skeletons, every ounce of flesh nibbled from their bones. A remotely swollen-looking Rohm stood off to the side, compiled in human shape, looking at their work.