Farewell Horizontal

SIX

“What’s with the fuckin’ training wheels?”

“Wheels?” Axxter looked into the other’s grizzled face, as if some addendum were hidden in the network of scars.

“These suckers.” The Havoc Mass warrior reached down and twanged one of the pithon lines running from Axxter’s belt. It sounded a high rubber-band note, resonating in the wall where the pithon had taken grip, and in Axxter’s clenched teeth.

“Oh… those. Uh, well -” He shrugged and smiled, instantly regretting it. “You know… old habits die hard.”

The warrior grunted and shook his head, his grease-shiny braids dangling parallel to his shoulders. With no more anchor than what his boot-pithons gave him, he strode perpendicular across the wall toward the encampment’s banners and tents. Axxter lifted his bag from the sidecar’s bullet nose and hurried after him, slowed by the spidering pithons.

It had taken two solid days of traveling – including an over-nighter, drifting in and out of half-sleep while strapped into the Norton’s seat, wheels locked onto a vertical transit cable – to reach the camp. The directions Brevis had given him hadn’t brought him to the main Havoc Mass headquarters; that would’ve been even more days travel upwall. And more of a city than an encampment, a sprawling military base and political center within sight of the hated Grievous Amalgam’s patrolled borders. He’d passed by the Havoc Mass HDQS once, when he’d first set out as a freelancer, and had received a jocular warning shot, a tracer bullet over the Norton’s front wheel. The thug’s raucous laughter had seemed to follow him for kilometers down the wall.

This camp smaller, but still impressive enough. A division of the Mass, two thousand or so warriors – Axxter had developed a quick eye for estimating a tribe’s numbers, both military and financial – with the necessary support staff, contractors, camp followers, and other hangers-on all swelling the total to ten thousand. The gaudy tents, crested with fluttering pennants, had been set up in random profusion, creating a chaos of intertwining pathways, dangling catwalks, rope ladders, and nets. The division had been stationed in this one spot long enough for a second and third layer of tents and platforms to have grown out from the first, like overlapping limpets protruding from the building’s wall.

A wave of noise battered at Axxter as he followed his warrior guide into the encampment. A trophy ring, the circle of stakes that marked the camp’s original boundaries, sagged under the weight of vanquished enemies’ armor; some of the breastplates and helmets, obviously the most recently captured, still shimmered with the embedded graffex. The grislier trophies twisted and flapped in the wind, no effort having been made to tan or otherwise preserve the peeled skins. Swarming flies gave a pseudo-life to the rotting tissue; underneath them, the implanted biofoil was either dead gray or pulsing, like the corresponding armor, with the graffex remnants. Axxter supposed his former clients, the luckless Gnash Squad Boys, were somewhere in the display. Or at least part of them were; a hollow face, bloody scalp attached, gave him a lipless smile as he passed. He shuddered and hurried to catch up with his guide.

The noise came from the camp’s machine shops and the voices trying to shout over clatter of metal against metal. Crouching figures in welders’ masks sent sparks dazzling down the building’s blackened side, past the charred remains of tents that had been set up too close to the furious torches. Blades honed, dented shields pounded into rough circles with sledgehammer blows; underneath layers of grease and scar tissue the broad faces looked over at Axxter, then went back to the tasks beneath their hands and tools.

“Hey -” The close lanes of the camp had slowed the Havoc Mass warrior enough for Axxter to pull next to him. He shouted at the calloused ear, “Where exactly are we going?”

The warrior had been waiting for him in the clear space at the camp’s downwall perimeter, squatting on his haunches, squinty eyes scanning for anything that might come up the transit cables. With the ashes of a fire built on a small shelf stuck to the wall, and various gnawed bones and garbage remnants caught in the cables’ extrusions and loops below him, it was obvious that he had been there some time, stationed by his superior officers to await the arrival of the summoned graffex. The eyes looked to Axxter like razor slits cut into creased leather.

An old vet, the braids gray ropes; swirls of a tattooed tiger-mask – ink actually needled into the skin – traced out of the wrinkles. The guy should be in a museum, Axxter had thought. Even if grim and bulky enough to put a shiver up any normal person’s spine.

A brace of camp followers – younger than Guyer, and with more avarice in their glittering eyes – lazily regarded him from their perch upon a cable loop. Their gaze dismissed him as unprofitable; they went back to their monotone chatter.

“CO’s tent.” The old warrior’s thumb pointed into the heart of the encampment. “The general wants to see ya.”

“General -”

“Them’s my orders.” The warrior swung himself apelike through a tangle of ropes, then strode on without a backward glance.

Axxter worked his way through the ropes, then caught up with him again. “General who?”

A grunt, amazement at civilian stupidity. “Cripplemaker.”

He didn’t recognize the name. The exertions of their progress into the camp had sapped the oxygen from his brain; he couldn’t decide whether the unfamiliar name was a good or bad sign. A number of Havoc Mass commanders figured prominently in the tribe’s PR releases, complete with gruesome accounts of their military prowess. This one could be some nonentity, an also-ran in the blood-and-gore sweepstakes, not worth making publicity out of. Or – what he hoped wasn’t the case – somebody so goddamn horrible, flat-out bloodthirsty, that the Havoc Mass didn’t need to publicize him with a twenty-part hackslash- &-parade miniseries fed gratis into the Wire Syndicate’s juvenile entertainment channels. Somebody they haul out like a secret weapon and ten seconds later, without any advance hype, you know you’re in deep shit. Axxter resisted an impulse to stop, call up Ask & Receive on his terminal, and get whatever info did exist on this Cripplemaker – at this point, what use would it be? He was already in too far to walk out on this deal.

They arrived at the camp’s center. A tent larger than all those surrounding it, the center pole extending straight out from the building’s wall, the ribbon pennant at its tip twisting snakelike above the other multicolored roofs. Two guards, looking like younger brothers of Axxter’s guide, lounged at the curtained entrance, one asleep in a rope sling, the other picking at his black nails with the point of an ornamental knife. No ancient tattoos – Axxter noted only the minute segments of biofoil set into the warriors’ cheekbones and brows, quiescent now, awaiting the sparking signal to bring the images into view. A nodded greeting for the old warrior, a bored visual scan of the stranger; the rough-skinned hand pulled the curtain aside for them.

A moment for his eyes to adjust. Gazing around the tent’s interior, Axxter realized he’d expected more. More than empty space divided by ropes and nets. The patterns and hues of suspended carpets were dimmed with age; when he put his hand against one for balance a cloud of dust bloomed into his face. From the tent’s central pole hung a large-scale map of Cylinder’s surface, or at least the known morningside portion of it.

The old warrior left Axxter standing on a swaying catwalk. From some zone closer to the wall, a dim light filtered across the map. He could hear the muted tones of the old guy’s voice mixed with a couple of others, but too distant to make out what they were saying.

Axxter looked up at the map beside him. Blank sections marked MURA INCOGNITA; from little spots close to the top of the building, growing larger farther down, finally merging into the great unknown below the cloud barrier. Someone had drawn little childish stick figures, with horns and pitchforks, dancing around at the map’s bottom margin. The left and right sides were bounded by the two Linear Fairs, depicted as vertical ribbons of dollar signs. Obscenities, scrawled in a big looping hand across the top and over the faded red toplevel zone. The Grievous Amalgam’s alliances, in red stripes, clustered underneath. Below that, solid blue for the Havoc Mass, stripes for their allies, and a motley selection of other colors for the various unaligned small-fry tribes moiling about in the lower territories of the building’s exterior.

The map was woefully out of date. It didn’t take much political expertise on Axxter’s part to determine that. Some of the colored areas were labeled with names of military tribes that had disbanded, either voluntarily or by having their collective ass handed to them, years ago. Others, who’d come up from nowhere just recently, weren’t indicated on the map at all. Where were the Gone-Bad TV Cops? They’d come storming up and carved out a major strategic niche between the map’s red and blue zones and were currently receiving heavy recruitment bids from both sides. Just shows what can be done with a nasty enough attitude. That fuckin’ Brevis should’ve hooked me up with that bunch; I’d’ve been able to tell they were hot go-getters. The freelancer who’d wound up doing their graffex – some punk with less time out here than me – had been able to cash in his stock options in the tribe for a bundle. The thought wheeled a stone of envy around in his guts.

The return of his guide interrupted his morose inspection of the map. “Over here.” His broad thumb pointed to the farther reaches of the tent.

“This him?” A figure looked up from papers strewn across a desk; wet eyes, magnified by antique round spectacles, blinked. Rows of file cabinets, drawers ajar with overflow folders, formed an L-shaped boundary to the small platform. “You this Axxter?” A pen pointed toward him.

The old warrior shoved him forward. Someone in a black uniform with shiny leather and metal bits on it turned a herpetoid gaze around from one of the file drawers at the edge. The narrow face impassively regarded the small scene before him

“Uh… yeah. Yes, that’s right.” He regained his balance and nodded. “Got here… soon as I could.” He saw one of his hands fluttering nervously, grabbed it with the other, and secured them both behind his back. “When I got the call – you know, from my agent – I was way down near -”

“Have a seat.” The pen indicated a chair by the desk. “Sorry to keep you waiting, but things are in their usual state of chaos around here.” A smile, or a close imitation, as the hands went back to rummaging through the papers on the desk.

From where Axxter sat, the papers looked like bills, long dangling printouts of invoices and expenditure receipts, the hard-copy clutter of a substantial business. The little guy behind the desk – he could look down at the bald circle of head bent over the shuffled mess – obviously a concrete type, who couldn’t think without being able to grasp something solid. “When do I get to meet the general?”

The moist gaze swung up to his face again. “I am the general.”

Without looking around, he could feel the black-uniformed man smiling at him. Unpleasantly. The face had been disagreeable enough to lodge in his memory.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Just hang on a little bit, and we’ll – get down to business. All right?”

“Sure. No problem.” He eased the strap of his bag off his shoulder and lowered it to the platform floor. “Take your time.” Shut up, he ordered himself.

Black Uniform slid the file drawer shut. The hollow ring of his bootsteps circled behind Axxter. He heard the man’s soft voice, interrupted by the old warrior’s guffawing laughter, retreating down the catwalk. The tent’s silence was broken by the scratching of the general’s pen.

“There.” The general shoveled a stack of papers into one of the metal bins on the desk. “What a fucking pain in the ass.” The same ingratiating smile came up on the round pink face. “You cannot believe the amount of work that comes with a job like this.”

Axxter made a little clicking noise at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, must be tough.” Who is this guy? Must’ve got sent to the Havoc Mass’s pussy unit. Not gonna be easy working up hot graffex for somebody this mild.

“Care for one?” A bottle had emerged from the desk’s bottom drawer. General Cripplemaker dangled two glasses in his other hand.

“Sure… thanks.” He sipped cautiously. A gentle warmth slid down his gullet. A small sense of disappointment; he’d had more potent brew when he’d still been on the horizontal. Some hard-ass. He sipped again, and leaned back in the chair.

“Yeah, screw it… kick-back time.” Cripplemaker leaned back in his chair and balanced his own glass on the round curve of his stomach. “You know, Axxter… Ny, is it? – fine… you know, Ny, I want you to approach this job in a… relaxed fashion. You know what I’m saying?” He knocked back half the drink and gestured with the glass, slopping the remainder over his hand. “I know sometimes people get a little… nervous when they get put in a situation like this.”

Axxter shrugged. “Yeah, well…”

The general patted a folder on the desk. “I’ve had the complete scoop given to me. About you, Ny.” Magnified damp wink above his smile. “This is a big step for you, isn’t it? I mean, from those diddly-ass little gangs you’ve had to work with in the past.”

The warmth had spread to his stomach and went about unlocking doors along his spine. “Oh… some of ’em weren’t so bad.” Sipping again. The general extended the bottle and splashed in more.

“Well, we all have to start out small, don’t we? I remember… I go back a long way with the Mass, you know.” The damp gaze focused beyond Axxter, lost in reflection. “All they way back to the ol’ Romp & Stomp days… I was personally recruited by one of the original Tin Can brothers – old Bobo himself… what a character he was.” The wetness in the general’s eyes brimmed over. He dabbed at their corners with a single knuckle.

Shit. Embarrassed, Axxter looked into the bottom of his empty glass. He had noted, for the first time, the fine network of wrinkles on the round, pink face, the gray film behind the glasses. This poor old duffer… what kind of old folks home did Brevis get me into? Romp & Stomp… good ol’ Bobo Tin Can… ancient history… fat chance of getting anything juicy enough to work up a decent design set.

“I’m probably boring you.” Cripplemaker refilled his own glass. “The impetuosities of youth.” The chair creaked as he swiveled back around to look at Axxter. “Enough of this. Let’s get down to business.” He leaned forward, planting his elbows in the muddle of papers on the desk. “You know why we wanted you to come here. We’ve seen some of your stuff; we think you may have what we’re looking for.”

“Well… I’ll give it my best shot.”

“No, no; you’ll do better than that, Ny. We want you to deliver the goods. We want the real thing.”

Loony old fuck. Pep talks, I gotta hear. “What the fuck is this shit?” He realized that he was drunk. Incredible – not how drunk he was, but that it had happened fueled by so little drink. As if it had unlocked some deeper, darker reservoir inside him, a more volatile substance ready to be ignited. And, incredibly, that he had let it happen to him at a time and place like this, mucho dangerous territory. These military tribes were nobody to fuck with, at any time. You had to keep your guard up, not get shit-faced and likely to cause trouble. But he’d conspired with himself to get into exactly that position. Because I just don’t give a fuck sometimes. That was the real intoxication of danger. A bad position to be in. There’s incredible for you – you can know that, and still not give a shit. “I mean, what is it you want?”

“Now, now. Simmer down. I just wanted to get everything started out on a nice, friendly, personal level. But I can see that you’re a man who doesn’t like to waste time. I admire that.” Cripplemaker brought his pink face closer to Axxter’s. “We’re gonna start you right out on something important. See how you do. We need a new ikon.”

“Yeah? What kind? I mean, if you want a new corporate logo – I mean, for like the whole Havoc Mass… or do you mean, just for your division here?” Axxter rolled the empty glass back and forth in his palms. Half of his brain kept his mouth moving; the other half searched through the mental archive of the stuff in his working files, for something he could plug into this situation. “And are we talking about a battle ensign? Formal parade regalia? Um… real blood-and-guts working stuff, or just for PR use? It makes a difference.”

Cripplemaker folded his arms on top of the desk, breath close enough for Axxter to feel. “Ny… we want the big one. We want you to do a new death ikon for us.”

Bingo fucking City. Axxter closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair. Previous anger dissolving in elation. Right on the money. That, I got. Somewhere in the camp outside, muffled by the intervening layers of the tent, came the sound of a military band, all thumping drums and skirling horns. He took it for his personal, synchronic fanfare. Smiling: I can deliver, Jack. You came to the right man.

“We’re retiring our old megassassin.” Cripplemaker spread his hands wide. “He’s up at the main encampment right now, getting de-opped; takes a long time to slice off all that armor, and those prosthetics… Hah. Always thought it’d be funny if they peeled away all the fighting gear and found nothing inside at all. Like the gear had been walking around and raising hell all by itself for the last twenty years. That’s how long he’s been the tribe’s hitman. He was a good one, too; just a scary motherfucker.” The general rummaged around on his desk, then handed some photos to Axxter. “Here, take a look at these. Since he’s been decommissioned, there’s no harm in you seeing them now.”

He took the photos and looked at them. Something big and black, squatting down, as wide as it was high, with little red dots for eyes; a megassassin. He’d seen one before – on tape, that had been bad enough – but this one was different. Its chest panels were open, revealing the death ikon inside. A corny but effective design, typical of DeathPix, all daggers and teeth. But then again, it didn’t have to be the world’s most memorable design; it was meant to be the last thing you saw before you got your head ripped off. To see the ikon was to have the last few seconds of your life snuffed by grim inevitability; that was the whole psychology of it. Fear of the image being somehow greater than the fear of what would follow.

But this one’s history now. “I think… I’ll be able to give you what you want. Something really… special.”

“Well, good. I’m glad to hear it.” The general patted the desktop, catching the tempo of the distant music. “’Cause the new megassassin is also going to be something special. I’ve seen the designs for the battle gear; the grafting surgery’s supposed to start any day now. He’s going to be a a hundred percent bad-ass piece of fighting hardware. And we want your ikon on him.” A wobbling finger jabbed toward Axxter’s chest. “Your design is going to be the last thing a whole bunch of people ever see.”

“Yeah… great. Can’t wait to get started.” He found himself rising from the chair. Looking down, he saw a grizzled hand cupping his elbow. The old warrior had returned, summoned to guide him back out. The audience with the general had ended.

“That’s the ticket.” Cripplemaker rocked back in his own chair, hands clasped behind his head. “I’ll be talking to you. There’ll be more jobs than just this one. That’s a promise.”

† † †

They gave him a pass to go in and out of the camp. The noise level outside the muffling layers of the generalissimo’s tent had swelled to the deafening point; in the sprawling compound of the machine shop, the clatter and snarl of engines crescendoed over the hammers’ ostinatic beat. The lounging off-duty warriors compensated by increasing the ferocity of their revels. Heading for the camp’s exit, Axxter squeezed past a mock battle, scarred, sweating forms stripped down to ribbons of chiming bells, all thwacking each other over the head with aluminum poles and laughing in demented glee. One of the watching camp followers snaked a hand around his thigh and tugged him toward the rope sling she sat on, meanwhile barking an invitation drowned in the general hubbub. The woman pantomimed her intent; startled, Axxter pulled his arm free and quickly scrambled down to a point where he could regain his pithon-assisted stance on the building. The uproar, on top of Cripplemaker’s booze, had his head throbbing in sync with his crawling pulse.

The guards at the exit took a bored glance at his pass, then waved him on through. “Comin’ back in later?” The sun had already passed over the top of the building, setting the wall into shade.

He shook his head, immediately wincing and regretting it. “No – I got some stuff to do. Things to get. I’ll be back in the morning.” Really just needed some place he could hear his own thoughts. “That okay?”

A shrug as the big hands looped the chains back over the gate’s bar. “Suit yourself.”

He found the Norton grazing a half-kilometer from where he’d left it, climbed into the sidecar, doused a rag with water from a canteen, and plastered it to his forehead. What a bunch of fuckin’ animals. The feeling he always got when he left the lonesome purity of wandering – and going broke and starving; that had to be admitted – out on Cylinder’s emptier wall sectors, and had to get down to the actual business of his trade. Maybe after this job, all those wandering and starving days would be over. A depressing thought, in some ways.

Leaning his head back against the sidecar’s rim, he looked up into the dimming sky. The speck he’d seen before was there again, floating in the air.

“Aw, Christ.” He knew; no zoom lens necessary. By now some invisible link had been set up between them, a kite string by which he could detect her presence on the other end. She followed me here. The stupid thing. This being no territory for angels… especially one who’d already been winged once, by somebody. Or something.

He stood up in the sidecar, holding onto its windshield for balance. “Get out of here!” The shout smeared in the wind; he knew she couldn’t hear him. But shouted again, waving his arms. “Go away!”

The angel, the little speck, hung at the limit of his vision. And didn’t go away.