Miss Brandymoon's Device: a novel of sex, nanotech, and a sentient lava lamp (Divided Man Book 1)

by Skelley, Rune

  The only other explanation she could come up with was that the conspiracy she’d made up was real, and the people behind it discovered her investigation and kidnapped her. Perhaps they wanted to frighten her, but this just proved she was on the right track.

  Rook retrieved her clothes. The foil was glued into her bra, so she decided to go without. As she turned the dress right-side out, her arm brushed against her left breast, bumping her nipple ring. It sprang open and snagged her skin. She looked down at the silver hoop, puzzled. The ring in her belly button should be the wonky one, not the one in her nipple. Tugging on the hoop in her navel proved it to be secure. The rings had been switched.

  *** *** ***

  An intern checked Fin’s eyes, then gave him a shot. Left alone on a gurney in his briefs and hospital gown, Fin tried to relax. The shot helped, but the curtain walls did nothing to muffle the sounds of hospital staff and the injured. Based on what he heard, there had been no fatalities so far.

  Fin opened Rook’s Mac again and started looking through her hard drive. He hoped to find something to comfort himself, something to cling to. Realizing he didn’t know Rook well at all, he was looking for ways to remember her, justification for his irrational actions and what he understood now as love.

  Fin learned to cope with loss at thirteen when his mom disappeared. He’d gone to live with his father, Brad. And Brad’s family. The repertoire of coping skills he mastered under that roof included denial, distance and repression, but Rook deserved better.

  The doctor finally came in. She looked tired as she examined Fin, but had enough energy to question him on how he sustained his injuries. Fin didn’t want to tell her he’d been in a fight because he didn’t want the police involved, so he told her he worked at Sycamore.

  “That doesn’t explain your injuries,” she noted.

  “The building blew up.”

  “That still doesn’t explain what happened to you. These injuries aren’t from an explosion or a fire. Believe me, I know. I just finished treating seven of your co-workers. The police are taking their statements now.”

  Fin didn’t want to talk to the police, especially about his whereabouts during the fire.

  “I do work there, but I wasn’t there today. Not inside. I was outside when it happened. I was late. Ask anyone. They’ll tell you I’m always late. I was late because I was in a fight.”

  “Now that I can believe. Would you like to file a complaint? About the fight? I can get an officer for you. They’re all over the hospital.”

  “No. No, thanks. They’re busy enough, wouldn’t you say? It was my own fault anyway. I’m an asshole sometimes.”

  “That I can also believe.”

  X-rays were ordered and Fin received another injection. His sprained left index finger was taped to his middle finger. His nose was set and bandaged. Two ribs on the left were cracked. The cut on his forehead required four stitches.

  Most of the explosion victims had either been discharged or admitted and the emergency room became a lot emptier. Fin got a real room, with walls and a door. Dressed in his bloody, smoky clothes, he sat in a wheelchair with Rook’s computer, exploring her files. Her words on the screen reminded him of her voice, of their night together and the conversations they shared — over coffee at Magic Beans, over the chessboard in his room, over breakfast at The Shamrock, and, most intimately and vividly, over their intertwined naked bodies in his bed. Her voice filled his memory so thoroughly that he could hear her reading to him in a sort of nostalgia-fueled emulation. Occasionally a nurse or aide would interrupt him to check his vitals, but otherwise Fin was left alone to listen to Rook tell her story.

  *** *** ***

  Rook was in the shower, full blast, hot, before she thought about the possibility of destroying evidence. Too late now. Probably nothing useful anyway. Rook reached for the soap. There wasn’t any, so she stood under the scalding deluge until it ran cold. She took her green panties off, wrung them out and tossed them over the shower-curtain rod. She stood under the cold water for another five minutes, until she started to shake again. Fin’s towel must be in his room, too, because there were none to be found in this hole of a bathroom. Rook had been in plenty of public restrooms that were better appointed. A quick search of the medicine cabinet while she dripped dry provided her with a nail file, a straight razor and some used dental floss. She left the floss, but took the other things to try to pick the lock on Fin’s door.

  It took a few minutes, and she felt self-conscious standing naked in the hall, her clothes in a heap at her feet, but she managed to get the door open without being seen. She locked it behind her.

  “Hi, Rook.”

  She whirled around, frantically searching the corners.

  “So you can hear me without Fin here.”

  With great relief she remembered the lava lamp. “Oh, Vesuvius! You scared the shit out of me.” What kind of life was she now living that the existence of a talking light fixture was comforting?

  “Sorry,” the lamp said in his characteristic monotone. “No one besides Fin has ever been able to hear me.”

  Fin’s dingy towel hung on a hook on the back of the door. Drying her damp skin, Rook took comfort in his smell, even overlaid with must.

  “Have you seen Fin? Has he been here?”

  “He could have been here while I was sleeping.”

  “You sleep?” There were so many better questions she should be asking, the reporter in her said, but the idea of treating Vesuvius as anything other than a new friend felt exhausting. She longed to warm her hands on him, but thought he might react badly. Instead she laid her boots and jacket on the recliner, and threw the rest of her clothes in the garbage with all the used condoms.

  “Usually at night, but you two were distracting. I was unable to sleep soundly last night.”

  Rook couldn’t quite justify her embarrassment. Vesuvius was only a lamp, even if he could talk. She hoped he wouldn’t start asking questions.

  Oblivious to her discomfort, Vesuvius went on, “Fin often keeps me awake all night.”

  Rook tried to open the fridge. Locked. She reached for the nail file, but Vesuvius said, “He keeps an extra key under his amp.”

  “Thanks.” Rook found the key, opened the freezer and looked behind the empty ice cube trays.

  “Eureka.” A half-empty bottle of vodka. After taking a swig, she set the bottle down beside Vesuvius and located a coffee-stained mug among Fin’s clutter. She removed her navel and nipple rings.

  “Rook, what are you doing?”

  “Sterilizing them.” She dumped the hoops into the mug and drowned them with vodka, swirling the mug as she told Vesuvius what happened to her after breakfast. Having to backtrack repeatedly to explain details of human behavior to the lava lamp frustrated her a little. She concluded her tale by explaining she couldn’t get new hoops yet because they were at Talisman, and her keys were in her backpack which she hoped Fin would have.

  “I think they should be pretty clean by now.” She fished the jewelry out, blotted them dry on Fin’s pillow and inserted them in their proper holes.

  “Fin sprouted one too,” Vesuvius deadpanned. “On his eyebrow. You probably noticed it.”

  Rook laughed. “Yeah, I noticed. It didn’t grow though. I’m the one who put it there.”

  “On purpose?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wasn’t he upset?”

  “No. He paid me to do it. It’s my job.”

  Vesuvius grew quiet for a minute. “All people aren’t like Fin. Are they?” Rook thought he sounded worried.

  “No. Fin’s rather special. Unique. That’s probably why he can hear you when no one else can.”

  “Except you. You must be unique, too.”

  “I suppose I must be. But in a different way than Fin. Otherwise we wouldn’t be unique. So where’s Mr Unique keep his clean clothes?”

  “Fin has no clean clothes. That’s something else that makes him ‘special.’”

&n
bsp; After digging around, Rook selected the least offensive jeans in the room. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn pants of any sort. They were too long and felt strange with no panties, but they’d do. A Space Ghost t-shirt which hadn’t been worn on stage didn’t smell too rank, and she discovered a clean pair of socks behind the radiator.

  As she sat on a cafe stool and tied her boots someone knocked on the door. She looked up at Vesuvius, but he didn’t say anything.

  Another knock and, “Rook?” A voice the same pitch as Fin’s, but clearer. A non-smoker’s voice.

  “Rook? Are you in there? Hey, this is Kyle. From downstairs.”

  Hoping he wouldn’t ask for his condoms back, she opened the door.

  The clean-cut guy in the hallway stood about six feet tall, the same height as Fin. Dark blond hair, neat and short under a denim and corduroy ball cap. At least the cap wasn’t backward. He wore chinos, a dark green rugby shirt, combat boots and a salesman smile.

  “Rook?” he asked, looking her up and down.

  “Yeah.” She felt uncomfortable in jeans, but tried not to look it.

  “Hi. Hey, Fin just called. He asked if I could give you a ride.”

  “Oh great!” She was relieved to have some news. “I’ve been looking for him. Is he OK?”

  “Uh, yeah. He was glad to hear I thought you were here. My room’s right downstairs,” he explained. “Are you ready to go?”

  “Let me grab my coat.”

  “Rook?” Vesuvius said.

  Rook glanced at the lamp. Kyle obviously didn’t hear it. She shrugged and started pulling on her jacket.

  “Where is he?”

  Kyle pulled the door shut and led her toward the stairs. “The hospital.”

  *** *** ***

  The room slid slowly toward the floor, but never quite made it. This painkiller was a lightweight drug by Fin’s standards. After enjoying the vertigo for a short while, he refocused on the computer screen.

  Rook’s low, melodious voice filled his imagination as he read her files. He relished the sarcastic tone she took on when reading her college papers, mostly communications, a smattering of psych and one marketing opus.

  She had some decent short fiction, but Fin could tell she wasn’t proud of it by the halting, embarrassed way she read it. He longed to encourage her.

  In with all the school papers was a file called ‘DREAMS.’

  The dreams made Fin smile. He wondered about the people mentioned, and how they got lucky enough to frolic in Rook’s head. Skipping ahead to the most recent entries, he checked to see if he made an appearance, sure he would remember it if he had.

  The most recent entry, six weeks old, said simply, “Again Dammit.”

  Fin remembered the spaceship dream. Pensively he scrolled back through her entries. He went back through a week’s worth to the first mention.

  She whispered the details as if recounting a ghost story around a campfire.

  Setting: Desert, or possibly ocean floor.

  Rocks and sand everywhere. Something important is hidden. Everything starts to vibrate. Terrible subsonics. A greenish spaceship (bathysphere) shaped like Cinderella’s carriage hangs there. It’s got spider legs. It finds a key. I don’t think I want to do this.

  Fin shuddered as he closed the folder.

  The returning pain in his head and fingers annoyed him, so he tucked the computer under his arm and stumbled out to find a nurse. He found an unattended pharmacy cart first though, so he gave himself a shot of Demerol, he thought, and went back to his nest.

  After settling back down and reviewing some of Rook’s old articles for Conspiracy Theory Press, he started poking around in the folder called ‘Bullshit.’ She read him her anti-affirmations in a somewhat strident voice. Well, she was right about one thing; she hadn’t been abducted by aliens.

  Reading her article about dream control and Buck U depressed Fin because it wasn’t finished. She might never get the chance to finish it.

  Those thoughts nauseated him and he clicked that window closed. Tears trickled down Fin’s cheeks. Clicking randomly, he opened folders, looked at her monitor settings, checked available RAM.

  His head swam with painkillers. He studied the striations and flecks of color of the Mac’s hypnotic desktop pattern. Letting his eyes relax, he achieved a rudimentary 3-D effect. He floated through it for several minutes, until something in his peripheral vision distracted him. When he tried to focus on it, Fin came crashing back into himself. It took several seconds to locate the cause — a stray period in the lower right corner of the screen.

  Thanks to his injuries, Fin was using the trackpad right-handed. Occasionally at Sycamore, he would race one of the other artists to see who could finish their work first. To make things interesting, he would sometimes handicap himself by using the mouse with his off hand. He never thought it an especially useful skill, until now. Clicking on such a small target required fine maneuvering. A folder containing over fifty text files opened.

  Some of the files had titles such as ‘fall-out,’ ‘schmuck,’ and ‘gamesmanship,’ others were titled with dates.

  Though it wasn’t fool-proof, Rook went to some trouble to hide this folder. Why? From whom?

  Fin justified reading the first file by hoping it might contain something to explain her current situation.

  It wasn’t about the organized crime gang threatening her family, or the international terrorists who wanted to kidnap her and sell her to the Sultan of Brunei. It was about some guy named Dagan.

  Her journal.

  Fin knew he ought to stop reading it, but didn’t. Rook seemed to want him to know what it said, because she read to him again. He took comfort in her voice, wrapped around him like a blanket, as she told the story of Dagan and how she’d left him for Marcus. He’d given her the computer and asked her to meet his family. She claimed he wasn’t emotionally supportive, but Fin could tell that really she was scared.

  To make the break from Dagan, she moved in with Marcus immediately. It made Fin’s heart and stomach ache to hear how happily she described the early times with Marcus, and the joys of their animal sex. She’d been with him for close to two years, judging by the dates on these entries.

  Reading on, he heard her tell of feuding with her mother. Mom refused to call her Rook, insisting on her given name, Brook. Mom didn’t approve of Marcus, thought the twelve year age difference too great. She didn’t think Brook should get serious with anyone while still in school. Rook thought it hypocritical for a woman on her seventh marriage to lecture anyone about relationships. Mom thought Brook should call her newest stepfather Dad instead of Bill. Rook decided not to talk to Mom anymore.

  Marcus led her down the path of tattoos, body piercing and drug experimentation in the name of spirituality. Marcus claimed Lakota blood. He wanted desperately to be a shaman, took peyote on a regular basis. Rook at first thought this interesting. At first. During one vision quest, he ‘discovered’ he was an incarnation of Coyote, trickster par excellence, and she was Raven, a trickster as well as a creator. After that he took to calling her Raven, and liked to role-play as Coyote, especially during sex. As tricksters they had a duty to rebel, break taboos, create chaos. This was very meaningful for Marcus, but Rook thought it all rather silly. She concluded Marcus’s spirituality was a massive overcompensation for some inadequacy he couldn’t face. Fin had to agree with her.

  She graduated the previous May and had begun trying to figure out her next move, away from Buck U, Webster, and Marcus. So far her lack of savings and legitimate job offers stymied her.

  Fin wasn’t sure how he felt when Rook told him about Marcus cheating on her, and her own cheating in retaliation. From that point, Rook’s tone grew gruffer. The entries became less frequent. Mostly they were about Marcus being a shit.

  When Fin came to one called ‘fish parts’ Rook fell silent.

  *** *** ***

  Marcus was in a mood. Actually, he’d been in several. At first he b
urned with rage. He would have destroyed all Fin’s things after breaking in, except he didn’t know when the whelp might return.

  His anger cooled a bit, slowly, while he waited motionless in Fin’s chair. The waiting had gone on much too long. Emptiness over the loss of Rook gave him a few pangs, but he kept his heart hard. He wasn’t ready to give her up, needed to let his spirit animal stay in charge. A long, deep breath stoked the coals of his black meditations, summoning power.

  Coyote lurked in the crimson dimness, the jet plumage of Raven his great war-bonnet. The dual tricksters, unstoppable agents of disorder. Together they would unmake the world so a new one would be born. His eyes glowed, and he grinned. But he was alone, with no wings-of-night companion.

  The smile soured into a grimace. Marcus recalled meeting Fin, the day he came in to get pierced. He remembered the way Fin looked at Rook, and her acting flaky. Fin brazened his way into Marcus’s sanctum and entranced Rook. Now she was gone!

  The next encounter festered in his mind. The mangy animal barged right in again, and with Rook’s keys. Marcus almost had him, but the Bear came. They tricked him.

  Now he was on Fin’s turf. He would dish out some rude surprises, like the one he had right after he got here. Rook’s clothes.

  Panic and bafflement had swept him. Completing his search left him still grappling with why her clothes were in the trash. The lock on the fridge had caught his eye, even though it was disengaged. He doubted her entire body would fit into it, although some ingenious configuration of the pieces might make it possible. The tangle of blankets and numerous used rubbers didn’t tell him anything he wanted to know. He had convinced himself he would find something by the time he opened the locked closet, and was scarcely reassured by his uneventful investigation.