Deadstock (punktown) Page 14

  "Thanks for your help and hospitality."

  Jones preceded Stake to the door and held it open for him. "I'll drive you back to your office now, sir."

  "Jones, let Mr. Doe drive our guest back. I need you to be in that meeting with me." "Very well, Mr. Tableau. Then I'll be right back."

  The clone walked Stake down a carpeted hallway and into another office, its door labeled SECURITY. In this large room, Stake was disconcerted-if not surprised-to see two clones identical to Mr. Jones sitting at two of the desks.

  "Mr. Doe-would you give our guest Mr. McMartinez, here, a ride back to his office at 969 Trade Avenue? The Center for Missing and Exploited Children?"

  One of the two other clones stood up promptly, retrieving a bowler hat from where he'd set it down. "Certainly. Come with me please, sir."

  Stake smiled over his shoulder at Jones as he was led out of the security office. "Thanks. Mr. Jones. See you again." He couldn't resist the playfulness of the words. As he accompanied the black-suited Doe to the heliport on the roof, it was as though his escort had never been changed.

  The next man on Adrian Tableau's computer screen looked furtive because he was hiding in a toilet stall, and he was hiding in a toilet stall because he didn't want his coworkers to see him take this call on his wrist comp. And he didn't want that, because this man-Gordon Fester- worked for Fukuda Bioforms.

  Jones stood by his boss's desk as Tableau spoke to this man, to whom he had approached and offered money shortly after Fukuda Bioforms had assimilated Alvine Products. "I had a terrible thought a little while ago, Fester, and I wanted to run it by you."

  "Yeah?" the furtive face whispered. Tableau heard a toilet flush in another stall.

  "You know my daughter Krimson is missing. Well, it's come to my attention that a rumor at her school has my daughter stealing a doll belonging to John Fukuda's daughter, one of those blasting kiwi things or whatever they are."

  "Kawaii-dolls; yeah. His daughter Yuki's doll got stolen out of her locker, I guess. It's got to be worth a lot to him, because I hear he had a special team make it."

  "Some kind of experimental research?"

  "Right. The team was headed up by Pablo Fujiwara. Pablo was a designer at Alvine Products, who survived when the earthquake ripped through it."

  "So Fukuda is hot to get this thing back." "Yeah. I hear he hired a private investigator to look for it." "Really? Do you know that person's name?" "No."

  "Find out. Because the terrible thought I have is this, Fester. If people think Krimson stole this doll, then that means John Fukuda might blame Krimson for it, too. And if Fukuda believes that, then maybe the son of a bitch has done something to my daughter."

  On the computer screen, Gordon Fester widened his eyes and nodded in horror at the thought. "Wow. Yeah, I don't know."

  "Well look into it! And get me the name of the detective he hired. If Fukuda has done something to Krimson-kidnapped her or… whatever-then he might have hired someone like that as muscle."

  "I'll see what I can find out," Tableau's inside man promised, knowing that he'd be well compensated for his efforts.

  Adrian Tableau disconnected, then looked up at Mr. Jones, who loomed above him like a statue. "If Fukuda has hurt a hair on her head," he growled, "I'll skin that fuck alive. And I'll skin his daughter alive in front of him, before I do."

  A peripheral movement caused Tableau to look up and see a blob of fresh feces splatted against the inner wall of the hominid's cell. It was glaring out at him defiantly.

  "Jones," Tableau said, "you know how people crack open the skulls of living monkeys to eat their brains?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Find me a chef who can do that."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  going down

  With her long hair gathered up in a loose pony-tail, Javier put a hand on the back of Mira's neck, but lightly, not so much guiding her head's movements as integrating himself with them. Meshed gears in a machine of pleasure. He leaned back slightly against the edge of the sink. His navel was at the level of her forehead. Both of them had removed their clothes, but neither had stepped into the shower. He stared down at her body. Her entire legs-plump and awkwardly bent-didn't even reach the level of his knees, but her torso was nearly of regular proportion and he admired the distended sphere of her bottom.

  The pleasure was becoming too intense. He pulled back from her, reached down to that rounded bottom, took its cheeks in his hands and hoisted her up. Her legs hooked over his. With a gasp, looking in his face, she let him inside. He was afraid to hurt her, watched her eyes, but her mouth gaped open in something other than pain or protest. She put hands as small and dimpled as those of a toddler on his face, drew it to hers. Their tongues slithered over each other in a frenzy.

  Javier turned them around and lowered Mira to the counter beside the sink. Bent over her. Her squat legs poked up, tiny feet resting on his hips. Again they stared into each other's eyes. Her face was beautiful; anyone would say it. His gaze drifted down her smooth chest, perfect skin pulled taut across it. Back to her eyes again. Her head was at a slight angle. He saw the purple veins almost lost in the black hair at her temples. Remembered her gift. Was she reading his mind just then? It unsettled him. If so, what was she seeing? Because he wasn't sure what was inside there, himself.

  Then she panted, "Patryk."

  "What?" Javier rasped, working toward his orgasm. He flinched. There was a loud knocking at the door of the bathroom, and Patryk's voice on the other side of it.

  "Javier, you in there?"

  "Yeah, hold on!" he yelled, angry. "I've gotta finish my shower!"

  "Okay. Um, I just wanted to show you something."

  "I'll be right there!" In a softer voice he hissed, "Can't leave my babies alone for a second!"

  Mira smiled up at him, embarrassed. And flushed. And with something else shining in her large dark eyes that made Javier uncomfortable, weirdly sick in his guts. Something that made his heart beat faster with more than just exertion.

  Javier showered quickly so he'd reappear with wet hair, but from the looks that greeted him and Mira it didn't seem like the others were buying it. Satin, in his cybernetic pony, remarked, "Feeling all refreshed now, are we?" Javier ignored him, turning his attention to Patryk. Nhu pouted as Patryk extended the wrist comp that had been confiscated from her.

  "I found blueprints for Steward Gardens on the net," he announced. "Filed with the Paxton Zoning Office."

  "Good man," Javier told him. "What can we use?"

  "There's a generator in the cellar, like she guessed." The tall youth nodded at Mira. "And a brainframe tied into all systems."

  "An organic brain? A, what do you call it."

  "Encephalon," Mira said.

  "Yeah," said Patryk.

  "Nhu." Javier turned to her. "You're the techie. You think you could tap into that? Shut off these Blank People?"

  "I could try," she sulked, "but-"

  "I think there's something better than that idea," Patryk cut in. He tapped the device with a finger to draw Javier closer. The gang chief positioned his face directly above the little screen. Suddenly, the connection with his brain made, the image there filled the much larger screen of his mind. Patryk explained what he was seeing. "There's a maintenance chute down there. It connects up directly with the town system." "Meaning?"

  "It looks like we could get into the sewers. If we can do that, then we can pretty much go anywhere we want in the city."

  Javier looked up at him, slipping his brain out of the wrist comp's enveloping sleeve. "Yeah?"

  "It will be locked, I'm sure. The town doesn't want just anybody getting down into the sewers. But they do, anyway. So there's got to be a way in. If me or Nhu can't hack it, then maybe we can just force our way. Blast it if we have to."

  Javier showed his sneer-like grin. "Man, I've gotta give you a raise."

  "You've got to give me a salary first," Patryk replied.

  Javier turned to address the o
thers in the conjoined gangs. "Hey. Saddle it up. Looks like we're getting out of here, peoples."

  At the rear of Steward Gardens's B-Wing, behind the central area which on the ground level had served as a function room, the five remaining Tin Town Terata showed the seven remaining Folger Street Snarlers to the elevators that gave access to the two floors above. And to the basement level below.

  They had taken all their essentials. Patryk had his backpack with their scant food and collected communication devices. And everyone had their weapons. As they neared the elevators, Satin- moving along in his insect-like manner-said to Mott, "If you were smart you'd dissolve the body of your friend before you go. If the forcers find him here later, they'll come to Folger Street and question you."

  "Blast you! I'm not melting my friend. Anyway, I don't have any plasma."

  Satin held up his formidable Decimator .220 revolver. "I do. Green plasma, man, the best stuff. It won't leave anything. Eat his flesh, his bones, his clothes, his…"

  Mott stopped and looked ready to go for his own gun. "I told you, freak, nobody's gonna melt my friend!"

  "Hey." Javier looked back at them. "You two shut it and get over here."

  "Anyway," the dreadlock-headed Choom grumbled, "our insignia is sprayed outside. If the forcers want to find us, they'll find us. Nothing we can do about that now. You got some bodies of your own back there in 5-B, don't forget."

  "Yeah, but they don't have tattoos and gang gear like you punks do."

  Javier contemplated the twin elevators. "I don't know. I'd hate to box myself in one of these and have it get stuck. If that brain down there is controlling the Blanks and the trash zapper, who's to say it won't purposely seal us inside a lift?"

  "Didn't happen to us," slurred Nick, the mutant with the deflated-looking head.

  "Well, you took a risk I don't wanna repeat. Come on."

  Javier led them instead toward the stairwell and hoisted the metal door open. They began to descend, the metal steps clanging under their feet.

  Struggling with them, Mira said, "I just hope we can get the basement door open. We haven't been able to before."

  "I'll try my skeleton card," said Nhu, referring to the blank data card she had loaded with countless randomly generated key codes, using her home computer system.

  Javier glanced at Mira as they tramped down the steps side by side. In a low voice, he asked her, "You okay?"

  "Okay? In what way?"

  "I don't know. You know. Just. okay?"

  She smiled. "I guess."

  "Sorry about the stairs. I'd carry you, but."

  "Oh please. I'm not a baby, you know."

  "So I can't call you 'baby,' huh?"

  Mira smiled at him again.

  They reached the basement level hallway. Aside from the elevators, just a single metal door faced them, and upon it were stenciled the words: RESTRICTED AREA. Javier gestured Nhu forward. She produced her card and skimmed it through the reader. Nothing. She swiped it again. Tapped a couple of buttons in the keyboard.

  "Dung," grumbled Tiny Meat, perched behind his larger brother's shoulder like some foul-mouthed parrot, "this isn't going to work."

  There was a beep, the red status button on the control strip turned green, the metal door slid open in its grooves, and two gray arms thrust out of the murk beyond in an attempt to seize Nhu by the head.

  Another hand caught her by the arm and jerked her backwards, out of reach, with surprising force.

  "Blast!" shouted Javier, firing his gun into the onrushing figure.

  Nhu stumbled as she was whipped around, away from the open doorway. She spun in her savior's grip and looked into the skeletal face of Haanz, the spider-limbed Choom mutant. He had put himself between her and the door.

  Javier's bullets had smashed back the first figure, but a second gray-skinned entity plunged out of the doorway and leapt at Satin. He lifted one of his robot-like prosthetic hands and caught the thing by the throat. He held it aloft, its limbs thrashing like those of a man at the end of a noose. Mott raised his gun and fired several shots through the dangling body before Satin could point his plasma-loaded revolver at it. The body went limp in his grasp.

  A third creature leapt over the dead body of the first. Nick had a pistol, too, and he and Javier both hit the oncoming being-but its forward momentum caused it to crash into Javier nonetheless. The two of them went flying back to the floor. The gang chief struck his head against the opposite wall.

  A fourth member of the Blank People tore out of the room, but now Big Meat and Tiny Meat both launched streams of acid into its face. The creature hit the ground, rolled, flipped up onto Javier, bubbling and steaming and kicking crazi-ly, but Mira and Tabeth had Javier's unconscious body by the legs and they dragged him back toward the stairs.

  "Hit the door! The door!" Nhu was screaming, cowering behind Haanz.

  Five, six and seven fought to get through the door at the same time. A flurry of arms like biting hydra heads. Tiny Meat was knocked off his brother's shoulder to the floor. Big Meat was seized, and pulled into the cellar's gloom.

  "Fuckers!" Mott roared, lunging forward with his gun but afraid to hit Big Meat as he disappeared screaming into the mass of bodies beyond-who knew how many. Then, abruptly, one of the Blank People broke out of the tangle and was jumping onto Mott like a lover, wrapping its legs around him, grabbing his head in its hands, and thrusting its thumbs into his eye sockets. The Choom wailed, went down onto his back, the thing still straddling him.

  "Blast! Blast! Blast!" Satin bellowed, and he pointed the Decimator and fired. A gel cap loaded with corrosive plasma burst against the gray being's temple. Instantly, a luminous green fluid seemed to pour over the thing's faceless head, and run down the neck and upper chest like a burning lava. By the time the plasma flowed down the thing's arms and toward its belly, the head and neck were totally eaten away in its wake.

  Still dissolving, the dead creature toppled sideways off Mott. But Mott did not sit up when relieved of its weight. Blood streamed out of his crushed eye sockets and trickled from his ears.

  Nick was on the other side of the threshold, and made an attempt to stab at the keypad to close the door. He was grabbed by the wrist. Yanked off his feet. Pulled into the cellar. They heard his gun get off two shots before it was silenced.

  Tiny Meat had righted himself, stunned, and turned toward the open doorway. "Big!" he screeched. "Big! You fucks! Fuck you, you fucking fucks!" And then he raced straight into the darkness, between the legs of the pressing bodies like a baby too small yet to even be walking. The others heard him continue his cursing, until the screamed curses degraded into just screams.

  Barbie, also on the far side of the door, reached out to the keyboard next. She tapped some buttons, and the door began to close. Arms and half a gray body wedged themselves between the edge of the door and its frame, became pinned there. "Stand back!" Satin shouted, and fired several more gel caps. More hungry green fire spread across the reaching limbs and the upper body of the one that had almost made it through. Two arms dropped severed to the floor. In moments, there was nothing left of them but black smudges. The half a creature followed them with a thump, its own glowing green arms whipping uncontrollably. But these limbs shortened to stumps, and by then the thing wasn't moving anymore. It vanished too, again leaving only a kind of lingering shadow on the carpet.

  The door slid into its groove. Barbie, of the five faces, tapped the key labeled, LOCK. They heard the control strip bleep as this was accomplished. The status light went from green to red.

  The two gangs looked about them, dazed at their losses. Four of the Terata remained. Four of the Snarlers. And Mira bent over Javier, holding his face in her hands as she had done a mere hour before, when they had been alone in the bathroom together, and she spoke his name over and over.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  seances

  Janice Poole was sitting behind her desk, and Jeremy Stake sitting on a corner of that desk, when someon
e rapped lightly on the biology classroom's door. It cracked open, and a girl of sixteen stuck her head into the room. "You wanted to see me, Miss Poole?"

  "Come in, Caren," Janice told the girl. "I have someone here I want you to meet. His name is Mr. Stake, and he'd like to ask you some questions about your friend, Krimson Tableau."

  The student had already ventured into the room but seemed to pause in a freeze frame at the mention of the missing girl. Caren Bistro was a fairly pretty girl, looking both proper and fetching in her school uniform, but she bore enough of a resemblance to her father Ron Bistro to unsettle Stake. Ron Bistro was the "Punktown Prince of Porn," the best-known male pornographic star in the city, and only recently Stake had watched a holovid of Bistro in a threesome with two androids, one patterned after the attractive wife of the current Prime Minister, and the other resembling the long-dead actress Brigitte Bardot. (And Ron Created Woman, he remembered the vid had been titled, and Bistro had portrayed a libidinous robotics designer.) Bistro made enough money to send his daughter to the Arbury School and to have bought her the kawaii-doll that presently poked up out of her backpack. Bup Be was its name; a Vietnamese expression for "doll." Bup Be had two black lines meant to represent its eyes, but no nose or mouth. Its long black hair was constantly stirring in a breeze without an apparent source; maybe it was being blown out of holes in the doll's own head, Stake speculated.

  And her father made enough money to have bought Caren a nice, trendy Ouija phone.

  Stake had at first thought to ask Yuki Fukuda to introduce him to this girl. After all, it was Yuki who had given him Caren's name. But he had feared that Caren would resent Yuki as much as Krimson had, and thus prove to be uncooperative. And so he'd approached Janice for assistance instead, figuring that her presence would intimidate Caren into being helpful.

  "I already talked to the police about Krimson," Caren stammered, looking evasive. Too evasive for Stake's taste.