Specimen Days (35 page)

"APossessionless," answered the man shape behind the lightglobe. "Looks crazy to me."

Simon was still wearing the filthy stolen sweaters and the stained pants over his black multizippered kit from work. Looks crazy. Right.

He was briefly, strangely embarrassed.

Other people entered the room. Simon said, "Could you maybe drop that light a little?"

A pause followed, during which the man with the lightglobe seemed to be checking for permission. It apparently being granted, he aimed the lightglobe down slightly, out of Simon's eyes, and revealed the following: himself, the bearer of the lightglobe, a man of seventy or more, wrapped in an old Halloween costume: Obi-Wan Kenobi. The crepey synthetic of the robe billowed around his lank frame; his gray head blinked out from under the hood, which was far too small for him and fit him like a skullcap. Beside him stood a girl around seventeen, a Blessed Virgin, cloaked in blue and white. Just behind them stood Catareen, in the grip of a Full Jesus. He'd had his face done, with the thorn implants at the brow.

The Jesus and the Blessed Virgin both carried stun guns.

From some invisibility in Catareen's vicinity, the boy said, "What exactly are you two doing here?" His voice was like the sound of scissors snipping tin.

Simon answered, "The myth of heaven indicates the soul; the soul is always beautiful."

"Poetry doesn't really answer the question, does it?"

The boy stepped forward. He was probably eleven or twelve years old. He was disfigured. His head, big as a soup tureen, squatted heavily on his thin shoulders. His eyes were larger and rounder than they should have been. His nose and ears could barely be said to exist. He wore what appeared to be a man's bathrobe, with the sleeves rolled up and the tail trailing on the ground. Ornaments hung from strings around his neck: a flattened Aphrodite tuna can, an orange plastic peace symbol, a bottle of MAC nail polish, a yellow-fanged cat skull.

Simon delivered a silent, futile plea to Catareen. Help me out a little here. See if you can muster something more useful than just standing there quietly captured, as if captivity were your true and natural condition.

He said, "We're just driving through. That's all."

The boy asked, "Where would you say you were driving to, on a road like this? It only leads to other roads like this."

"We just got off the podway for a little while. We wanted to see what the country was like."

The Jesus said, "This is the country. This is what we're like."

The boy said, "I am Luke. Of the New Covenant." "I'm Simon." "Who's your friend?" "Her name is Catareen."

"We found your pod out front. We saw the window you broke."

"I'm sorry about the window. I could, well, I could leave my name, and if the house's owners ever come back, I could try to make it up to them"

"This is unusual, the picture you two present," Luke said. "A man and a Nadian in a pod full of soymilk. I'm trying to think of the reasonable and innocent explanations."

Catareen said, "No money. Not nothing, we have."

The old man said, "We don't use money. We never touch it."

"Never," said the Jesus. "We keep clean."

Simon said, "We keep clean, too. We're trying to get to a brotherhood in Colorado."

There was a chance of impersonating Christians in flight. It was a small chance but nevertheless.

"A brotherhood that accepts Nadians?" Luke asked.

Simon said, "That I could look with a separate look at my own crucifixion and bloody crowning."

Oops.

The Blessed Virgin cried out, "They're with Satan!"

"Oh, I suppose they are," Luke said, with an expression of weary disappointment.

The old man said, "Should we slay them here or take them back to the tabernacle?"

"Tabernacle," Luke said.

The Jesus said, "Let's do it here."

"No. We're taking them to the tabernacle," Luke replied. He was clearly accustomed to command.

"Oh, well, okay," said the Jesus, clearly accustomed to obedience.

Simon and Catareen were taken downstairs and out of the house. There, parked on the road in front of the deliverypod, was an ancient Winnebago covered in faded decals that depicted guns, fish, and mammals.

"Give Obi-Wan Kenobi the engager for your pod," Luke told Simon.

Simon obeyed. The old man snatched the engager from him like a squirrel taking a nut.

There followed a debate, rather lengthy, about who should go in which vehicle. It was determined that Luke and the Jesus would take Simon and Catareen in the Winnebago, and the Virgin and the old man would follow in the deliverypod. Simon and Catareen were put ungently in the back of the Winnebago. There was a miniature house inside. There was a small kitchen and a table with seats and a bedshelf. It was brilliantly colored, in the way of old things. It smelled of bread mold and warm plastic.

Luke got in back with Simon and Catareen. He took the stun gun from the Jesus and leveled it at them. The Jesus stood in the doorway, jingling the ignition keys in his pierced palm.

"You think you can manage them back here?" the Jesus said.

"Absolutely," Luke answered. "About the gun, though. It's set to stun, right? A five is nonlethal, right?"

"It's on five?"

"It is."

"Okay. Five is good. Five'll knock 'em out, but it won't kill 'em."

"Good."

Luke aimed the stun gun at the Jesus and fired. A bright blue beam struck the skinny, white-robed chest. The Jesus looked at Luke with an expression of profound bafflement. Then his eyes rolled back in their sockets, and he crumpled away, out the door of the Winnebago and onto the street.

"Quick," Luke said to Simon and Catareen. "Let's get out of here."

Simon stared at the fallen Jesus. One of his sandaled feet, surprisingly small, twitched on the Winnebago's threshold. The rest of him lay sprawled on the asphalt in an attitude of ecstatic release.

"What do you have in mind, exactly?" Simon asked.

Luke handed him the gun. "Take me hostage," he said. "Grab the keys and drive like hell."

"You're sure about this?" "Absolutely. Aim the stunner at me."

Simon had no trouble with that, considering the boy's unambiguous wishes.

"I'm going to go out in front of you," Luke said. "Pick up the keys, and get us out of here. Do you understand?"

"I guess so."

"We should take the Winnebago and leave the pod. The Winnebago is better off-road."

"Right."

"Make them give you back the engager for the pod so they can't follow us."

"Whatever you say." "Okay. Let's go."

Luke kicked the Jesus' foot down from the threshold. He raised his hands in the air and hopped outside. Simon glanced at Catareen did she think this was some kind of trap? She flicked her long fingers toward the doorway, that Nadian gesture of impatience.

From outside the Winnebago, he heard Luke say, "For the love of Christ, don't shoot."

Catareen flicked her fingers more urgently. All right, then. If this was a mistake, he'd let it be
her
problem.

Simon jumped out after Luke and trained the stun gun on the frail back. He said, "Move. I will fucking kill you if you don't do exactly what I say."

He was good at this, no denying it.

"Just don't hurt me," Luke whimpered.

The Virgin and Obi-Wan stood frozen at the doors to the pod, blinking in confusion. It seemed to Simon an unnecessarily elaborate charade, given that its entire audience was a teenage girl and an elderly man in a Halloween costume.

Then his circuits started shutting down. Here was the sudden cooling, as if the temperature had dropped by fifteen degrees. Here was the fizzy light-headedness, the sour, spinning intoxication. It seemed to stem not from the entirely false threat of violence but from the absurdity of the threat, the pathos of tricking these sad people (who had, it must be remembered, murderous capabilities). He was all but overcome by the notion that the world was made of tricks and sorrows, of zealots and shoddiness and brutal authorities and old men in costumes.

He was shutting down. It shouldn't be happening. He wasn't harming anyone directly. But here it was.

Catareen had snatched the keys from the Jesus' hand. Luke took a step forward, saying, "Please, please, I'll do anything you want." Simon was able to move, but with increasing difficulty, as if the air itself were thickening around him.

He said, "Inside of dresses and ornaments, behold a secret silent loathing and despair." His voice was heavy and several notes too low.

Catareen snatched the gun from his hand, leaped forward, and pressed it between Luke's shoulder blades.

She said to the old man and the Virgin, "Throw me engager."

"Do it," Luke commanded.

The old man tossed the engager in Catareen's direction. It fell on the ground at her feet, and she snatched it up with raptorish speed.

"Move," she said to Luke.

He moved. Simon followed as best he could.

Catareen got Luke into the cab of the Winnebago. Simon managed to get himself in on the passenger's side. Catareen put the key into the ignition, started it up. She leaned out the window and shouted at the Virgin and the old man, "If you follow, we kill."

Then she accelerated, and they were on their way.

"Nice work," Luke said. He smelled slightly of pine air freshener. His fetish necklace clicked softly against his narrow, bathrobed chest.

Catareen drove. The headlights of the Winnebago lit up the ash-colored road, the tangles of dark grass on either side.

Simon felt himself returning. Motion seemed to help. He said, "What was
that
about?"

He heard his own voice as if from a certain distance. But he was starting up again, no question.

"That was 'Sayonara, assholes,'" Luke answered. "Who
were
those people?"

"Blots on the name of the Lord. Fools in fools' clothing."

"Weren't you one of them?" "Posing as."

The Winnebago's headlights continued showing bright, empty road bordered by black fields. Simon saw that it was equipped with a directional. They could find Denver easily, then.

He said to the boy, "Will they come after us?"

"Probably. They'll want the Winnebago back more than they'll want me."

"Should we be worried?"

"They're not very smart or well organized. It'll take Obi-Wan and Kitty an hour to walk to the tabernacle. I'd say go off-road and kill the lights. There's enough of a moon."

"The Winnebago is all-terrain?"

"Yep. Modified. Engine's atomic, and the wheelbase has been hydraulicked. It's modeled on what they used to call tanks."

"I know what a tank is," Simon said.

"Then you know we can go just about anywhere in this thing."

At that, Catareen turned off the road and extinguished the headlights. The Winnebago's tires held on the uneven ground. Catareen drove into the grass, which was restless and silvered under the moon.

"So," Luke said. "Where are you headed?" "We're going to Denver." "Looking for Emory Lowell?" "How did you know that?"

"When somebody says he's going to Denver, the name Lowell naturally arises. I mean, you wouldn't be going all that way for the rattlesnake festival."

"You've heard of Lowell, then." "I've met him." "You have?"

"Sure. I lived in Denver for a few years, when I was younger. My mother and I traveled a lot."

"Military?" "No. Just poor."

They drove across the grassy flats. Every so often the lights of a compound flickered in the distance. Every so often there was a shooting star.

After they had covered more than a hundred miles, they agreed that they should stop for the rest of the night. Catareen said, "We must to eat."

"Love to," Simon answered. "If you happen to see a cafe out here"

"I find," she said.

"What do you expect to find, exactly?" "Animals here, yes?"

"Some. Maybe. They say some of the hardier specimens are still around. Rats. Squirrels. Raccoons."

She said, "I go. I look."

"You're telling me you think you can
catch
something out there?"

"I look."

"By all means."

Catareen slipped out of the truck's cab and seemed to vanish instantly among the trees. Simon and Luke got out, too. They strolled, stretching their limbs. Overhead, among the branches, stars were manifest.

Luke said, "She's probably a good hunter."

Simon thought of her talons. He thought of her teeth. "Who knows?"

"I seem to remember," Luke said, "when I was little, there was a vid on Nadian customs."

"That must have been an old one."

"I remember some rodent thing they were fond of."

"I have vague recollections. A gray hairless thing about the size of a gopher. Long tail. Very long tail."

"Right. They cooked it with some sort of hairy brown vegetable."

"Like a pinecone with fur. If you stewed one of those rodents with the hairy vegetable for five or six hours, you could eat it."

"It was one of their delicacies."

"Right."

Luke said, "They do have souls, you know."

"I'm not all that big on the whole soul concept, frankly."

"Because you're biomechanical?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Your eyes. It's subtle, but I can always spot it."

"What about my eyes?"

"Hard to explain. There's nothing technically wrong with them."

"They're
biological"
Simon said.

"I know that. Like I said, it's subtle. There's just a certain sense of two camera apertures expanding and contracting. Something lensish. The eyes of biological humans are sort of juicier. Or more skittish or something. It's not a question of the visual apparatus, more like what's behind it. Anyway, I can tell."