The Way of Death

by James Von Ohlen

  “I need to piss,” Reiji announced to no one in particular as he rose from his seat at the bar. “Save my spot for me,” this time aimed at the constables. He meandered through the crowd in the dimly lit room, aiming for a neon sign boldly proclaiming PISSER for all to see. A classy joint, through and through, Reiji thought.

  There were no doors, just an open entrance into a dingy room with light that made the main room look positively illuminated. Reiji strode to a pair of urinals, only two he noted. One was occupied, so in violation of the unwritten laws of Man Code, Reiji took the urinal next to the other man. Supposed to leave an empty one in between us, he thought as he started pissing. But got to go and got to go now.

  “Double the show, now!” A woman spoke with fake excitement, drawing Reiji’s attention away from the spot on the wall he’d been staring at. She had been seated in plain view the whole time and Reiji hadn’t seen her. Perhaps he was a little drunker than he’d thought.

  “Don’t worry ‘bout Lucy over there,” the man at the next urinal began. “I pay her to watch.”

  Reiji raised an eyebrow at that. Having someone watch him urinate was not something he was interested in. In fact, paying someone to do so was unfathomable. The man at the next urinal leaned forward, looking over the divider between the porcelain, and looked at Reiji’s cock as he finished the deed.

  Reiji continued pissing, but looked the man in the eyes, conveying what he hoped was an air of menace.

  “You got a name for yours?” The other man asked. Reiji shook his head. The idea had never occurred to him to give a name to his cock. Not at least since he had passed the age of twelve.

  “Oh come on buddy,” the man began. “Everyone’s got a name for theirs. Lucy here doesn’t believe me that all men name their cocks. Just to prove her wrong, tell her what you named yours.”

  Reiji finished pissing and pulled his pants back up. “I said I don’t have a name for mine.”

  The other man’s eyebrows drew closer together and moved downwards. He shook his head in disbelief of what he was hearing. “No, no, no,” he muttered. “That’s alright if you don’t want to share buddy.” Clearly Reiji was not being believed. “But if you were to hypothetically give a name to it, what would you call it?”

  Reiji was growing tired of the conversation and pictured himself putting the man’s face through the urinal, leaving ragged strips of torn flesh and broken teeth in its wake. Nonetheless a name popped into his mind.

  Polyphemus.

  A one-eyed giant from Old Earth mythology.

  “Polyphemus,” Reiji answered, turning to leave.

  “And what the hell does that mean?” The man asked stepping into Reiji’s path.

  “A one-eyed giant from Old Earth legends. It seems fitting.”

  “You mean the Cyclops, kid.” Reiji’s blood pressure shot up at being called kid. By the second he found himself wanting to kill this man more and more. He imagined twisting the man’s head all the way around for one complete revolution. Feeling the bones in his neck snap.

  “No, I mean Polyphemus. He was a Cyclops, but Cyclops was not his name.”

  “Now you’re just full of shit,” the man said while lowering his hand to his belt. Where his knife would have sat had he not been forced to check it in when he entered the bordello. “Every fucking moron knows his name is Cyclops.”

  Lucy shrieked as the first punch landed solidly on the obnoxious man’s jaw, snapping his head to the side and sending a few teeth flying. She remained silent as the second and third punches thudded home, splitting his face open. She didn’t even move as a kick to the stomach knocked him back and to the ground. She simply sat, mouth agape, as a stomp to the man’s face made sure he was down. The fallen man’s arms locked out to his sides and his body went limp.

  “Are all of your customers such ignorant cunts?” Reiji asked back over his shoulder as he stepped over the man’s prone form. Lucy simply nodded with eyes wide. He paused mid stride, looked down at the fallen man, and then turned back to the whore.

  “Got something to write with?” Reiji asked as he extended his hand. Not waiting for an answer.

  She produced a small pencil of the type used to apply eye makeup. Reiji pulled a paper towel from a dispenser and scribbled on it, tucking his note into the unconscious man’s pocket. On it, a simple message stood.

  The Odyssey, you fucking cunt. Read it.

  If this piece of shit survived the beating he’d just suffered, maybe he would educate himself and possibly even check his arrogance in the future. Unlikely, Reiji thought, but possible.

  He checked himself in the mirror, brushing a few spots of filth from his shirt. There would be some new blood stains there come morning. Reiji nodded once to the whore as he handed her makeup back to her and left the bathroom behind, entering the main room once more. Slowly working his way through the dimly lit room and admiring the view to be had of the women selling their wares.

  At the bar, the three constables sat nursing their beers. Waiting for his return. Reiji sat in the same place he’d left behind, picking up his drink and taking another sip.

  A piano came to life, one with an actual honest-to-god person operating it. Not some automated device as Reiji had seen in the past. The man began singing and taking requests from the audience. The names of songs Reiji was mostly unfamiliar with were called out and the piano man picked them up no problem, much to the satisfaction of the crowd, if their calls of encouragement were any sign.

  A pair of stout looking men eventually dragged the beaten man, in Reiji’s mind guilty of a very serious crime. Looking over the divider between urinals and investigating another man’s package. Meat-gazing, it was colloquially called. The bouncers shouldered him from the bathroom and carried him away. Announcing that the man had had too much to drink, to a round of laughter from the establishment’s patrons.

  Reiji lost track of time as he finished his drink and began chatting with two young women who had taken it upon themselves to sit on either side of him. One blonde and the other fantastically a natural purple. Some years ago, purple hair had been all the rage on Lexington. Genetic modifications had made such a thing a natural reality, instead of the product of chemical dyes.

  The phenotype was a rarity, but not as rare as natural redheads seemed to be. Likely the effect of the whimsy of the eggheads who’d done the genetic manipulations, it only manifested in women. Something about needing both X chromosomes for the color to show. Reiji was glad for that one. He couldn’t picture himself with purple hair. He’d have to shave his head and dye the stubble black, he reckoned. The young whore’s eyebrows and carpet matched the hair on her head as well. Either she was a natural, or had gone to great lengths to look so.

  The two began boasting of their sexual prowess, in a manner befitting of whores making a sales pitch, and drunken men bragging to their friends. They had Reiji’s undivided attention. They began gradually removing what little clothing they had initially been wearing, showing the wonders that genetic engineering some generations past could still achieve today. Reiji pawned off the blonde on the spokesman who happily shifted position to allow the woman a place on his lap.

  The remaining girl reached behind the bar and retrieved a bottle, from which she topped off Reiji’s drink. As he sipped she whispered into his ear all of the terrible and wonderful things she was going to do to him.

  As she did so a few of the other patrons had a verbal disagreement that escalated into a punch being thrown. Security men appeared, seemingly from out of nowhere, and removed them from the premises forthright to a mixed round of jeers and applause. Reiji turned his attention back to the diminutive girl who hadn’t stopped regaling him with promises of pleasure and pain, just in time to hear her final words.

  “All the way down my throat,” she completed her story with an angelic smile, in stark contrast with the things she had just been saying. She even managed to almost hide the dull look in her eyes. Like she hadn’t recently gone through a we
ek’s pay of narcotics to deal with the pain of her life. As if she wasn’t dead on the inside. Reiji smiled at the girl and to himself. If the whores back in the capital city, or at least in his neighborhood, had been like this one, he’d have been broke long, long ago.

  He was about ready to take the girl up on her offer, to see if she was all talk or if she could back it up, when the young brunette returned with Tod in tow. To Reiji’s eyes she was walking slightly off-center, and her face spoke of the release most women only found in the minutes after being thoroughly worked over in the sack. Tod drifted along behind her, freshly showered, but still a little sweaty, and smiling just as always.

  Reiji laughed as the boy approached.

  “Tod, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you just fucked a whore so hard you left her bow-legged.” Both the young woman and the boy smiled at Reiji’s statement.

  “It was fun,” Tod began, his voice carrying over most of the room in his enthusiasm, eliciting a chorus of laughter from the clientele and employees alike. “Can I go again?”

  Reiji looked at the boy and nodded while shrugging, as if to say ‘why not’. He took the hand of the small purple-haired girl seated by his side and placed it in Tod’s.

  “Enjoy,” Reiji said as he motioned up the stairs. Seconds later they were gone from view, Tod leading the girl up the stairs this time. The young brunette hobbled off, declining an invitation to sit with another customer.

  “I need a break, sweetheart,” she said to more laughter.

  Another drink appeared in Reiji’s hand before he stood and boldly proclaimed for all to hear. “I need a firecrotch! Find me a redhead!” Laughter rose once more and a few girls moved to find someone for him. Is this what’s it like, Reiji wondered, to be rich? More whores than you can fuck and more booze than you can drink? Someday, he conceded to himself, someday, I’d like to be rich.

  More time passed and between drinks Reiji realized that it must have been sometime deep into the night. The drinks kept flowing and he kept sending girls upstairs with Tod. Each time they returned looking as if the god of mechanical dongs had just worked them over. And the boy was always eager to return.

  Fuck it, Reiji thought, it’s free. Each time he sent the boy back with his pick of the women. On some level, he considered it to be the boy’s going away party. How much longer could he really survive facing what was likely to lay ahead? How much longer would it be until he slowed Reiji down and the boy was put down? Who knows, he concluded.

  Enough drinks in that Reiji had lost count, and even his armed escort were now drunk, a man wearing chainmail entered the whorehouse. Another constable by the look of it. He made a direct line for the spokesman and Reiji. He saluted both, to much mockery from the drunken crowd and assembled courtesans, before delivering a message.

  “Sir,” he said to the spokesman and then to Reiji. “Sir, the rest of your expedition seems to have arrived. They are headed for the Mayor’s office now, if you would care to meet them.” The bottom of Reiji’s stomach fell out.

  “The rest of my expedition?”

  “Yes, sir,” the messenger began again. “Approximately twenty trucks apparently carrying Cent-Sec soldiers have been spotted coming up the road towards town. No more armored vehicles though, so I assumed you were the one in command.”

  “Of course,” Reiji began. “Thanks for the heads up. I’d definitely like to speak with my men. To see how the search is going.”

  The messenger saluted, turned, and began to leave in one fluid motion. There was only one thing going through Reiji’s mind at that moment.

  Oh, fuck.

  REIJI stumbled through the streets, cursing and shoving people out of his way as he attempted to run. Attempt was all he managed to do though. He’d drunk too much, and was now paying for it. Of all the rotten fucking luck, he thought. Why did these assholes have to show up now? Why the fuck couldn’t they have shown up in the morning or later tomorrow after he’d already hit the road?

  Despite his moderate intoxication, his mind ran through the calculations. Tod and he must have just missed the column of trucks carrying soldiers into the repair station as they were leaving. The fork in the road and the high jagged rocks around it having conspired to hide the two from each other’s view.

  Should have monitored the radio, he thought as he paused in his drunken advance to catch his breath and almost vomited. Then at least we’d have heard them coming. Lesson learned, if he managed to survive this time.

  What happened after the APC had just barely missed the column of trucks was pretty obvious. The Cent-Sec soldiers had gone on to find their allies and possibly even their friends dead, plus a dozen or so extra bodies stuffed into their installation. An APC missing and half the valuable tech in the place looted.

  They may not have known who it was, Reiji was crossing his fingers on that one, but they could very easily follow the tracks left in the road by the treads of the APC. There would have been a window of several hours between the time they were laid down and the time they would have been erased by the elements. Cent-Sec had probably been on the road non-stop for the past few days trying to catch up.

  Reiji had stopped frequently. To eat. To shit by the side of the road. To sleep. If he’d known or thought that he was being followed, he wouldn’t have stopped at all. But the one saving grace was that he could still run.

  If he made it back to the APC, they were unlikely to have anything that could deal with it. He’d be safe inside, able to lock them out completely. Then, at his first opportunity, he could run. Like a thief in the night. If they didn’t actually know who he was, there was still a chance he could escape, deal with Gavin, and then pay off his bounty. If they did know who he was, there would be no going back.

  Ever.

  The retard, he thought as he ran. You left Tod behind.

  Shit.

  For a moment, Reiji considered leaving the boy altogether. Let him spend his last hours of life surrounded by whores who knew he was being comped for whatever he wanted. No limits, no holes barred. But that nagging voice he’d heard before, when he first had considered leaving the boy behind, wormed its whiny way into his thoughts.

  You can’t leave him. Not only did he save your life, but if you leave him, Cent-Sec will catch him. They will torture him and they’ll get your name out of him. And then you will be fucked for the rest of your very short life.

  “Alright then asshole,” Reiji yelled at himself as he stumbled down the middle of the dirt street, eliciting stares from people passing nearby on the sidewalks. “I’ll go pick him up. Just shut the fuck up!” His voice carried away into the night and people began to move away from him. Best to avoid drunks having conversations with themselves.

  Change of plans, Reiji thought through the drunken haze wrapping his mind. I’ll go get the APC. I’ll drive over to the whorehouse. I’ll grab the boy, and we’ll get the hell out of town. If I need to, I’ll do a little off-roading. Where the trucks can’t follow. Into the deep desert. And then starve to death or die of thirst. Whatever, I’ll figure it out.

  Reiji shoved someone out of the way as he stepped onto the sidewalk, realizing a moment before they hit the ground that it was a woman. It was unlikely that would have stopped him from removing her from his path, but the fact that she was not alone caused a slight delay. A man grabbed at him angrily, throwing a sloppy punch. Even while drunk, training took over.

  Reiji slipped the punch, letting it pass by his head a few centimeters from his ear before launching a counter punch that slammed into the man’s jaw, sending him sprawling into the street. If that had been it, then there would have been no further delay. But that wasn’t it.

  A swarm of punches came at Reiji from all sides. The man and woman’s friends. He reached for his blades, and realized they weren’t there as a woman’s fist slammed into his ear. He winced in pain and attempted to cover himself and push through the crowd, but started tripping as people grabbed at him and kicked at his legs. Enough of this
bullshit, he thought as he leveled the woman who had just hit him with a thunderous kick to the jaw. He felt a pop through his boot and hoped it was the woman’s jaw breaking or dislocating, and not one of his toes doing the same.

  Fists and feet flew like rain in a storm. Someone lunged at him, and Reiji counter-threw them, sending them flying into the nearby wall with a solid thud. In a few short seconds, Reiji stood alone amidst a half dozen or so unconscious men and women. He wondered for a split second if the fight might have been his fault. After all it was best to avoid fights when he was unarmed. You never knew what kind of crazy shit might get pulled on you. He shook his head and then took off down the street again, as fast as he could move without falling.

  Around one more corner and he could see the Mayor’s Palace at the end of the street. The APC still parked exactly where had left it. But now there were two large trucks parked next to it. A group of men in Cent-Sec uniforms stood in front of the door to the Mayor’s Palace, all armed and not a single one smiling. One of them gestured at the APC as he talked to the others.

  A few people walked down the sidewalk that would eventually pass by the Cent-Sec soldiers and the mayoral dwelling. Reiji moved across the street quickly, but didn’t run. Forcing himself to try to walk in a straight line as he did so. He stepped onto the sidewalk just behind the group and fell into step with them, just a few meters behind. A man looked back at him with a questioning glance. Reiji simply nodded his head and gave what he hoped was a friendly smile. The man shrugged and turned back to his friends.

  As they approached the APC, Reiji lowered his head. He could hear the soldiers talking to one another. And none of it sounded too good for him.

  “They’re getting a description now. Two of them it sounds like.”

  “They said he went to a whorehouse.”