“There it is,” Trevor said excitedly, and pointed at two enormous towers of dark glass. They were connected to each other at the base, as were several small factories and an atrium greenhouse.
Penny flinched at the sound of distant gunfire, but continued to study the imposing twin structures. She was completely in awe.
Blade rummaged through her possessions, looking for something while grinning like a schoolgirl. Next to her, Corcey’s delicate fingers expertly rolled a joint. He too was grinning, which was odd, since he had yet to smoke any of the green bud sandwiched between the folded JtB paper.
They continued to walk through the bombed-out street until they reached the first security perimeter. Electrified barbed wire stretched so far in both directions that it disappeared out of sight. Plasteel signs in seven languages warned of landmines. Concealed in the rubble were at least two pillboxes, bristling with heavy weaponry. More visible, a Hamaddi in the military Party Police uniform strutted up to them. He looked like the type of person who enjoyed smashing things. Two guards on a small wooden platform covered them with fixed lazer rifles as he reached the group, slapping a martial arts baton testingly into one hand.
Ian pulled out what looked to Penny like a driver’s license. Next to him, Trevor rifled his wallet for a similar card.
The guard started to reach for Ian’s identification when he noticed Corcey, standing menacingly in the back and licking the joint. Corcey blew on it to dry it, then pushed it behind his left ear. Beneath a black cowboy hat (that secretly doubled as a yarmulke), long dark locks fell back into place, concealing the cig. Lusterless black sunglasses sized up the Hammadi.
The hulking Hamaddi guard swaggered past Ian and Trevor, ignored Blade and Penny, and slowly went up to the lanky, long-haired assassin. Spurs chinked sinisterly on the asphalt: he looked to Penny like a refugee from a Sergio Leone western.
The Hamaddi stopped a hair’s breadth from Corcey, met his gaze levelly. The massive guard looked like he wanted to crush something. A skull, for instance. Corcey stood his ground silently, emanating an aura of barely suppressed rage and violence. They stared hatefully at each other for several tense moments. In the distance, a proxyvulture screamed, dove to attack a recent victim of the surrounding war zone. The Hamaddi snarled, and reached up to Corcey’s face. Dark, taloned digits extracted the joint and arrogantly perched it on the tip of his own lips.
“Got a light, Ko’re Asaph?” he growled in thick accent around the fatty.
Corcey slowly reached into his skein vest, pulled out a wooden match. Reaching up, he struck it on the guard’s cheek. A long red blemish immediately appeared on the Hamaddi’s facial hair (which were actually fine feathers.) He held it for the unflinching guard, who sucked thickly, held it for a full ten seconds. After the interminable silence, he blew hot, seedy smoke in Corcey’s face.
“God damn you got ugly,” he told him, then sneaked another hit before Corcey took his joint back.
“Why do I have trouble picturing you working for Party Security?” Corcey asked him, then decided that since the jay was already lit, he may as well smoke it. The whites around his coal black eyes turned blood red as he power-inhaled.
The Hamaddi grinned the toothy grin that had earned him the nickname Tusk. “You kidding? This is a great job! Great pay,” he rubbed two fingers and thumb together, “snazzy uniform,” he indicated the outfit, which reminded Penny of an Nazi SS officer, “all the dope I can do,” he reached across for the cigarette, and just before dragging, grinned “And, I can kill anybody who pisses me off.”
Corcey nodded, approvingly.
“Want, and I can getcha an application.” Tusk added in a voice strained by a lungfull of cannabis.
“No thanks, Tusk: I couldn’t get used to the underwear.”
Tusk shrugged. “That’s cool. Hey, are these guys with you?” He indicated Ian, Trevor, Blade, and Penny.
“Yeah.”
Tusk looked over to the platform, and in a sinister, power-monger voice shrieked “Pass!”
A wooden barricade with black and yellow stripes was raised, and then Tusk led Corcey (group in tow) over the threshold and off to the side.
“Lemme give ya a personal escort up there,” Tusk offered, and leaped over the side into a military air car. It was a Cassidine APC-502, universally known as a “Hogg.”
“Niiiiiiiice Hogg,” Corcey told him, eyeing it appreciatively.
“Oh yeah,” Tusk told him, and put the narcotic back in firing position. “Hoggs are great,” and he inhaled. “Killed my wife, with a Hogg.”
“Shotgun!” Corcey shrieked at the top of his lungs, and the two guards on the weapons platform instinctively ducked for cover as he took the co-pilot’s chair. The other four piled into the back.
Tusk started the twin engines, and the car levitated several meters straight into the air. He locked in another lung of smoke, and then bolted out of the lot with full lights and sirens blazing. He careened wildly, narrowly averted three collisions, and generally flew like a totally stoned maniac.
“I love this job!” he screamed, and sucked another blast. In the interest of self-preservation, Corcey buckled up, snagged the doobie back, and held it over his shoulder. A soft, slender hand with long, contoured fingernails grazed his fingers a second longer than was necessary, then disappeared with the cigarette.
Blade took a drag, then passed it to Ian. She looked at Penny, brought her finger to her smiling lips to indicate silence. Then she turned forward and anchored a note into the pointed tip of Corcey’s hat.
Reading it, Penny giggled.
I am a prostitute
and I am red hot and ready
men only, please
Trevor passed her the remnants of the cigarette, but it was down to roach proportions.
Tusk fired a volley of high-explosive tracers at a pedestrian in his way. The woman dove for cover, narrowly missing both being shot and run over by the insane Hamaddi.
His cry, “Get outa m’ fuckin’ way,Bitch!” was drowned out by the sirens.
“So, how long ya in town for?” the driver asked his main passenger.
The lanky assassin had set about the task of twisting another aperitif. As Penny meekly noted, Tusk’s driving was at the Hunter S. Thompson level, which made the job almost impossible.
“Couple o’ days,” he told his alien chauffeur. “Maybe less. We’re lookin’ for someone.”
Tusk had known Corcey in a professional capacity for over eight years. So he knew what it meant for Corcey to be “lookin’ for someone.” And Corcey knew Tusk well enough to hastily allay the Hamaddi’s suspicions. “Don’t worry,” he added, “this isn’t a hit.”
“Who you lookin’ for?” The security officer stabilized his driving enough to hear the reply.
Cloying smoke drifted from the back, accompanied by feminine hacking. By the sounds of it, Blade’s lungs were aching for air. It gave Corcey resolve to finish rolling his treasure. He put it up to his mouth, snapped open a match, and lit it. As he inhaled, he looked the Hamaddi dead in the eyes.
Pregnant pause, then “Wicked Lester.”
{Pause for thunderclap on soundtrack}
The Hamaddi nodded, clearly impressed. He held Corcey’s eyes.
“Not a hit?”
Corcey passed the cigarette to his left. Grinning widely, he echoed “Naw, man.” The driver relaxed visibly. He accepted the peace pipe and took a toke. Corcey smiled his Mickey Rourke smile. “So, has ya seen him?”
Tusk thought of taking another puff, decided he was just about where he liked to be, and passed both the joint and an answer back.
“Last I saw him was about two days ago. He was hung over and had a ’tude, but I’m sure he’s sweetened since then.”
“Why do I have an image of a rectum tightening?” pondered Corcey aloud.
“Because we’re talking about Lester and we’re stoned.”
Corcey nodded: it was The Truth.
He, too, decided he’d reached cruising altitude, and turned around to the back.
“Party Favour?” he offered. Blade accepted, and again her hand touched his a little longer than was truly necessary.
“Thanks,” she told him, and the raised curves of her angel’s mouth slid into a smile. She held the smile a little longer than was necessary, too.
When Corcey turned back to talk to Tusk, she turned back to Penny. Blade didn’t know why, but she was feeling slightly materialistic toward this Earthling. They had been talking about literature. Blade was describing her favourite book, Three Faces of the Sane, when Penny remarked that the plot was very similar to an Earthly book called The Brothers Karamozov. This came as little surprise to either. Blade had already talked about authors whose style reminded Penny of Tennessee Williams and Woody Allen.
“The Earthly literature genre that interests me the most is science fiction,” Blade told her, “because these authors are making up stories about what is essentially my world.”
“How accurate are they?” Penny asked her.
“Depends. The worst was some idiot named M. Thomas Farrell. He’s obviously never been to outer space.”
“I doubt that more than a couple hundred people from Earth have been. Farthest we’ve been was to our moon.”
“That’s understandable, I guess. You haven’t even broken the light barrier yet, let alone the others.”
“There are things faster than light?” Penny asked, stunned.
“Seventeen known things, to be exact,” answered Trevor. “One of them was discovered by the guy we’re going to see.”
“Just who is this Wicked Lester?” Penny asked.
“If I understand your planet correctly,” Ian told her, “Lester would be what you get if you crossed Albert Einstein with Thomas Edison and W. C. Fields.”
“In other words,” inserted Trevor, “He’s a mathematical genius whose love for tinkering is proportional to his love for alcohol.”
“And other sundry items,” added Ian, and took a puff from the joint for emphasis.
Trevor took it next. “I actually saw part of a W. C. Fields movie my first time on Earth. It was totally beyond me.”
“It was probably too primitive for you,” Penny suggested. “Say, what are movies like out here?”
“About the same,” Trevor told her, and handed her the smoking tip of the cigarette.
“What, they’re not 3-dimensional, or like Huxley’s ‘feelies’?” Uncertainly, Penny sucked on the roach. It flew into her mouth and down her throat.
“Oh, we have those,” Blade told her while patting her on the back. The coughing spasm ended, she continued, “but the production cost is so exponential that they only do very, very special films that way.”
The air car began to slow down.
“Like what?” Penny managed to ask.
“The most recent one was a biography of Cheq'Deth.”
“Who?”
“You’ve never heard of Cheq'Deth?” Ian and Trevor said in stunned tandem.
“I’m from Earth,” Penny explained. They nodded, and Blade giggled. Her grin was growing wider, and it took little guesswork to figure out why.
They were dropping speed rapidly as the towers drew closer. As the wind stopped whistling, the signature shriek of gyrojets could be heard in the distance, each ending in a sharp explosion. Tusk’s sharp ears had already heard them, and the fainter retorts of lazerfire. They came from behind, and he paid more attention to the rear view than to the front. He was reducing his speed but not heeding his path. Failing to distinctly discern the cause of the fighting behind him, he turned his attention before him and managed to pull the hogg’s snout up in time to glide up and over the worn marble stairway to the grand courtyard. Quickly banking and breaking, he spun to a stop neatly between two of the giant pillars. A small storm of loose scrap whirled about in its wake.
Corcey swung out of the aircar first. He dropped to the ground, and bounced under to the driver’s side of the hovering vehicle.
“Hey, thanks for the ride, man,” he said to their chauffeur.
Tusk leaned over and slapped hands with him. “No problem, Bro’. Thank you for the weed. I’d hang, but I gotta get back to work. Hey, hope I see you again.”
By then, everybody else was out. Tusk choked the throttle and bolted out of there with a hail of gunfire.
They walked up to the front entrance, which struck Penny as what the lobby for Satan’s Corporate Headquarters would look like if done in green glass and black marble. The emblem of The Party was inscribed in gold on a badly scuffed floor.
In Galaqommon calligraphy,
Stoneburner
Through the revolving doors, and under security orb scan up to the front desk.
Or so they had tried. Toned and honed security lurked in every shadow. The moment they were inside, a big bouncer reached over and grabbed Ian. Thick, heavily tattooed arms pulled him into a beefy chest, and a sinister voice sneered “Let’s see your invitation.”
Ian was quick to show the plastic card that Penny had mistaken for a driver’s license. Sausage link fingers squeezed ahold of the card, and studied it. Right over the qomputer bar code was boldface print: PS1 Ian’s nose was pressed into the nicotine yellow tank top of the guard. Feebly, he noticed an id laminate that hung around the guard’s thick neck on a leather thong. It, too, had boldface print: EVENT STAFF
“He’s got Party clearance,” the bouncer yelled to the other guards, and let Ian go through to the next checkpoint. The others had shown their cards to guards, and they too were let through. This left Penny feeling very alone and deserted.
Bubba the Barbarian Bouncer strolled up to her, smacking one gauntletted fist into the other. Except for the plasma rifle, though Penny, he looks just like a biker.
“Can you verify your Party Status for me, there, Dahrlin’?”
The question came from behind the maxidenim-clad guard. A grossly rotund figure in a bullet-proof white jumpsuit swaggered up. He looked at Penny with tender doe eyes, then ran his hands along his jet-black pompadour.
“Uh-Howdy, Ma’am,” he said coyly, “Are you, uh, are, are you a member of our li’l Party here?” He flashed his eyebrows.
Penny stammered, Blade jumped to her rescue.
“She’s with us.”
“Uh-Thank you, ma’am, we’ll, uh, we’ll a-take it from here.” His grin at Blade caused his muttonchops to wrinkle along the sides of his face.
The two guards strolled up to her, and without breaking stride picked her up and walked away. Penny was about to protest when she saw Blade wave reassuringly at her Penny was not reassured. A transcription of her thoughts at that moment would have made nineteen eighty-four seem cheerful and optimistic by comparison.
Indeed, they did carry her into a room conceptualized by George Orwell and designed by Stanley Kubrick.
A qomputer from the mind of Terry Gilliam stuck its viewscope into Penny Walls’s face as it asked “Name?”
“What?” asked Penny, startled.
“Your last name is ‘What’. Please state your first name.”
“It’s not ‘what’!” exclaimed Penny. Bubba the Bouncer had taken off his maxidenim vest with the titanium chains, and was flexing his muscles, limbering up.
“Please answer the following questions, Not What.”
“That isn’t my name!” Penny protested.
“Your name is not ‘Not What’?” the qomputer asked her. “What change do you wish to make?”
“I...”
“Change requested is an ‘I’. Will now insert. Your name is now no longer is ‘Not What?’ Your name is now ‘Nit Wit’.”
Penny: “Isn’t this a Monkey’s sketch?”
Bubba looked irritated, and then launched a bludgeoning fist into the robot. Under the crushing blow of the strike, the machine literally crumbled to scrap.
“I hates it when these damned things go on the blinq.”
"Name?" The question came from behind Penny, and the voice that asked it wasn’t human. She turned, and saw a Saladrin with a lab smock fitted around its atmosphere suit. It was holding a clipboard, and the faceplate stared at her expectantly.
“Penny Walls,” said Penny Walls.
"What planet are you from?"
“Earth.” She said the name with some pride.
Long pause.
"Third from a yellow sun, one moon?"
Penny was impressed. “Yes! You’ve heard of it?”
"I heard someone mention it once. They went hunting there." Another curious pause. "He said they did not have humans on that planet. It was mostly dinosaurs." An even longer pause. Then the voice box modulated: "Are you a time traveler?"
Again, Penny was impressed. “Not by intention, but yes!” Then she wondered if she had said too much. She didn’t understand Trevor and Ian’s agenda; she was just along for the ride. “Is that a problem?”
"No," the Saladrin told her. "Stoneburner's is actually started by Stone about two hundred years form now. Depending on your point of view, we've been here twenty-three years, five years, or negative two hundred years. We are tolerant toward temporals, as long as their money is good."
“Do you take American Express?”
Coldly, "No." The two bouncers laughed appreciatively. "Are you a party member?"
“No.”
Bubba began to go over her with a metal detector.
"Do you intend to become one?"
“Uh, I don’t know,” stammered Penny. “I’m with some friends, and we’re looking for someone here.”
"So you're just visiting then?"
She shrugged. “I guess. Is that all right?”
“She’s a, she’s got a sheezwithme voucher from one of the other party members,” drawled the guard in the lizard-skin shades. “Cute li’l darlin, too.” He smiled appreciatively, and rolls of flesh rippled.
Bubba finished with the detection, and was satisfied she had no large weapons or bombs. “That’s fine, we just need a blood test.”
“You know,” Penny told him, “I thought you said ‘Blood Test’.”
“We’re going to drain you a quart off to an-ee-lize.”
“Is that the time?” Penny exclaimed, glancing at her watch. “Well, I hate to tell ya this, but I gotta...”
"We just need a drop, actually," the Saladrin said.
“Why?” she demanded.
"Security—both yours and ours. MegaClap got in here twice in the past year, and each time infected 80% of the Party within two days. We had to spend half our budget on nucleic penicillin."
The hippopotamus in the white rhinestone battle-jumpsuit had painlessly taken the sample before she knew it. The device quickly scanned it for venereal disease. Penny, who had so far managed to avoid both sex and blood transfusions, had none. The device also checked her DNA against samples on store in its qomputer files. It was indexed against the samples of people the Party disliked, universally known as The Stoneburner Shit List. To get on the Shit List, you had to do something really bad. Acts of hostility against the Party usually did it. So did killing a Party member, obviously. And hoarding booze (as opposed to sharing it.) Penny, of course, was unknown to the qomputer.
“She’s clear” the guard called.
"Anything to declare?"
“Yes,” said Penny with a straight face, “I’m not wearing any underwear.”
Bubba was typing at a console, and he dutifully added that little piece of information to the data he was entering. A moment later, five qameras flashed in sequence around her. Stunned, she heard the hum of machinery. Just as her eyes cleared, the guard strolled over on blue suede combat boots and handed her a card. It had a hologram of her on it, and they’d even spelled her name correctly. Over the bar code, it read GC (1) – – S – –
Gate Crasher level 1
Then she was led out the back way, through several dim corridors, past electric double doors, and straight into the lunatic asylum.
Through the thick crowd she was thrust, and then the restraining hand disappeared, as did the guard. Looking at the absurdity around her, she was very relieved to see Blade and Corcey standing against the far wall, laughing at each other. After a couple of moments, Blade saw her and waved, and then Corcey smiled. They walked through the crowd toward her. Penny noticed that everybody around her had their id cards prominently pinned to themselves. She followed suit, clipping it to her shirt.
“There you are,” said Blade. “Trev’ and Ian went in to look for Lester. We thought we’d wait for you.”
“Thanks,” said Penny.
Blade smiled at her, then turned around and began to walk toward the Party Forum. Penny looked from the retreating albino to the tall Thune standing next to her. Corcey drew a finger over his mouth, and it took Penny a moment to decipher the universal code for silence. He smiled playfully at her, and went to follow Blade. Penny frowned, then looked at the two of them. After a moment, she suppressed a laugh. Corcey’s hat no longer had the little note that Blade had lodged in it. However, her sugary white braid had a piece of paper insidiously anchored to it. Blade now announced this to all literate people behind her:
blonde nympho
$10 = 10 minutes
ask about group specials!
She hurried to catch up to them.
She got to the security checkpoint they had just passed through. Beyond the checkpoint was the first floor of the Party Forum, plus elevators to get to the other floors of the Tower. A tremendous din could be heard in the distance.
The guard in the booth was a girl with raspberry hair done in a French twist. She was scrunched up over the desk, and Penny heard this as she approached:
“(snort) ...yeah... (snert) ...wow... (phnnnnnnnttt) ...yeah... ...yeahhhh... ... ... ...yeeaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!”
She looked up at Penny, nodding slowly. After a moment, she could focus on the brand new id card.
“Want your hand stamped?” she managed to ask.
For some reason, Penny thought of Disney World, and the handstamps they gave you for readmission.
“Sure,” she said with an innocent smile.
She was expecting to see Mickey or Goofy, or something fun. She was hugely disappointed when the stamp left a completely unrecognizable blur on her hand.
She felt cheated. She wanted a hand stamp!
“Do it again” she instructed the girl. “It didn’t come out.”
It took four more tries, actually, before Penny realized that the ghastly bruise-blue stamp actually had no definable shape.
Penny left the booth, walked up to Blade and Corcey. They looked stunned.
“Wow. You’ve got balls,” Corcey said, truly impressed.
“Yeah,” concurred Blade, “That’s the most acid I’ve ever seen anybody take in my life.
Edited highlights of Penny’s life flashed before her eyes as she mouthed the words “I’m going to die, aren’t I.”
“No you’re not; now come on.” And for the second time that day, she was picked up by the arms and taken off to a sinister room.
“It’s okay,” Blade told her on the way. “Just take a deep breath, count to ten, and then concentrate on who you are.”
Good advice that Penny followed. Corcey looked at her, slightly concerned. “You okay?
One... ...two... ...three...
Penny nodded hesitantly. The onrushing sensations were enjoyable, but the newness of the experiences took more than a little getting used to.
...four... ...five...
They had dragged her off to the side, where the medical facilities for this level were. Unlike many areas in the two towers, the medical facilities had unrestricted access to all. Made sense.
...six... ...seven... ...eight...
As Penny counted to herself, she was struck with the revelation that whoever created the phonetic sounds to represent these words had no appreciation for aesthetics. The numbers sounded stupid. Actually, so did most of the words in the English language, now that she thought about it. Like “nerve.” Sounded like some weird word that Steve Martin would come up with while stoned. And how about...
Blade: “Still with us, Penny?”
Brought back to reality, she decided that she was. A quote from one of Matt’s tapes served as her answer:
“Sorry, it’s starting to hit me like a two ton... heavy thing.”
Two doctors pushed a gurney past them, a Hamaddi strapped down to it. Penny looked at them wonderingly as Corcey reached over and removed her id tag. He shoved it into a machine, causing the screen to come to life with information. Penny nodded: so these cards were more than just outer space equivalents of the “Hello, My Name Is...” theme.
A Hamaddi nurse came up. “Can I he’p you?” she asked around a mouth-full of bubble gum.
Blade explained the problem, and the nurse nodded. She went to the far wall, and put her id card into the qomputer loq on the medicine cabinet. It opened for her.
Penny decided to sit this one down, and perched herself in a comfey chair. It moved when she landed on it. Brass wheels on the legs, she noticed. The upholstery was some type of leather, though probably not from a cow or a horse. Doubtless they had equivalents in space. She amusedly pushed herself around the room in her chair when The Revelation hit her. People used to ride animals whose skin made leather. That tradition continued with this chair.
“Hey,” she announced, and pointed toward her chair, “this is my steed!”
Blade and Corcey looked at each other despairingly, and shook their heads. Just then the nurse returned with a glass vial. The equivalent to an eyedropper was built into the lid.
She glanced at the screen, to know who her patient was.
“'Kay, Walls,” she said reassuringly as she undid the lid. “This is Liquid Reality. Stick out your tongue, please.”
Penny looked at the Hamaddi nurse. It was actually her first up-close encounter with one. Her hazed mind saw the alien features melting into something like Godzilla. She blew out a long breath and shook her head to clear it. After a moment, she opened her mouth, and stuck out the pink tip of her tongue. The nurse brought the dropper up to her mouth. Penny saw it rise up in slow motion, leaving a technicolour trail behind it. Two drops of clear Reality boldly plummeted from the plastic tip and onto her fleshy tongue. Penny did not feel the impact or taste it; her brain was rerouting all sensory input to the wrong receivers, so she smelled the drops touch her tongue, and heard the bland flavour.
Again the nurse looked at the monitor, and then typed in a brief account of the incident in the Medical History window. The qomputer debited her for the service. The nurse saw Penny’s status: Gate Crasher with level 1 access only. Unlike Party Members, Gate Crashers got no credit. Penny would have to pay her medical bill (plus any other expenses she was bound to run up) before leaving the Party.
That was the system in theory, of course: it was how the Party helped pay for itself. It was also one of the reasons for the security. Keep rival Parties and undesirable from getting in, and to make sure that no one with obligations to the Party’s Minister of Finance got out.
Of course, none of the Party Security or Financial Officers knew that Penny was in partial possession of a portable four-dimensional displacement field, and could leave any time she sodding well wanted to. In fact, no one in the Party knew it, but that was something Trevor and Ian intended to change.
They were currently cruising the pavilion on the 23rd floor, looking for the one person that they would tell about their little toy. So far, no sign of him amidst the chaos and throng of people. That throng, they noticed, was divided into two distinct groups. One group milled around mumbling “Peas and carrots, peas and carrots, peas and carrots...” while the other group mumbled “rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb,... ...Party rhubarb...” After several cocktails, it began to sound like a two-part chant. Distantly, Trevor caught dialogue in the chant. It came from two people looking at a vidio monitor.
“Wow,” one said over a myriad of feminine screams and cries of anguish, “That’s too good to be artificial. They must really be hacking her up.”
But aside from people who liked snuff films, they hadn’t located the one person they wanted.
Who they found was much worse.
“Oh shit,” Ian said to Trevor. “Kauckmeister at 11 O’clock.”
Trevor spat out the champagne he’d been sipping in surprise and horror. No one noticed, and the stain of spilled bubbly was added to the multitude of mars already in the carpet. “Has he seen us?”
Ian was already backtracking, trying to hide behind a fold-out table that had largely been picked clean of hors d’oveurs. Just as he was about to say “no,” the obsequious personage they were avoiding happened to glance their way, and instantly spotted them.
“Trevvie baby!” he cried, and abandoned the person he’d been talking to in favour of rushing over to Ian. The girl he’d been talking to knew a good thing when she spotted it, and got as far away as she could.
“Oh, shit, he’s coming over,” whimpered Trevor.
“Do we have time to slit our wrists?” Ian asked. His response was a bear-hug from a rolly polly mound of sweat that smelled like a cross between gardenias (his cologne) and day-old pork rinds (his last meal.)
“Trevor!” he again cried to Ian.
Trevor thought of correcting him, decided not to.
The annoyance looked at him, pointed a finger, and announced “Liam?”
Ian smiled, and pried himself away.
“Good to see you, Kauckmeister,” both lied.
“Hey, you look great,” he told Ian. Ian began to wonder what was wrong with his appearance. Kauckmeister wore a double-breasted sharkskin suit that was about two sizes too tight. His shirt was open to reveal a chest that had something more akin to fur than hair on it, with a number of thin gold chains dangling. His hair was slicked back; the front top was silver white, the back was jet black. At least he couldn’t be blamed for idiotic die jobs: that was a genetic hick-up from his home world. But still, Kauckmeister was the last one you’d want fashion advice from, and if he liked Ian’s look, Ian knew there was something wrong with it.
He swigged from a bottle of amber death, then asked “So, how long you two been here?”
“About ten minutes,” Ian said, stalling for time until he or Trevor could think of a way to escape.
“Well, I’ve been here a full month now, and just officially joined The Party!” He indicated his id card clipped prominently to the jacket’s pocket: PMGS (1) MDSN–
Party Member in Good Standing, with Party Clearance level 1. Here primarily for the Music, Drugs, Sex, and to Network with other professional Party members.
“I bought my way in,” he told them in a tone of confidence. Trevor wondered if gnawing his leg off so he could limp off to the infirmary would be a good escape ploy. No, he decided: it would have to be an arm, so he could run out.
“I’m not one of the original Party members, of course,” Kauckmeister droned on. “But I get to work closely with many of them. The Minister of Economic Development put me in charge of soliciting bids from six galaqtiq breweries for the right to build a distilling factory right next to The Tower.[1] And the Pharmacy has been synthesizing all the drugs here for a full year now, and not only has it paid for itself, but it’s shown a 200% growth as well.” Kauckmeister smiled.
Ian hated Company Men (or in this case, Party Men) as badly as he hated Amateurs. Beyond the Boor, Ian saw two girls in expensive, short (and suggestively cut) dresses talking. One of them, an attractive natural blonde with way too much mouth, looked at him, made eye contact, and smiled a smile that gave him a full erection before coyly turning back to her feminine friend. Born far-sighted, Ian was able to read her tag from where he stood. Both she and her friend were Gate-Crashers here primarily for Sex. He tried to walk around the impeding D’Artagnon to get over to the girl, but Kauckmeister held up a hand to stop him. Bloated fingers took ahold of his clipped card. PS1 Party Status, but was more an honourary member than an actual one. Undoubtedly because he hadn’t spent enough cumulative time there.
“You know, you should consider joining The Party, Trevvie. I can introduce you to the Acting Host.” The current Host, of course, had overdosed while at a peace summit with a rival Party two weeks ago. She was recovering slowly, but at least a treaty had been negotiated: the Opposition Party felt ashamed at the poor quality of the drugs they supplied that had caused the o.d. About a third of the people here at the Tower were actually Opposition Partiers. They had been granted Goodwill Party Clearance, but obviously no access to the higher levels.
“You always were good at logistics, and with the new distillery in swing, we need a good man...”
Ian saw the girl look his way once more. She looked upset that he hadn’t come over yet to play. She smiled once more, a smile that caused him to openly salivate, and he again tried to scoot past Kauckmeister. He was, of course, halted.
“Hey, how about we go up to the 101st floor! L@zerhead’s booked for three days. Saw ’em last night with Detonator and one of the House bands. Boss show.”
Ian’s would-be beloved glanced one last time at him, decided that he was either unable or unwilling to come over. She waved good-bye to him, then she and her friend walked arm in arm over to the turbo lift. She arrived just as the elevator did. They both climbed on, and the doors closed just as the next elevator arrived. Ian watched her disappear, then saw the doors open on the next lift. A Saladrin got off, and the doors began to close. Just before it did, he saw who remained on board, intent to go somewhere else.
Ian grabbed Trevor. “Just spotted Lester on the elevator.”
Trevor quickly shook hands with D’Artagnon. “I’m on the run from my ex-wife, and I just saw her. Bye.”
The two of them managed to get to the elevator pad. Indicators showed that both lifts were dropping to Level Two of the Party Floor. They summoned a third lift just as the first one arrived 21 floors beneath.
The first elevator slid to a stop, and Ian’s dream girl stepped out into the Party Forum. A moment later her friend joined her, and together they surveyed the pickings. There were many people crowded about, all socializing in bizarre ways. She looked around, and quickly noticed a lurchingly tall man with a fantastic figure. He had a swimmer’s body: wire-muscled and well-toned; it looked naturally developed, not like he spent five hours in the Party gym each day. He was very dark and brooding. His clothes were dark, his skin was dark (and dirty), and he had a very palpable aura of Dark power to him.
It really turned her on.
She studied him, trying to catch his eyes with hers. He was busy talking to two girls. One was a tall, slender Caandelenian, the other a younger Earthling. Earthlings were always so easy to spot: they looked perpetually confused.
The Earthling asked him a question, but he shrugged. Then the slender Amazon in the mini-skirt, white stockings, and strappy stiletto heels started talking to him. After a moment, it struck Ian’s lost love that her rival wasn’t actively flirting with him. In fact, it looked like they were discussing business. Just as she realized her good fortune, he glanced over the milky white shoulder of the speaker and looked directly at her. She locked eyes, put on 10% of a smile, and then went with her friend to get some more wine.
Corcey watched her walk off, 10% of a smile on his lips as well. Rather jarringly, he returned his attention Blade’s question. He found her looking at him amusedly. She had correctly identified Corcey’s distraction, and upped the ante to a 25% smile. Her light gray pupils were but mere specs; like her complexion and hair, her eyes were almost all whites. The dilation had a lot to do with her THC level, but Penny saw something else in her eyes beside Marijuana. Playful jealousy.
“I think we should, uh, split up and look for Lester,” Corcey announced. “We’ll cover more ground that way.”
Blade started to laugh quietly in a brief spasm. When she recovered, she was forced to admit that in this case, he actually did have a point. Corcey hunted people for a living; having two tag-alongs would slow him down considerably, especially since neither of them knew what Lester looked like. She held the tip of her tongue between her front teeth.
“Okay,” she said at last. Then she held up two fingers, warningly. “You just behave yourself out there.” The fingers slapped him across the nose.
“Thank you, sir, may I have another?”
She smiled him off.
As he walked away, she noticed her sticker was no longer on his hat. Maybe it had fallen off, or... She snaked an arm around back, felt her braid, and discovered his message. She read it, and looked up to his disappearing form.
“I’m not blonde, and I’m worth more than ten,” she said to his back, then tossed the note after him.
“Dollars or minutes?”
“Yes,” Blade said with a lusty grin. Corcey had been swallowed by the crowd.
“Excuse me, ” Penny said to her awkwardly, “But I have no idea what Wicked Lester looks like, and if we split up, I doubt I can find either of you again.”
Blade turned to her, the remnants of her mood still visible in her expression.
“Don’t worry,” she said, and patted her affectionately on the shoulder. “I don’t know what he looks like, either. So let’s Party until somebody who does finds him.”
This idea appealed to Penny, especially since she was in the very midst of what, with the alliance with the Rival Party, was now the largest (and most powerful) Party on the planet. Not, however, in the galaxy. Two other Parties dwarfed the ones on this planet. One was Rigel IV, whose Party used, in one way or another, every millimeter of the planet, and was powerful enough to dictate policy for its entire solar system. The other was Sygnus BX, which was run purely for profit—unlike the others. Penny didn’t know any of that, of course. She only knew that there was one Hell of a Rave going on around her right now, and she wanted to be able to say that she was a part of it.
Still, there was this nagging Lester business. She was about to ask how the others would find her and Blade in this crowd, then somehow knew that they would have no problem. Corcey struck Penny as being the equivalent of an American Indian: an expert tracker.
Just as they set about looking for the booze, Corcey apprehended them both with titanium grips. He leaned in between them and whispered “Lester just got off the elevator we’ve been standing next to, and is walking to the Forum’s control room.” He slapped them both on the shoulders, and passed through them in rapid pursuit of their quarry.
Corcey had to remind himself that he wasn’t supposed to kill the person he was chasing. Still, he felt all the primal excitement of the hunt as he pursued Lester. Corcey loved the thrill of the chase, the closing in for the kill. It was an odd coincidence that he took the time to enjoy the chase at that moment, for seven years to the day in his future, he would begin the most important hunt he would ever undertake, and would feel the same adrenaline buzz. He walked quickly toward the retreating figure wearing old jeans with a cowboy-style tool belt slung around his hips. Penny alone recognized Lester’s t-shirt: four white outlines of facial make-up, and the title ‘KISS’. Penny was also the only one who could have identified the glass bottle of clear fluid he carried in on hand. Official purveyors to the Russian Court, 1886 to 1917.
That’s right, Wicked Lester was (proudly!) drinking the third worst alcoholic beverage in the Known Universe: rubbing alcohol with gun metal lube and random floor sweepings (packaged, in this case, under the name of ‘Smirnoffs’.) The Second Worst was a Saladrin concoction, Ol'Janx'Spyrtt The worst, of course, was another Earthly beverage, ‘Tequila’.
Wicked Lester reached the back wall of the forum, and went up to a door stenciled AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. His id tag had WORKING CREW ALL ACCESS on it; he angrily shoved it into the slot. The door hissed open.
Trevor and Ian bolted out of the elevator at the other end of the room. Ian’s sharp eyes quickly picked out the distinctive white mane of Blade as she ran across the floor. Looking ahead of her, he spotted Corcey, and disappearing through a door, Lester.
Just then, Trevor and Ian were apprehended for the second time by a Party member.
“Trevor! Ian! Hey, this is perfect!”
Trevor turned to see the sharp face of Rat. She’d cut her mousy brown hair since they’d last met. Close-cropped to her head; it looked good.
“Rat, it’s great to see you, but we gotta...”
She grabbed the both of them. “We gotta talk,” she said.
Ian watched Lester disappear. Corcey was the closest to catching him: he and Trevor were too far behind.
“It’s important,” Rat continued, and the arms restraining them slid around them both as she escorted the two to the elevators. “I think you’ll be very interested in what I have to say.”
Twenty minutes into the future, they would be sitting in Rat’s office, listening to a most extraordinary tale. And indeed, she would tell them something most interesting.
Twenty minutes into the past, the motherboard for the Forum’s sound system suffered a mysterious accident, and shut down completely. That was why the Forum had no Multi-Disco dance mixes blaring in it. The maintenance and sound crew were unable to get it running again, so they called in... Wicked Lester.
Lester resented being called in. He certainly had better things to be doing, but he knew he had to do this: it was part of the arrangement that let him stay here with Sara. Besides, he had a pretty good idea of what the problem was, so it shouldn’t take too long. Stupid gits in Control. He let the door shut behind him, and began climbing a service ladder to the gondola.
The door clicked shut just as Corcey got to it. He punched it in frustration: his card gave him access to the liquor cabinets and the pleasure cubicles, but not to the important things. Blade, however, had long ago considered it wise to join The Party, and so her card would open the door. He waited impatiently as she and Penny caught up to him.
Just as Blade slid her card through the scanner, loud maxi-metal began shrieking from the speakers. It was the latest from Blue Fire Lady...,
“The Baby-Eating Bishop of Baths & Wells.”
The Creature from the Black Latrine came knocking on my door
Baldrick awakens us from our slumber
(Good thing, too, for this one charges by the hour)
But fortunately it was only half past four
“My Lord,” he cries, to my surprise, “There is a priest for you outside.”
“Go away, you ugly knave,” sleepily I reply.
“To disturb my rest, you annoying pest, you must surely wish to die,
“So leave me be, run and flee, or I’ll skin and mount your hide.
“And go and tell this bothersome guest, ‘Sod off, annoying priest,
“Or I shall tell the Bishop of Baths & Wells, who upon babies he does feast.”
Then away slinks Baldrick, manservant most rotten,
And I turn to the girl whose name I’ve forgotten
When Baldrick comes crashing through my portal
And behind him I hear a chortle
And the cry, “I am the Baby-Eating Bishop of Baths & Wells!”
Up above, Wicked Lester held the filthy screen for the qomputer’s coolant fan up like a half-eaten cookie in a room full of dieters. He lectured them on how they shouldn’t smoke pot in the control room, because it clogs up the fan’s screen, which makes the motherboard overheated and shut down. Phuqing idiots!
He left them, and began descending the ladder, only to step on the head of someone climbing.
“Clear below, asshole!” he shouted in a voice that was surprisingly high-pitched.
“Lester, if you don’t get that stinky foot off my head, I’m gonna rip it off and club you to death with it.”
Surprised pause, then: “Corcey?”
“Hey, Lester...!”
Lester quickly climbed back up to allow his old friend up. Corcey helped Blade and Penny out of the vertical tube.
“Lester, this is Penny and Blade.”
“Hi,” he said to each. Blade smiled back.
“Got tired of the mohawk?” Corcey asked, indicating Lester’s hair. It was one length, and spiked Johnny Rotten Red.
“Believe it or not,” Lester said, and tried to subdue a laugh, “I was working on a mazer suppression grid, and fried myself with a couple megavolts. Didn’t kill me, but all my hair fell out...”
“Oh, man!” said Corcey, and he started to laugh. Blade joined in, but Lester laughed hardest.
“Yeah, this shit’s funny now, man, but hey... Anyway, I’m just gonna let it grow out to one even... Hey!” Suddenly, he turned his attention from Corcey to two of the teqnicians standing by the mixing board. One had a lit joint in his mouth, and was playing with the p.a.’s reverb.
“I just told you not to smoke that shit in here, man!” Wicked Lester screamed shrilly.
The sound engineer looked up from the console, startled. He looked like the boy who got caught with his hand in the fudge. Lester stomped up to him, and yanked the joint from his mouth. He held it up menacingly.
“You want the motherboard to fry again? Get the phuq out!”
The roadie started to reach for his joint, but Lester screamed “Out!” at an impressive alto octave reminiscent of Jesus clearing the Temple. The roadie slinked out the side exit and climbed to the level above. Lester held the cigarette between thumb and his next two fingers, the smoldering tip almost touching the palm of his hand. He took a power hit, and a long tube of ash formed. The ash disintegrated as he passed it over to his old friend.
Penny was also at the control board, looking out the window at the Forum of the largest Party she’d ever seen. Blade leaned over, and indicated some of the flashing led meters.
“Let’s change the music,” she said.
Penny agreed. Whatever it was, it kind of reminded her of Depeche Mode, if Bruce Springsteen were singing with the Village People on harmony. What a frightening thought. She rummaged through her purse while Blade pressed a button on the console. Something like a credit card—complete with magnetic strip—popped out of a playback unit, and all the music died. Blade held up the card warily. “I hate these guys.”
Penny saw what resembled a very sophisticated DAT player. From the remains of her car she’d salvaged several of the Evil Matt Party Mixes; fishing through her purse, she pulled out Flawed Pasta. Experimenting, she put a cassette into it, and the player contracted to fit the dimensions. A laser flashed on the eighth inch of magnetic tape, and the qomputer analyzed the signal, adjusted the laser’s band, and corrected the rotation speed.
And a moment later, entire cultures heard Frank Zappa for the first time.
“Hmmmmmm, yummy.” said Corcey, exhaling. “Kilbrechian Red?”
“Yeah, they grow it in the greenhouse. I think they’ve really refined this year’s crop.”
Corcey pulled out a plastic baggie. It was zipped closed at the top; a yellow band and a blue one had interlocked, the green stripe indicating an air-tight seal. He unrolled it, and showed it to Lester.
“This is, uh... ...Actually, I’m not sure what this is. Kind of like Casidine Creeper weed.”[2]
Corcey put away the bag he’d acquired Freyday night as he accepted the fuming fag.
Lester considered the Kilbrechian Red torturing his brain. “We had some Arctangian Gold we’d gotten from one of L@serhead’s roadies. It’d been soaked in Maxi-Hash oil, and the paper was uncut sheet acid. I couldn’t talk for four hours. Hey, Man,” Lester took on a serious tone. “I will still pay you good money for some Aridian PsychoBuds.”
Corcey laughed, though the effort was somewhat forced. “I told you: they’re not for sale.”
The drug he was referring to was sacred to Aridian essenes fixated on the Gospel of Thomas. The Thunians believed that only they were privileged to use it, and had strict religious laws about the drug that they called Ba’alistti. “Hand of Doom.” One of those laws made it a sin to let the drug fall into unclean hands. Use of the drug by anyone other than the Thunians themselves was Blaspheme. Corcey, who was on sabbatical from the Santhunedran, took this Belief to heart.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” was his polite way of refusing to betray his Beliefs.
“So,” Lester asked Corcey, “You just here to Party, or are you icing somebody?”
“No, I came to talk to you, actually,” he said, and took a crisp hit. He held the flaming cigarette out to the room at large, and a moment later fingertips closed over his extended digits. Long, sculpted nails grazed over the skin until the pads rested on his cuticles. Slight pressure of a light squeeze, and then vanished with the cigarette.
Corcey’s eyes floated over to see Blade smiling at him with lips that his thc-swimming mind decreed to be the most perfect hue of red in the spectrum. The smile was in those milky gray eyes, too—in fact, resplendent everywhere on her perfectly oval face. The colour of her face, indeed her whole body, suddenly struck him as a unique hue of white. It wasn’t snowy, it wasn’t ivory, it wasn’t chalky, it was... Blade. Looking at her with a curious smile of his own, Corcey decided that no other colour would suit her.
She flashed her eyes, and turned to Penny. Corcey watched her bring the white cigarette up to her red lips, then realized he was staring. Awkwardly (and guiltily) he turned away, to see Lester looking at him with a wide grin of his own. He was chuckling at the scene.
The reprieve Corcey prayed for came: he suddenly remembered that he hadn’t seen Lester in years.
“So what are you doing here?” He leaned over and flipped Lester’s id pass.
“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Lester said hurriedly, “I don’t do this for a living.”
“Good, you were scaring me.”
“No, it’s part of a deal I’ve worked out. I’m living with one of the Original Party Members; Sara, in concert promotion. Only Party members can actually live in the Tower, so I cut a deal with The Party to let me stay with her. I’m listed as an electrical consultant. I did research for them on the side, too, but that was all under the counter. Their budget won’t allow it officially, but I got research grants from them just the same. That’s actually why I came here, but then I met Sara, and the research got audited.”
“Research, eh?” Corcey mused aloud. He was not surprised. “Actually, that’s kind of what we came to talk to you about.”
“Oh,” said Lester, extremely interested.
“We want you to take a look at something for us.”
“Not a problem; whip it out.”
By a strange coincidence, Ian said the exact same thing at the exact same time, one Tower over and 156 floors above.
They were in Rat’s office. The floor was littered with confetti and listless balloons. On her desk was the whole Galaqtiq catalogue, and a strategically placed, very hip water pipe. There was nothing smokeable in the bowl, much to their mutual disappointment.
She had said that she had something interesting to show them, and Ian echoed Wicked Lester.
Rat unlocked her desk and pulled out a burn-bag safe. She disarmed it, reached inside, and pulled out a large skeleton key chiseled from pink marble. She put it on the desk blotter.
Trevor reached over and took it in his fingers, rolling and twisting it about.
Ian didn’t recognize it, either.
“I assume you have some sort of...” Trevor started.
“Explanation,” Ian finished.
“Exactly,” amended Ian.
“Actually,” Rat told them, “I absolutely cannot give you an explanation.”
“Pity,” said Trevor
“Right shame,” echoed Ian.
“Well, you must understand that as a Party Member, I must do my best to prevent you from knowing certain facts that, as you haven’t adequate Party clearance, you should not know.”
“Ah,” remarked Trevor.
“I can in no way tell you anything about this key, do you understand?”
“Not exactly,” said Ian. “Could you please give us some examples of these... ‘facts’ that we shouldn’t know about?”
Rat nodded. “Do you know about the Galaqtiq Qom-Teq survey team sent to explore star FJI 514 four years ago?”
Ian shook his head no.
“Right. That is an example of something you were not supposed to know about this key that I’m not showing you.”
“I see,” said Ian.
“Good. Likewise, you are not privileged to the classified information that the survey ship encountered a long range scout floating in the Phoenix Dust Nebula. Two people were on board, but you wouldn’t know that, of course. Nor would you be aware that one had died of a very nasty