Lesser Gods (2 page)

Ralph Crocker

Now we come to the part where I stared Death in the eye and felt my life about to be swept, like a desiccated leaf before an autumn storm, without hope, into some cosmic storm sewer from which there could be no return. This downpour had been a long time in the making, like water falling from clouds heavily pregnant with rain.

That’s the poetic version. In reality, I fought to control my bowels and my bladder. Especially my bladder. Had I known I’d be facing Death, I definitely would have skipped my cup of SynthaCaff. I made a mental note to drink less tea in the future — should I somehow escape Death’s clutches yet one more time.

His henchmen had a milliwave scanner. Using it, they scanned and very efficiently relieved me of my pistol along with my four knives. They’d missed the mini-claymore strapped to my thigh — apparently mistaking it for part of my exo-armor. But the claymore remained useless weight at this point. Firing a claymore on my thigh would be like hang gliding without a glider.

At the very least, I’d be guaranteed a broken leg and shrapnel wounds from the plastic body of the device.

Yet, I would have risked that if it might have extracted me from the awkward scene.

The catch was the six-foot swath of jagged plastic that would exit the front of the claymore might fail to penetrate Death’s composite shell. The last thing I wanted to do was merely wound him again. I’d failed to kill him the first time, proving the old saw that when you try to assassinate a crime king, best not botch it. Hence, my consternation at being brought to his court now. I was gladdened, yea even happily astonished, that he hadn’t flayed me and then slowly roasted what was left over a low flame.

So now I figured it was better to do nothing and let him kill me coolly and quickly now, rather than have him do his worst for a protracted time because I’d angered him with another botched attempt at murder. I had heard the stories and never doubted them. Expiring quickly beats departing slowly and painfully any day — especially your last.

The possibility of setting off the claymore was academic anyway since I couldn’t reach the firing button in my spread eagle state, being stretched between Death’s two mesomorphs who each held one of my arms in muscled paws that threatened to dislocate my shoulders.

So instead of doing anything, I fought to control my bladder and waited, with the two henchmen savoring my fear, like pigs chewing on a chicken. The mechanical clock on the wall tick tocked long seconds in a room smelling of sweat and blood.

And, I reflected, soon of urine.

Death stared at me across the smoke-filled room, sitting behind a stainless steel desk that resembled a mortician’s table. As always, he wore the chrome mask with a crazy grin molded into it, never seeming to don any of the somber countenances that hung along the wall like eyeless onlookers. His antenna darted like a nervous cricket’s as he faced me, his voice grating like fingernails down slate. “Surprised to see me again so soon?”

“Yes,” I managed.

“Didn’t take long to put the pieces back together.”

“Please, just get it over I pleaded. Tired of waiting to die, I wanted to at least shuffle off this mortal coil with clean underwear.

Death threw back his head and shrieked — his way of laughing. “You think we brought you here to…” He sputtered as he uncoiled himself from his chair and rose to his feet, stooping so his dented skull didn’t scrape the ceiling. “Actually I have a little job for you.” The hand that ended in human digits instead of a claw snaked into his chest compartment and retrieved a plastic vial. “Here.”

The meso on my left let go of my arm so I could receive the tiny container. I recognized the opalescent liquid inside without checking the label. “I don’t do jet any more.”

Death’s eyes burned like angry coals in the dim light. “You’re not going to wear out my patience are you?”

“No!” I answered quickly, knowing his patience was in short supply. I wrapped my hand around the vial and lowered my arm.

“I’ve seen your records,” Death said. “You have three jet-net convictions and two months in detox on your records. I know you’ve used the stuff. Don’t smudge me.”

“Used to use is the key point here. I quit. I’ve seen what happens when a guy crashes and splatters his brains over a console.”

“Let’s just say this is non-negotiable. With a blur of motion, his hand snaked toward me. Abruptly a razor sharp blade rested next to my groin. “You’re in no position to bargain.”

He was right: I was up the creek without a paddle, over a barrel, with my pants down, and ready to fold.

“Please continue,” I said in as low a falsetto voice as a man can manage with testicles attempting to hide inside his pelvis.

Death withdrew the blade and then paced the narrow room for moments that seemed like eternity, his clawed hand snapping open and shut with the quiet efficiency of slaughterhouse hammers. Finally he growled. “There’s this guy who’s lost himself — very thoroughly, especially after the EMP attack on the Central that erased the master banks last week. But he probably left tracks in the subnet, which is where you come in.”

“Don’t tell me you want me to jet net.”

“Precisely what I have in mind. For a hacker like you who’s been, shall we say, pharmaceutically challenged in the past, that ought to be a grav dive with eyes closed.”

“If I’m going to risk frying my mind it would be nice to be reimbursed —”

Death roared, causing the teeth in the skull collection behind him to rattle. “You think you have room to bargain here?” he hissed.

“I thought, maybe… You know.”

“You ought to be glad I’m not going to kill you outright after what you did to me.”

I conceded that, having left him short a couple of arms after he stumbled into a booby trap I’d left behind.

Death leaned toward me, so close his antenna brushed my face, tickling my sweat-covered brow. Tiny gears whirred angrily inside him; his breath reeked of machine oil. “Fortunately for you I’m feeling generous today. You find this guy’s hard address by the end of the tomorrow and —”

“Just find his hard address?” I asked. “You don’t want me to make the pick up or anything?”

“Correct. My guys’ll make the pickup when you find his hard address. You find it before anyone else does, and I’ll delete your criminal records from the PD machine and throw in a couple of K’s to boot. How’s that sound?”

“Very generous. But perhaps a bonus if —”

“As a bonus, I won’t kill you.”

“Very, very generous.”

“Here’s a DF.” He produced a ROM dot from his chest and handed the storage device to me. “Everything we have on him. He left records behind when he went into hiding.”

I took the tiny storage device and carefully placed it into the PA on my wrist. “Is this guy dangerous?”

“Not hardly,” Death replied. “Antique. Remember the Supreme ruling last month? The one that said all vets had to be compensated for the past sins of the UN and its member states?”

“A hundred thousand per year, each year they continue to live,” I replied. I was up to speed on this because I’d been trying to figure out some way to hack into the data bank so I could add my name to the list of those who’d be receiving the cash. Sadly, my labors never came to fruition.

“That ruling was their death warrant,” Death continued. “The Powers decided to cut their losses to a hundred thou per vet.”

I thought a moment and then knew: “By killing them off this year.”

“Right,” Death said with a hissing chuckle. “The actuary tables will be skewed for years to come with all the unusual accidents, unexpected heart attacks, and exotic endings to come the next few months. But it won’t be so easy with this guy. He’s no schmuck. When the law passed, he didn’t wait for a goodbye knock-knock. Went underground. So, we contracted the job from The Powers and now I’m subcontracting you. Two days to hard address him for us — or else.”

“Hate to mention this,” I said in the most contrite voice I could muster, “But I’m short of cash.”

“He was trying to hit an ATM when we scooped him,” one of the mesos guarding me offered.

I nodded. “If I’m to access the sub-webs… The pub-net doesn’t have anything of value for a data search like I’ll need to do.” I stopped and tried to swallow.

Death vented air, sounding like a wire brush peeling flesh from muscle, eyes flaming crimson before cooling while everyone in the room held their collective breaths. Then he fished through a pile of papers on his desk, produced a smart card, and hurled it at me. “Here’s an anonymous five hundred. That’s your advance.”

I was quiet for a moment, surprised at Death’s unexpected generosity since normally he held a debit card so tightly it moaned in pain.

“Is there anything else?” he demanded.

The room was ominously silent, the clock ticking off five seconds.

And then I ventured, “Do you have a bathroom?”

Jeff Huntington

High over Hanoi, I swore under my breath as I double-checked my voltmeter. No doubt about it; the circuits weren’t getting the proper power and I didn’t see how that could be.

My musings were interrupted by the navigator yelling at me over the engine noise of the B-52. “Get your parachute on!”

“Can’t work in a chute,” I replied. Hell, I could barely work inside the heavy flight jacket dictated by the frigid air pouring through the bomb bay doors where the last of the bombs shuttled through the opening, raining death far below. For just a moment, it registered on me that I’d been blissfully unaware of the lives that most likely were coming to violent ends on the ground far below. We flew above the murder and mayhem, death I was taking part in, high in the sky where everything seemed serene and sterile. The chaos we’d just dumped onto those faceless enemies below remained both distant and abstract.

I shook the thought and concentrated on the circuit board I labored over.

“Grab your chute!” the navigator yelled again, this time tugging at my shoulder. “Get your chute on. Now!”

What’s with this guy?
I wondered, glancing up in time to see the navigator pull his helmet’s blast shield down over his face and jerk his shoulder harness tight.

With a shock of electrified clearness, I realized the crewman was readying to eject.

That
made an impression.

I dropped my tools and grabbed my chute, just as the rear of the plane ripped apart with a concussion that sent shrapnel slicing through the interior of the plane. Jagged holes appeared as if by magic in the skin of the jet. Sunlight peppered the dark interior as air whistled through the countless new openings. The B-52 lurched into a gut-wrenching turn, starboard engines sputtering.

Blinded by the blood pouring into my left eye, I turned toward the navigator and then looked away from the headless corpse that sat in the chair, arms hanging limply to the sides.

The plane staggered once more with a wrench of metal and the floor below my feet canted as the tail ripped away. Wind streamed through the cabin and threatened to sweep me through the gaping hole that had appeared behind me.

Fighting to maintain my balance, I forced my arms through the parachute straps and latched its main harness around my chest. Then I pulled myself toward the bomb bay that was now at an impossible angle inside the falling plane.

I paused for only a moment at the breach, gazing morbidly at the earth spiraling upward toward me. Closing my good eye, I half leaped, half kicked away from the plane, my scream lost in the banshee cry of the wind.

Ralph Crocker

My trip home proved somewhat less than comfy. I’d hoped Death’s merry men would give me a lift back since they’d snatched me practically on my front stoop in the first place.

No such luck.

They had picked me up just around the corner from my apartment where a Ja-Ja parade passed. I took advantage of the distraction the boogying dead attracted to jumpstart my empty smart card with a “loan” from a hot-wired ATM coupled with my fake DNA thumbprint.

“Whatcha doin’, Ralphy?” one of Death’s three goons crooned, placing my arm in his vise-like grip, a tidal wave of pain splashing through my shoulder.