King's County (15 page)

The crowd hated Geake. Anything they
could get their hands on they threw. A bottle dinged audibly off of
his big head.

A flash, like a ghost, he was out of
the pit and on the main floor swinging his sword.

I joined him, closing one eye broke
most of the distance effect. He was slashing anyone in front of
him, killing them. Those nearby were too slow to escape - I
shielded behind him.

The room cleared out in only seconds.
The survivors had disappeared. Several lay dead. With an eye
closed, the rambling, spacious den was much smaller with an odd,
inward tilted look.

Geake rested. His sword was deformed.
The curved end was twisted out of shape.

"Are you finished?" I said. No
response. He just breathed and scanned the room for threats. Blood
dripped from deep scratches, some of them by his own
hand.

We walked toward where the door to the
next car should be. I saw Richelieu. Geake went ahead. He didn't
know him and didn't care.

Richelieu's little body lay on top of
one of his whores. He looked ridiculous in his white pin-striped
suit and matching hat with a pair of red lensed glasses falling off
his face. I couldn't help but hate him. When I looked up, Geake had
gone on without me.

*

The door out was actually a ladder
leading down to a waiting boat. I had both eyes open. My boots
thumped onto the deck – and I was sent through to the other car,
abruptly finding myself in a dim, wet forest.

A few short steps brought me out of the
woods. After trudging cross a dewy meadow of knee high grass, I was
on a college campus of imposing dark Neo-Gothic buildings covered
in vines and moss. It was foggy and seemed to be just before
dawn.

I wandered around exploring but I could
feel the confining mechanisms of the car's system at work, keeping
me to a few specific lines of travel. As there were accessible
houses and buildings on both sides of the cobblestone path, the
system had little space to work with.

Under a yellow street lamp, I found
Yuri lying on the ground with his guts out.

"Could you lend a hand?" His voice was
weak but didn't lack the confidence I remembered it
having,

"Nobody’s helping me. I need to get
stabilized so I can heal."

His two goats lingered in a garden
behind him. They were trying to eat the rose bushes. Yuri was
trying to gather up his intestines in his hands but everything was
too slippery and he had become uncoordinated.

"Find something, cloth or something, to
wrap around my waist. And I'll need some help getting up and, if
you don't mind, I need you to walk me to the front
cars."

"Where's the guy who did this to
you?"

The question seemed to embarrass
him,

"You know who that was, don't you? Help
me first, then you can explain it for me. Here, give me your
shirt."

I didn't give him my shirt. I saw
something hanging from the next lamp post, a red and gray pennant.
It was made of dense wool and would be better for the
job.

Yuri was strong but he had lost all
color. I helped him walk. He pointed to a sundial in the garden so
I took him over to it.

Yuri pushed a button on the side and
the face of the sundial opened revealing an old fashioned keypad.
He typed a series of numbers.

"Don't lose your grip on me. I’m
shutting down the system here and in the next car. It might
disorient you."

He pushed the green ENTER button and
the scene fell in around me. I almost did lose my grip.

We were in a long windowless room, the
walls were smooth and off-white with a matrix of gray dots. The
street lamp was next to me not behind me as it seemed before. I
felt a nibbling at my back pocket. It was one of the goats. He was
as indifferent as ever.

I walked Yuri the 10 or 12m to the
door. The ground was littered with odd objects, plastic pipes and
bottles, candles, a crudely made leather bound book. There was the
occasional plant or small tree and some things I didn't recognize
at all. There was blood, trails of it and small pools, though no
wounded or dead.

Like the other doors, there was no
obvious handle just an outline in the wall. Yuri told me to walk
into it. As I did, it silently slid aside exposing a black space.
We entered and it closed behind us. The opposite door
opened:

A square gate, flat beige and traced
with a meandering red pattern, framed a dejected looking girl
sitting cross-legged on the smooth floor. She wore a simple white
wrap held together with gold clasps. The white contrasted with her
tanned skin. She looked up, unsurprised to see us, and I was
stopped by her watery crystalline blue eyes.

Seemingly out of habit, she offered me
a goblet of a strongly aromatic flavored wine. I couldn't accept
it. Both my hands were helping to hold Yuri together.

"He’s down there," she said. "He’s
going to take her away from me, I know it."

Down the car we shuffled along past odd
artifacts strewn around the ground, clay cups, ropes, mirrors,
vases of a design I vaguely recognized, simple wooden furniture,
some of it broken.

Panels of rough hewn slabs hindered the
way, real stone - they formed part of a labyrinth. The hologram
effect would have filled in the rest had Yuri not turned it
off.

He breathed very weakly now. It was
getting harder to hold him up as he lost consciousness. For the
first time, I wondered if he might actually die.

I needed to rest my arm. I set him down
in a chair and leaned his head against the stone partition. Yuri’s
pant legs were soaked with his blood. Putting my ear to his chest,
his heart beat was faint and shallow. He wasn’t responding to me
and he was too heavy to pick back up. Seeing no other option, I
continued on alone.

My arm ached despite relieving the
burden. The light-headed feeling from earlier had settled down into
a dull, manageable anxiety but I was now starting to see things in
the corners of my eyes. The pain in my heel was spreading up my
leg.

The labyrinth ended with a wide
limestone wall muraled in charging black bulls. On either side of
it was a narrow space, just barely enough to squeeze
around.

There they were. Geake held a man by
his neck against the blank side wall of the train. The man's brown
leather shoes were off the ground. He was maybe forty (forty
looking) and wearing understated dark woolen slacks and a starched
white dress shirt. He also wore eyeglasses, gold framed, and a
matching gold wristwatch with a brown leather band that precisely
matched the color of his shoes and belt.

Before them were three heaps of black
furred bodies - corpses, or carcasses. Big things. Geake’s mangled
sword laid beside them.

"Glad you made it, Waller. What do you
think: Does he live or die?"

"He looks harmless to me. Why not let
him go," I said.

Geake let go of his neck but pushed him
down and grabbed him by the ankles, easily hoisting him back up to
dangle helplessly. The man didn't say anything. He seemed to be
waiting for something while his face reddened and
swelled.

"He’s harmless now, isn't he? Now that
he's helpless. But he's not innocent. Hand me the
sword."

I picked up the sword but didn't give
it to him.

The man spoke, his voice was well
measured and clear of concern,

"If you kill me, you'll be trapped -
here, on this train. For a long, long time, in fact, you’ll
probably die here."

"Why is that? And why should I believe
you?" Geake said. "I think you'd say anything to save your
neck."

"The system won’t restart, nothing will
work - if I die. But the train will go on running for years. Penny
will die here with you. Slowly, perhaps, and she’ll blame you.
She’ll blame your rage and so will you. You’ll probably end up
killing yourself."

Geake bonked the man's dangling head on
the floor, but not too hard.

"Well, you'll never get to find out!"
Geake said and swung him back and forth, releasing him to land on
top of the dead things.

Geake looked at me, then at his sword
in my hand. He shook his head and walked into the next
car.

The man was Leland. We introduced
ourselves. I told him about Yuri and he assured me that there would
be time to save him as long as I could help him get to his private
car.

I went first. The next car was like the
ones at the back of the train. The bulk of the partiers lived in
these cars, or slept here between cycles. They were empty now. The
cabin doors were all opened. I could hear Geake speaking to someone
at the end of the car.

Leland followed closely behind. I
signaled him to wait before approaching Geake.

They were at a small table in an
alcove. She had a mug in front of her with a hand supporting her
tired head. I heard Geake trying to convince her to leave with him.
Penny looked up to see who I was.

"This is Waller. He was with me in
Alaska, for a little while."

"Hi,” I said, “It's nice to finally
meet you. Geake, I'm taking Leland to his car."

He nodded and turned his attention back
to Penny. There wouldn't be any trouble.

I followed Leland through four more
cars. We didn’t talk much. I was moving through mud. The edges of
my vision became obscured by thick brown webs. Both my feet started
to swell and go numb. Our footsteps sounded muffled - I was
stumbling, dragging the bad leg now. At the door to his car, the
numbness had risen to the top of my thighs. Leland turned and saw
my face. His concerned frown was the last thing I saw before going
dark.

*

"You're awake. Your buddy’s leaving.
See if you can get up."

Walter was in my room.

"Where are my boots?"

He reached down and threw them on the
bed,

"Try to hurry."

I felt good, surprisingly good, but not
altogether well. I rose and found Walter with Richelieu, alive and
eating a pile of crepes at the breakfast table.

"So, you made it..." I said to Walter.
Richelieu laughed.

“You're welcome. You know we saved your
life.” Walter said.

"Thanks. Where is he?" I pulled up a
chair. I was ravenous.

"They're at the back. Leland’s dragging
out his goodbye. He has a thing for Penny," Walter said.

"He’s not worried Geake’s going to rip
his head off?" I said.

"Penny must have convinced the boy that
such action would not be in either of their best interests."
Richelieu said.

"Much better this way, however pissed
he is. Leland’s pulling levers for them. They’re getting some
serious access," Walter said, "Maybe they can figure out how to
have a life together."

I found Geake standing by himself
outside a closed cabin door. He was cleaned up and wearing a new
dark blue suit. He smiled when he saw me.

"Hey, you two are off?" I said. Geake
looked down and shuffled his feet.

"Yeah, yes, sir. She’ll be out in a
second. We’re going to try somewhere new, further inland probably.
Travel around some first to get some ideas."

"Well, I guess that's
something."

"We’ll see. It’s kind of good to start
over like this. Don't you think?"

The cabin door folded open and I really
saw her for the first time. She went to Geake and he looked at me.
For the next few minutes until they left, everything that happened
on this stupid train almost made sense.

Richelieu and I saw them off at the
door to BOB. His eyes teared while repeatedly kissing her cheeks.
It was a little much. I settled for a hug and a silently mouthed
thank you.

Geake loaded her bags. He held Penny’s
hand as she stepped over the vehicle’s threshold. With everything
ready to go he turned to me,

"El Tee, you've really been great, you
know. I’ll never forget it."

He leaned down and hugged tightly. I
slapped him on the back a few times and he let me go.

Once they were both on board, Richelieu
pushed the button to release them. Sliding free, through the thick
glass, their faces stared back at us. Oddly neutral they seemed.
Under thick enough glass, maybe everything seems
neutral.

"So that's what you're into? I knew
this wouldn't work out," Ed said. He had been standing near the
door secretly watching us.

"Why don’t you go off and fuck yourself
some more." I said.

He laughed.

"Talk to Leland." Ed turned around to
leave, "He’s handing out magic tickets."

I did. And he was.

***

King’s County Ch.4

ACCESS

****

BOB delivered me to a mountain town in
Idaho. Like Eureka, there was no sign of any inhabitants. It was
still a pleasant enough place with a lake near the downtown strip
of shops and hotels. Everything was immaculately maintained. It was
perfect idea of a place. I would have been glad to meet anyone if I
could have stayed - I’m sure people must have lived there, however
few - but they were expecting me in Seattle and I was obliged to
take the transport they had arranged.