Marlowe and the Spacewoman (15 page)

CHAPTER 9

BLOOD IS THICKER THAN…BLOOD?

Nina acted first.  She jammed Marlowe behind her, shoving him against the door frame in a single fluid movement.  Then she launched herself onto the charging assailant, knocking the rolling pin out of one hand with a karate chop and sending the knife sailing back into the kitchen with a kick (along with half his mustache).  She then neatly folded him over her forearm and brought him to the ground, where he promptly began to cry.

There was total silence aside from the sobs.  Even the sounds of the news had been muted.  Marlowe stared at the cowering form for a full minute.  Then he mustered the strength to speak.

“Father?”

“Surprise,” said House, somewhat truculently.

The old man wiped his nose on the loose-fitting, extremely long sleeved white jacket he was wearing.  “I thought you were that no-good, betraying clone child, but I can’t even find the right house.  You’d think I’d remember, having lived in it for so many years.  But the memory isn’t what it used to be.  Nope.”  Marlowe noticed the jacket had buckles and straps hanging off it, and the old man’s hands were sticking out of jagged holes cut midway down the sleeves.  

“And this House led me on!” continued the old man bitterly.  “’Oh, dad, it’s you!  Where have you been?  We all thought you were dead.’  Lying bastard of a house!”

“Father, you’re in the right place.”

If Nina had been confused when she first arrived on Earth, she was now thoroughly bewildered.

“No, I’m not!  You’re not my son.  You don’t look anything like him!  Oh, all those doctors were right.  I AM a psychotic homicidal failure.”

“No, father, you’re not.  I am your son.  I’ve had a face lift.”

The old man wiped his nose again, then blew it into a clump of his jacket.  He looked up, staring intently into Marlowe’s eyes.  “Why, I do believe you may be right.  The color is all wrong, but they say eyes are the windows into a person’s spleen, or something like that, begins with an ‘s’ I think.  Yes, sleep would be nice.  If only I was at the safe house.”  He crumpled over and began to snore.

“SHUT UP AND LEAVE!” screamed Gomer from the other room.  “LEAVE LEAVE *SQUAWK* LEAVE!”

“Gomer has been agitated ever since Dad arrived,” whispered House.  “I think he’s upset by the change.  You know how much Gomer hates change.”

Nina stood up and leaned against the wall, eyebrows furled, the bridge of her nose pinched between her thumb and forefinger.  “And who, pray tell, is Gomer?”

“Why, the parrot, ma’am,” replied House.

Marlowe closed the front door.  “Nina, this is my father.”

“I gathered as much,” said Nina.  “You have an interesting family.”

“You don’t know the half of it.  If you could help me get him into the guest room, I’d be much obliged.”

Nina just nodded resignedly and hoisted the old man up.  “I can handle him myself.  Where’s the guest room?”

“Down the hall, third door on the left, up the stairs, down that hall, then second door on the right.”

“OK, then what?”

“Then come back down here and I’ll give you the official tour.”

Nina complied with the request, came back, and took the tour.  House actually led the tour, having her follow the sound of his voice as he guided her from room to room.  Marlowe spent the time with Gomer, pacifying him.

“Hey Gomer, how are you?”

Gomer, startled, shot straight up from his perch into the top of the cage, and then plummeted to the bottom, a scream of terror erupting from him.  He landed roughly, but quickly quieted and righted himself, doing a little head kink and wing stretch.  “Meant to do that.”

“Sorry, Gomer, did I scare you?”

“Just a freaking little!  Jumping Jehovah, will nothing go right around here?  First that crazy old bastard shows up, then the-”  Gomer stopped, took a few deep breaths, and cocked his head towards Marlowe.  “Must find my happy place.  Must find my happy place.”  His breath grew less raspy.  “And where have you been?  You obviously didn’t find Tray yet.”

“Actually, I did.  Almost got killed in the process.  But some other things have come up, and I’m running two cases in parallel.  And right now, at least one of them is a dead end.”

“Is that where the woman came from?  The other case?”

“Yes.”

Gomer spat on the floor of the cage.  Marlowe found watching the parrot spit very disturbing. He didn’t know where Gomer had picked up the habit or why, because as a parrot, he wasn’t very good at it.  However, the GMP didn’t seem to mind his lack of proficiency, and gave it his best shot at every opportunity.

“You’ve got spittle running down your beak.”

“Dammit!”  Gomer went up to a perch and rubbed his beak back and forth several times.  “Got it?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”  He preened himself, smoothing out the ruffles of the fall.

“The old man is my father.  I thought he was dead until this morning.”

“Well,” said Gomer between feather preenings, “congratulations.  He isn’t dead.  You must feel wonderful.  When’s he leaving?”

“He’ll probably be staying for a little while, so I suggest you calm down and get used to him.”

Nina’s voice, questioning House, was approaching.  

“Oh, and play the part of a mundane bird for now, until I get a better handle on the situation.”

“Whoopee.  Squawk!”

“So your systems are actually embedded into the structure of the building?” Nina was asking.

“Yes, ma’am,” said House proudly.  “I literally am every centimeter of this home.  Very few systems of my complexity exist in the City, and I am the only one I am aware of that is actually integrated into a personal abode.  The other systems all exist within a company building or City department.  I remember the day I was born.  Dad turned me on and told me, and I quote, ‘God damn it, you useless piece of junk, get the heater going.  I’m freezing!’  Well, he used a different word than junk, but no need to go into that.”  House sighed.  “I’ll never forget.  Such a happy day!”

“Getting to know House?” asked Marlowe as Nina entered the room.

“Yes.  This place is fascinating.  You have a fairly large house for someone living in  squalor.”

“Yes, well, I was left with House when my brother moved into the Gubernatorial Cathedral upon his succession.  Technically I’m just a caretaker, though His Highness has shown little interest in the place since his ascension.”

“Still, digs like this aren’t bad, especially rent-free.”

“Who says my brother isn’t charging me rent?”

“What’s going in on with all the wall pictures?  They keep changing.”  Nina pointed to a picture hanging on the wall showing Marlowe as a child standing next to another child about his age and a man in his early forties.

“That’s a picture of me, my father, and my brother.”

Nina had a confused look on her face.  “Which one is you?”

Marlowe pointed to his childhood persona.

“You look like Bogart as a kid.  I thought you said you had plastic surgery to look like that.  When, exactly?”

Marlowe laughed as the image changed to a portrait of his mother.  “These are self-correcting, self-updating pictures.  Every time I get a face lift, House goes through all my pictures and alters my face.  This is also when he sends out the new pictures to the people who need to know about my new appearance.  In the case of childhood pictures, House extrapolates backwards from my current face and generates the appropriate childhood face to match it.”

“With 99.6% accuracy,” House added proudly.

“Squawk!  Squawk!  Polly wanna cracker, squawk!”

Marlowe leaned close to the cage.  “Don’t ham it up!” he hissed.  

Nina turned to Gomer’s cage, eying him curiously.  “I thought you said parrots were evil.”

Gomer’s eyes flashed.  “Evil?  Evil?”  He cocked his head to the right.  “Surprise, surprise, surprise!  Squawk!”

“Well, no, not all parrots, just the GMPs.”

“GMPs?”

“Genetically Modified Parrots.  Gomer here is one hundred percent organic,” lied Marlowe.  “Non-genetically modified parrots are legal, as long as they have the proper paperwork and are kept indoors.”

“Oh.”  Nina leaned into the cage, the fingers of her left hand poking through the bars and wiggling.  “Hewwo, wittle birdy.  How are you?”

Gomer charged forward, snapping at her.   Nina jerked her fingers back.

“Careful.  He’s kinda cagey around strangers, and he’s deathly afraid of left hands.”

“He’s afraid of left hands?  Why?”

Marlowe shrugged.  “Beats me.  Parrots tend to be a bit neurotic.”

“Evil!  Cookie cookie cookie!  Squawk!”

“My God, I’d swear he hates you.”  Nina pointed with her right hand.  “Can you see that?  That’s the iciest glare I’ve ever seen one warm blooded animal give another.”

Marlowe put his arm on Nina’s shoulder and turned her away from Gomer.  “You just don’t know parrots that well, is all.  With time, you’ll master his moods.”

Gomer let rip a loud raspberry sound.  “Excuse me, squawk!”

“My, you’ve taught your bird some interesting sounds and phrases.”

“Yeah, well, most of that isn’t me.  He’s a rescue bird.  I’ve had him less than a year.”

“Oh.”  Nina didn’t sound convinced.

“Let’s go into the kitchen and get some lunch.  I’ll tell you about my father.”

Marlowe had a typical kitchen.  It continued the house’s theme of being spacious for someone living in apparent squalor.  Dark red flame-resistant Simu-brick StyroCrete floor tiles sloped downwards towards the large square drain in the center of the room, brilliant golden sunlight canted in at a steep angle through a Virtu-window showcasing a late-morning view of the ocean, and a periwinkle and mauve flint stone counter with a quartz light stove top lined the wall under the Virtu-window.  The round dining room table was an unfinished, almost stark oak, with four ribbed, high-back chairs of the same unfinished oak clustered around it.  Two of the chairs scuttled out from under the table, bowed slightly, and presented themselves for seating.  Nina had long since stopped being surprised by anything she saw, and sat in the otherwise simple furnishing.

“Mmm, thank you, warm,” murmured the chair.

Marlowe opened the freezer, frowned at its emptiness, and then moved over to a cupboard and pulled out a couple of Volume bars.  He sat down in the proffered chair across from Nina, and tossed over one of the bars.

“Would you like some coffee,” asked House suddenly.  Marlowe sagged a little - he knew where this was headed.

“Oh, I’d love some,” said Nina.  “You wouldn’t believe how nasty the stuff on the ship was.”

“And you said it was a waste of money,” stated House in an accusing tone.

“It is a waste,” retorted Marlowe.  “They have coffee shops on every City block, usually on both sides of the street!”

“I’m missing something here,” said Nina.

Marlowe turned to her.  “House is being a smart-ass.  He suggested several months ago that I should get a Bucky Brew subscription, but I dismissed the idea as frivolous and stupid.”  He looked up at the ceiling.  “Rightly so, I might add!”

Nina looked confused.  “Bucky Brew subscription?”

“Bucky Brew,” started House, “offers-”

“I’ll explain it, since you’re obviously going to slant the story to make me look bad.  Bucky Brew is a coffee shop chain in the City.  They have shops everywhere.  Literally.  Heck, I once saw a Bucky Brew right next to another Bucky Brew.  I can’t imagine how they stay in business, competing with each other like that.  The company is hell bent on making everyone a customer.  That’s actually their mission statement: ‘We’re hell bent on making you ours.’  Anyway, apparently the shops aren’t capturing all of their potential market, so they came up with home delivery.  You pay a flat rate every month, they install a coffee line right from one of their shops to your home, and you have as much hot coffee as you care to drink on tap.  They even have different plans.  Basic package gives you your basic cup of joe, and then they have their premium packages, with fancy, flavored coffees.  That costs extra, of course.  A real racket.”  He looked up at the ceiling again.  “If you ask me, there’s something sinister about the whole setup.”

“And yet,” said House smugly, “if you’d agreed to my suggestion, our guest here would be enjoying a hot, delicious coffee right now.”

“Geez, House, you on their payroll?  Should I be worried you’re gonna start altering all my pictures, adding cups of Bucky Brew to people’s hands, putting ads in the background?”

“As if,” said House in the closest approximation to a sniff he could manage.

Nina started to snigger.  “Are you two married?  You sound like it.”

“You’re funny, kid.  A real comedian.  Anyway.  We were going to talk about my father before we were so rudely interrupted.  Actually, I’m embarrassed to say, I can’t tell you much about him.  He was a stern, authoritarian figure when we grew up, he loved my older brother, and when my brother overthrew him, I thought he’d been killed in the coup.  Today my brother told me that father had been sent to a mental hospital, that he’d escaped, and that he believed I was responsible for his overthrow and commitment.”