Deadstock

CHAPTER EIGHT the flesh machines

"These are the ones we've killed inside the building," said Mira, waving a plump little arm. A neat row of five mostly intact bodies lay on their backs in the gloom of apartment 6-B of Steward Gardens. "Five to the ten of us they've killed."

"I didn't notice the missing spaces when we were outside," Javier said, referring to the narrow alcoves the Blank People occupied. He stepped closer to the corpses and prodded one's leg with the toe of his shoe.

"Like I say, this is only five out of seventy-two of them. No wonder you didn't notice."

"So they're not androids, huh?" Javier said dubiously, crouching down beside one of the bodies. Even this close he smelled no decay from the corpses, just a faint fishiness from the raw wounds where the Tin Town Terata's guns had blown chunks out of them. Most of the killing wounds were to the heads. He lifted a slender but heavy arm, completely blown off at the elbow. It was rubbery to the touch and in consistency. He noted the whitish filaments that dangled out of the stump in place of veins, or maybe nerves, or maybe tendons.

"They're belfs," Mira stated. Bio-engineered life forms. "But very simple ones, not like real people. They're like organic androids."

Javier laid the limb on the floor again, and bent closer to this creature's decimated head. The interior was as gray as the exterior. A slime of clear fluid coated the insides of the creature's wounds, and a viscous pool had spread under its body, but he saw no shards of skull. He saw no brain. Just solid gray meat throughout, interwoven with a network of those white filaments. However, inside the gaping head he did spot a corner of the shattered programming chip that Mira had alluded to. "So these chips are all turned on."

"All I can think is that the people who would've opened this place, but never did, left the Blank People active to keep out intruders and vandals. And they're probably all tied in to one computer server, along with the generator."

Javier looked up at her. "Okay, but if the power in this place is on, and if these things and the homicidal trash zapper are all running off one server, then why can't the computer just open every window in this place and let all the Blank Fucks inside to finish us off?"

"Well, I can't tell. Maybe the owners programmed the computer to just communicate with these things, to use them as security, and the trash zapper is either an oversight or they left it fully active because the owners still needed to use it. But the weird way it attacked your friend makes me think its program is crossed with the Blank People's program. They're following the same purpose."

"A mixed purpose. To dispose of us trash."

"Yeah, but even the Blank People's behavior can't be normal. The way they're acting, it wouldn't have worked out for this place. Can you imagine these things waking up and killing every visitor, every deliveryman? They're too aggressive. Their program is glitched. Who knows; maybe the owners of this place didn't leave them turned on. Maybe a virus got into the system just recently and woke them up. It could be that homeless guy they killed triggered the initial effect, by messing around in here somehow. Being the first person to trip a security alarm, and bring the things out of a dormant state, but now they're filling their role in a distorted way."

Javier got to his feet and smiled his city tough's sneering smile. "Huh. You're pretty smart, you know that?"

He saw her beautiful face redden. "My body is stunted. Not my brain."

"So are you the leader of your gang?"

"Oh no. No. He was killed by the gang we were fighting, before we even got out of Tin Town."

"But the others seem to do as you say. More or less."

"They respect me, I guess." She shrugged humbly.

"I wish my people would be respecting me a little better. They've always been rough dogs to rein in, but lately I don't know. Maybe because I'm getting old for this dung. I'm twenty-five. I ain't a teenager anymore. Hell, most of the original Snarlers have all gone off and gotten married and whatnot. These kids you see me with all came later."

"Maybe with us mutants that's not an issue so much. We're together more out of survival than to, um…"

"Than to what-be criminals? Sell drugs? Mug people? Torch cars and abandoned warehouses for a cut of the insurance money?" His tone had become defensive. "Yeah, I've done all those things."

Mira stammered, "I just mean, our gangs in Tin Town can have people of all ages."

He drew in a breath to calm himself. "Well, I'm definitely feeling ancient for the Snarlers. Twenty-five is like being a worn-out old grandpa."

Mira smiled. "You don't look worn out to me."

"I should get a job, I suppose." He gazed down at the five dead Blank People again. "But doing what? Being what? I can't work in some office. And labor work. ha. Most of the factories in this city are boarded up, and the jobs they do have are filled with robots and clones. Even these fucks here had a job."

Mira had no answers for him. Being a mutant in one of the most impoverished slums in Punktown, her own dreams had always been so limited that she had no imagination for them.

He looked up at her suddenly. "So, you have this gift. You heard Brat die; you saw it in your mind. Can you control it?"

"A little, but mostly it's random. I catch bits of other people's thoughts. They sort of come through the static, if you know what I mean. And sometimes people even hear my thoughts, so I guess I must be transmitting and not just receiving."

"Can you read my mind right now?"

She grinned shyly. "No."

He smiled back. "Good," he said, with teasing ambiguity. In fact, even he didn't know what he meant by it. Was he flirting with her? A dwarf from Tin Town? He knew some men sought out the city's mutant brothels for the express purpose of experiencing things like that. Maybe small people appealed to their inner pedophile. Personally, Javier had never been into mutants, amputees, and the like. He had slept with women who'd undergone some wild body modification, however, and he also found some of the alien races attractive: he'd dated a Choom, and he'd once had a crush on an exotic Kalian girl, though with her strict culture she hadn't given him the time of day.

Looking shyer than ever, and maybe even a bit wary that he might be mocking her, Mira stumbled back to their earlier subject. "You know how I was saying the Blank People are all linked into one server, most likely? I think I've even picked up on the computer's thoughts a little. Kind of like a gibberish that I can't even put into words. More like listening to bugs making sounds."

"Hold on. You can read machines' minds, too?"

"Well, if that's what I'm hearing, it must be an encephalon mainframe. You know-a computer made out of bio-engineered human brain tissue. So it would be partly organic."

"Ahh. Yeah. Too bad your power isn't stronger, so you could order that thing to shut these Blank People down."

"I wish I was that powerful."

Lost in thought for a moment, Javier placed his foot against one of the Blank People's heads and turned it on its rubbery neck so that he could better make out the number recessed into its forehead. 9-A. He then observed, "I wonder if these things were more than just guards. Maybe they were meant to be servants, too."

"I've thought of that. Especially given the name Steward Gardens."

"Why, what does 'steward' mean?"

"Well, a steward is sort of like a servant. Or a waiter, or a guy on a ship who might take care of the passengers. You know?"

"Nice. Everyone with their own slave slash bodyguard. But the apartments themselves are all pretty small. One bedroom each. Not a good place to raise a family."

"More likely it was geared toward unmarried young professionals. Office drones in cubicles, who wouldn't mind cubicle apartments. But they'd pay big money for them because it's right in the heart of one of the city's best sectors."

"Six apartments to the front of both wings, and six on the sides. What's at the back of the building?"

"Maintenance offices, and the elevators and stairs to the upper floors."

"Ah. But what about the middle in both wings? The apartments line the outer walls, so what's behind the opposite side of the hallways?"

"Come on, I'll show you."

They left 6-B, closed its door behind them, and found themselves in a murky carpeted hallway. Javier followed the miniature woman further down the passage until they came to one of the far-spaced doors on the opposite wall from that in which the apartment doors were set. She opened this, and they stepped into a single large chamber.

Mira's voice echoed somewhat as she explained, "On the ground floor of B-Wing, we have this big empty room that I figure must have been a function hall the occupants could have used for parties, business meetings, whatever. On the floor above us is a tennis court. And on the third floor, a swimming pool, but it's empty."

"Now I can really see why they'd pay big munits to live here. What about A-Wing?"

"On the ground floor, a little cafe, mostly vending machines and a few tables." She saw Javier's mouth open but cut him off. "The vending machines were never stocked. On the second floor is a gym. On the third floor is a little movie theater."

"Nice place. And I can't wait to get the hell out of it." Javier looked about the dark, cavernous function room. "How about the roof? There must be a heliport up there. Have you gone up?"

"Yes. But the Blank People came out of their nooks and started climbing right up the walls. Like I said, they've been killing all the pig-hens they find up there."

"So they stay in their nooks when they're not directly attacking, huh?"

"Yeah. I don't know if they sleep, exactly."

They left the function room and shut its door. Together, they started back toward their camp in 1-B. Walking slowly out of deference to Mira, Javier asked, "You got a gun?"

"No."

"Take this one. I got one of my own." He handed her a pistol, explained, "That was my friend Brat's. I gave it to him for his birthday one time."

Mira examined the mean little pistol as they walked, and smiled as if he had given her a flower plucked from a field they wandered through. "Thanks." She tucked it in the waistband of her white shorts.

With her hands free again, she reached up to rub her temples in circles with her fingertips. Seeing this, Javier frowned. "What? Headache?"

"Yeah. I get bad ones a lot."

"Related to your gift?"

"I guess so."

"My mom used to get bad headaches, so she had me rub her feet." "Her feet?"

"I guess she thought it was like acupuncture, where one part of your body is connected to another."

"I think that's just a story you tell girls so they'll let you rub their feet. It's so innocent. 'I did this for my mom, baby, really.'"

He chuckled. "Yeah, maybe you got me on that."

Mira glanced up at him, embarrassed. "I mean, not to say that anyone would want to rub my feet."

"What? Why wouldn't they?"

"Well, they're so small."

"Come on. So who likes girls with big feet?"

By now they had returned to 1-B-and in the middle of a heated argument. At first Javier expected it to be between the Snarlers and the Terata, until he saw the fury twisting the faces of Nhu and Mott. Nhu was holding her forearm as if she'd been injured. The Choom whirled toward his leader and said, "She was trying to use her wrist comp to call the forcers down here, man!"

Javier glared at the Vietnamese girl. "I thought I told you-"

"How long should we stay in here, Javier? The muties have been here eleven days! Maybe they got no place better to go, but I have a family waiting for me! This is crazy-all we have to do is make a call! We're right in the middle of Beaumonde, here! Cars are driving right past us! We aren't stuck on some other planet."

"We can't get the forcers involved in this. We'll be thrown in prison."

"I'd rather be there than here."

"Oh, really? I don't think so. We can get out of here, and we will. Where's your comp?"

Mott held it up. "I got it."

"You almost broke my arm, you dung-dong!" Nhu screeched at him.

"Blast you."

"All right, everyone give Patryk your hand phones, comps, whatever."

"Why Patryk again?" Nhu sulked.

"Because he's one of the only people I can trust anymore, looks like. Besides, he's got a backpack."

"Nobody better steal that boy's backpack," the mutant named Satin quipped. "They'll have all the food and all the phones."

"Nobody should be panicking," Javier snarled at Nhu, but then he ran his hot eyes over all the other faces, whole and mutated, as well. Barbie with her five. "We lose our nerve, and our cooperation, and we die. You wankers think I've lived to be twenty-five by acting all panicky every time I was in danger?"

"Yeah," Tiny Meat told Nhu. "You get out of Folger Street and suddenly you forget what you are?"

"Shut it, scrotum-face."

"Bitch."

"All of you!" Javier roared. Silence prevailed at last.

Tall, quiet Patryk collected a few devices and stowed them in his backpack. Nhu had begun to sob. She backed into one wall, slid down to its bottom, and wrapped her arms around her legs. "I'm sorry, okay?" she whimpered. "I'm sorry."

Near her, the spidery Choom mutant named Haanz cooed, "You'll be all right. It will all be okay." He started to reach out with his extra-long fingers to stroke the silky black hair that hung down to obscure her face, now that she had freed it of her lime-green swimming cap, but Nhu lifted her head abruptly.

"Don't touch me!"

The mutant withdrew his hand and averted his eyes shamefully.

"Patryk," Javier said, taking him aside, "get on Nhu's comp and look up Steward Gardens on the net. Maybe you can find us something useful, blueprints or whatever. Maybe something we can use to fight or shut down those zombies out there."

Patryk nodded, and moved into the next room.

Javier sighed, then lifted one arm and sniffed at himself. "So the showers work?" he asked Mira.

"Yeah. Come on, I'll show you how to use them." She preceded the leader of the Snarlers to the bathroom.

"I'm sure he isn't quite that dumb that he can't figure out how to use a shower," grumbled Satin, strapped in his cybernetic pony.

Flattened-faced Nick gave a snort of amusement. "Jealous, man?"

Satin turned his bald head and gave his friend a withering look.

In the bathroom, Javier watched Mira lean into the shower stall to point out the various controls to him. When she was done explaining, she turned around to see that he already had his shirt off. She seemed stunned by the bared sight of his lean upper body, with its scattered scars and tattoos. The stylized dog head baring its fangs, the insignia of the Folger Street Snarlers, adorning his left pectoral.

When he saw her embarrassment, or whatever else was there on her face, Javier smiled and said, "Sorry."

Her eyes moved to a long raised scar above his collarbone. She reached up to touch it lightly with one finger. "What was this?"

"We got into it last year with a Tikkihotto gang. They had those axes of theirs-what do you call 'em-e-ikkos. This kid whacked me with his e-ikko.

I could've had this smoothed away, but that's money, and…" He shrugged. Obviously he was fond of his battle scars.

She still rubbed the scar with her finger, her face as absorbed as a doctor's. When she finally started to lower her hand, Javier closed his own over it. He guided it down his chest, her finger like a pencil. Tracing across his nipple, lingeringly. Down the steps of his ribs. Into the hair of his belly.

His eyes held hers. Neither of them smiled now. It would be too vulnerable, just then, to do so. Or it might make things seem joking. This was not a time for joking. Their situation was very serious, here: in matters of war, and in matters of attraction.