Limbus, Inc.

by Anne C. Petty

  The alien lunged after him, firing what was left in the clip. The Sticker dropped to his knee from the pain in his hip, but it was good that he had—there was a clear path to that pineapple eye. The Sticker grabbed the eye and crushed it between his fingers. Oily blood ruptured over his knuckles and the Fanjlion made several husky burping sounds before collapsing on the floor, a column of gold running from its head down the dark paneled floor.

  A minute later, the door opened and Timothy proclaimed, “That’s what I thought, override is always on the seventh panel.”

  Razz immediately went down on a knee to help the Sticker. “You okay?”

  “Yup.”

  “Fucked up your new clothes, man.”

  The jumpsuit was shredded, painted in glittering blood, of both red and gold variety. “Guess I did… that guy, Harper…”

  “We saw.”

  “It was my gun they used.”

  “Not your fault. There were more of them than usual,” said Razz solemnly.

  “Will Limbus send Harper back to his family somehow?”

  Timothy pursed his lips. “No,” he said after a moment.

  The Sticker looked at Razz, who looked away. “Work’s done today. The Princess’s clean crew will take care of the rest here.”

  The Sticker growled in pain as he stood. “So what happens to Harper? No mysteries, guys. I ain’t in the mood.”

  Razz sighed. “He’ll be taken down to be rendered and prepped for consumption with the rest of these bodies.”

  “Along with the aliens? You said the Princess had particular tastes though.”

  “Yes, but she won’t turn down getting one of us.”

  “Not ever,” Timothy added.

  *

  Razz and Timothy were in a funk for a couple weeks after losing Harper. Especially Razz, being the youngest of all the men there. The Sticker wagered he’d never seen anyone he cared about die. Both men would often tell the Sticker stories about Harper while preparing for the day’s work. Some of the stories were funny, some serious, but all equally endearing, and to hear them speak about their friend this way proved them decent guys, which made the Sticker feel more at peace with the company he was now in.

  As much as they liked to go on about Harper, neither Razz nor Timothy wanted to share too much about how Limbus talked them into this job on the Princess’s slaughter ship. The Sticker knew how they felt and kept that particular course of events from their conversations. He figured they would all end up sharing everything eventually. After a month of killing Fanjlions, Bezdebos, Horta Sa-inj, and Grettish Friars, they were more like comrades in a war, rather than employees working a job.

  And just when life on the Princess’s ship got predictable, her tastes would change. They would learn from her robot emissaries that Fixer guns gave the meat a “smell” or that the bludgeons she next instructed them to use had splintered some of the spines and bone shrapnel had spoiled the meat. Now, a full two months later, the Sticker and his two fellow slaughterers were using short-hafted spears, not much different than the long knife the Sticker was accustomed to in the stockyards.

  After their kills, a fleet of peculiar robots would sanitize the floors and transport the bodies to the rendering facilities. Their gelatin-red bodies reminded the Sticker of the cinnamon bears he used to eat with abandon, before he developed several root canals. These robots had no visible power supplies or hinged iron limbs like those he’d seen in movies. The eyes were the only mechanical looking component to them, alarming yellow diodes that blinked as they processed information. Efficient at their tasks though, the robots kept things moving in an orderly fashion, especially the emissary models that conveyed messages in unstilted American English.

  The Sticker would watch them move around like furious gummy children, pushing mops heaped in gore, moving puddles of thick alien blood with squeegees, picking up corpses and flinging them into the small dump trucks. It was amazing to behold mechanical devices moving around so fluid and unerring.

  Which was why the Sticker couldn’t understand the sorry-ass lag-time and glitchiness of the personal computer in his dorm room. Tasha had the computer sent over a couple days after he arrived. The laptop was modern, nothing special, save for the fact that the self-sustaining battery never lost a charge. So again, why all the lagging? Why all the glitches? He was grateful to have some sort of connection to Earth, but this was weak.

  The Sticker didn’t post much to any social sites, but he was an avid lurker that read about his friends and sometimes distant family members. One person held his attention the most, however.

  He sent Annette another message the day he set up the computer: Did you ever read my email?

  The answer came back a few days later. Tell me where you’ve gone. I’ve received phone calls from the Regional Water Quality Control Board, the EPA, and the police department. Your boss, Gerald Bailey, was put in the hospital with a life-threatening infection. They are blaming you.

  He typed back: Sorry to hear that. I’m out of state. I don’t think I’ll be back in a long time.

  A week passed and another email came through: You need to get back to me soon about this. Are you in town still? I’ve called your uncle Pete, and he hasn’t heard from you.

  He replied: Did you get my last email? I said I’m out of state.

  Her response: Do you want to go the Freeman’s BBQ this Saturday?

  The Sticker sat there, scratching at a burning claw wound from a Grettish Friar on his cheek. Annette had sent this email years ago… why was it coming through again?

  Huh? he returned to her.

  Then a follow-up email came in: So what state are you in then????? This is serious. You need to contact me.

  He didn’t bother to respond.

  The next morning the Sticker quickly got dressed. Aside from warmth, the jumpsuits nourished and hydrated them as well. The small amount of body fat he’d had before was nearly gone. He would have felt great had his body not been constantly abused by outside factors. As he suited up, feeling nice and full, satisfied, he heard a knock at his door. He slid it open and found one of the cherry red emissaries standing there.

  At first he got a bad feeling that spears were no longer acceptable and the Princess would now like them to strangle her various forms of cattle, but the robot relayed a message from Tasha, in her own voice.

  “I’m sorry that I will be unable to visit the ship. The chain of command in our division has insisted I remain on Earth. I’m sorry for this. I hope the lap-top with internet access will bring you some repose. I’m working on getting you transferred, or at least your contract altered so you don’t have to be locked into five years. Take care of yourself and I’ll contact you soon.”

  The robot backed away and gracefully strode down the hallway.

  The Sticker felt so far away from anything real, but that guidepost for reality wasn’t the Earth, but Annette. Before he slept every night, he wondered if she missed him. With each day that passed, did she realize her mistake? He knew her dreams, saw them grow up from a modest beginning and blossom out. She wanted to become an accountant, but hated school. He coached her through the lectures, tests and all the dreariness that came with it, and then just last year she became a CPA. She thanked him. Profusely. Did she forget the man who did that for her? Would there be a moment when she reflected back to the time she’d felt so small and he made her feel like a giant?

  He didn’t want praise. He just wanted some credit.

  If she really was going to leave him forever, he at least deserved that.

  He attempted to email her several times that night.

  Six months passed after those attempts.

  No other email came through.

  Not even those of the panicked legal sort.

  Nothing.

  The same day he vowed to stop using the computer was the first time he heard the Princess’s voice. He was loading Fanjlion bodies onto the conveyor and while one of the actuators momentarily powered dow
n, there was a brief course of silence through the rendering facility. The Princess’s scream was pained and infant-like in its misery, and the Sticker thought, without much further reflection, that’s the voice of the thing that will chew me up someday. My body will be mush in her mouth. She’ll swallow me down.

  And Annette would never know the difference.

  *

  “Hey Slaughter Man, you okay?” asked Razz.

  The Sticker opened his eyes. They felt thick and greasy. The sides of his face stung. His nose wasn’t much better. Probably broken in twenty places, or at least it felt that way. He couldn’t breathe through it, so he had to suck in a big breath through his mouth. The slight whistling between his missing front tooth sent a reminder to him of that Joxle beast, how it had picked him up by the neck and slammed him to the floor like some exotic pro-wrestler from beyond the stars. The Sticker had got him good in the end. The creature was smart, but he got it to fall into a hatch for a service tunnel. He bled it out right there. Joxles bled red, just like cows. That was a bit of a nostalgic moment for the Sticker, though it was hard to enjoy after having his ass kicked by something roughly twice the size of a sumo.

  “You can just rest there. Timothy and I got this one today.”

  “Nah,” said the Sticker. He pushed up on his arm and it felt bruised from shoulder to knuckles. Bruised to the bone.

  Razz’s broad African features could hardly be seen in the room. The cabin lights had not powered up yet. “You gotta know something…”

  The Sticker lied back down. “Yeah?”

  “We were given new orders last night.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s the Friars again. If it is… shit, I might have to sit this one out after all. Let you younger guys handle it.”

  Razz let go a trembling breath and shook his head. “You got cut up pretty bad yesterday.”

  “Thing had sharp claws. Maybe worse than a Friar. Hell, it was just so goddamn strong.”

  For a moment Razz didn’t say anything, just sat there, looking numb and featureless.

  “What was the order?” the Sticker prompted.

  “You bled all over that thing. The Princess got a taste for you…”

  The Sticker pushed all the way up in bed now and edged himself painfully against the freezing metal wall. “Grossed her out, eh?”

  Razz sadly snorted.

  “So, okay, I get it. Now what? You guys gonna fall in line?”

  “I don’t know… my contract for this job ends in a year. I hear that some people end up working for Limbus itself. Recruiters, scouts, that stuff. They might even promote me when I get back. I was banking on my luck to bring me there.”

  It was a joke they’d both said to each other before. Razz and the Sticker played backgammon every evening and shared the same self-deprecating nature. Neither was that competitive; no shit talking ever came about. They just liked playing games. Timothy wasn’t much for games and chose to read instead, and for that, the Sticker was closer to Razz, which was likely why he was the one to bring this bad news.

  They had arrived at a point where neither could take a move.

  “You know…” Razz took a while to form the words. “It’s not just the job. You know Tim and I wouldn’t… not for that.”

  “Nice to hear.”

  “One of the guys before Harper, his crew’s first day of work was getting rid of the last crew. If we refuse her anything, the Princess will demand new people. They’ll take us all out then.”

  “Yeah.” The Sticker cleared his throat and swallowed a bad taste in his mouth. “So when does she want you guys to deliver me to her?”

  “After you’re completely healed,” Razz replied.

  “Makes sense.”

  Razz stood and grunted. “No, it fucking doesn’t. But that’s where we are.”

  “Why did Limbus send you here anyway?”

  “Screwed up my Army job. Too much to go into. Let’s just say Saigon will never be the same.”

  “Really? We still have forces over there?”

  “Sure do. Don’t believe everything you read. But what about you? Why’d Limbus send you here?”

  “Same friggin thing. Screwed up my last job.”

  Razz laughed and then trailed off, eyes hazy. “I don’t know what to do, man. I just… don’t.”

  The lights in the room came on then, illuminating them both.

  “Now do you?” asked the Sticker.

  Razz’s mouth peeled back into a grin. “You asshole.”

  “Go on now. I need to think about this.”

  “We could keep beating the shit out of you, I guess.”

  Now the Sticker laughed. “As much as that sounds really fun, I think the Princess will take notice.”

  Razz’s face went grim. “She would at that.”

  “You’ve seen her then?”

  “Just been outside the audience chamber, to deliver a pallet of her digestive enzymes. Heard her eating… smells like a boneyard in there.”

  “I know that smell.”

  “Not like this, man.” Razz went to the door, all his good humor drained from him. “Take it easy, and Tim and I will come here for our break.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Oh,” Razz added. “Don’t put on your jumpsuit. It’ll heal you faster.”

  “Good to know.”

  *

  The robots came by every morning to check the Sticker’s injuries. By the fourth day his cuts had crusted over and his bruises had shrunk from purple clouds to jaundice strata. He was getting better and the robot’s vital scanners were taking note.

  Every night the Princess’s hungry screech rattled the walls of the ship. Dying for food. More. It hurt his insides to even listen to the sound. He’d gone back to using his computer and tracked down some classical music by composers he’d never heard of, enjoying both the brooding kind Annette had taught him to like and the more energetic symphonies that lifted his spirits despite everything else.

  Razz and Timothy visited him several times a day, but never had much to say. It was becoming obvious that Razz had resigned himself to the worst outcome, while Timothy still held out hope they would think of something.

  Around that fourth day, they did think of something, although the plan didn’t summon much excitement from the Sticker.

  Robots were in and out of the medical supply cache throughout the day to deliver various digestive supplements to the Princess, including those enzymes she required to process some of the different alien tissues she consumed. But there weren’t only gastrological medications in the cache. In a few instances in the past, the Princess experienced a form of pain that only cybernetic organisms could acquire; steel-shock was the layman’s term, and as the Sticker understood it, this kind of pain involved the inflammation of organic nerves, while the blood took on a high metal content; essentially the whole body experienced something akin to being struck by lightning, continually, for hours. Therefore, in the medical cache, copious drums of a preferred anesthesia called Lethardohl 90/30 could be found. The drug worked successfully on a wide spectrum of life forms, humans included.

  Razz’s plan would be to sneak in during the day and hide behind the garbage compactor in the back of the medical cache. The delivery robots had tunnel vision and never did any security sweeps of the room. He would hole up in there for a few hours after they stopped coming for supplies, since they still did a patrol of the halls until all lights went out. It was risky, but worth it for the Sticker. After they had the Lethardohl, he only needed to take a teaspoon orally of the syrup. He would fall into a stupor and he would not feel their knives, nor would he know his final moment.

  Brain-dead… and then they’ll cut my throat. How nostalgic.

  The Sticker agreed to the plan more for his friends’ sake than his own. If the roles had been reversed, he wouldn’t have wanted to cause them pain either, or see the look in their eyes as he slashed through their jugular.

  But you wouldn’t take their w
ay out; you’d fight for them. Right? The Sticker shook his head. Not if Annette was waiting for me. I would do what I had to, to get back to her.

  At least, he used to think he would have. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Being far away from her had made him realize that he could breathe fine on his own. He still loved her, but he didn’t think about her every waking moment like he used to.

  The night of their medical cache raid, he waited in the hallway, feeling comfortable and less hungry now that he wore his jumpsuit again. This hall was one of the few with a window to space. With the lights out, standing there was standing in nothingness. Only a dim, peach glow came from underneath the door. They could hear Razz slowly breaking the door’s seal from within.

  “I don’t want to do this,” said Timothy. “We shouldn’t do this.”

  The Sticker said nothing. He was not going to insist on their plans to kill him, not by any stretch.

  The padding sound of a robot’s footsteps came from down the hall. The two men froze. With a sucking sound the door to the medical cache opened and Razz poked his head out. The Sticker put his finger to his lips.

  The robot’s footsteps faded and they retreated inside the room. Litter and assorted junk spread out over the floor like a small cyclone had gone through the room. Several drums had been knocked over amidst the mess. The Sticker stepped on a pile of thin aluminum and cringed at the crumpling sound he’d made.

  “What the hell has gone on in here?”

  “Oh, too much to explain, boys, but I’ve been having some fun.” Razz looked excited, out of breath and like he hardly knew where to start. “Tim,” he finally said, “Remember what Harper said about membrane transport?”

  “That DNRM-33 stuff?”

  “Yeah, the transport stores all biological profiles using that stuff to translate our DNA, blabbety-blab.”

  “Ok.”

  “He said that in times where astrodynamic computers were down, he knew people who took double doses of the stuff, stepped in and it kicked them back to their original location.”

  Timothy nodded, though his face was dubious. “It might be an urban legend, but yeah, Harper thought the membrane’s internal memory cannot possess identical biological data. Another couple doses of DNRM-33 will instruct it to code something previously coded, not once, but twice. This is registered as an anomaly error, a safety measure is supposedly then taken by the system and a forced return occurs.”