“So now we get to it!” Herb tapped Nim’s hand as if she was his confidant, but the volume of his voice spoke to all. “The HawkEye didn’t save the pitchman because he thinks us carnies look out for our own, even if they are despicable sell-their-own-motha shysters. Oh no, he saved the pig because his hardwiring gives him no say so in the matter.”
Hellequin crossed his arms, exposing the frayed fabric badge of the HawkEye platoon on one shoulder – a circle within a circle, stitched in off-white thread. The pocketed grey pants he wore were ripped at the knees. His boots were black clothhod leather, steel plated at the heel.
“I still think for myself,” he muttered.
“Oh no you don’t. Not if you work at Cyber Circus.” Herb went to push past Nim. He paused to allow her to step down then put a foot inside his front door. As an afterthought, he turned his head towards the assembled company and shook his hat at them. “Whatta we do with Pig Heart then? I gotta have a chief pitchman and he’s it. Has been for the longest time and I’m loathe to let a good man go. But he’s got a pocketful of dollars from betraying us. So do we sling him overboard or let him chop it in the breeze a while? Pitch crew come and go so I’m gonna stick with asking the main acts. Lulu? I got an inkling I know what you’re gonna say.”
The ladyboy ran delicate hands over the tutu lace at his hips. “Toss the bastard.”
“And Hellequin? I’m guessing you’re for keeping the swine alive?”
Fixated on Nim, Hellequin said, “Let him chop it in the breeze if it will satisfy a need for retribution.”
Herb’s finger of command passed to Nim.
“Whaddaya say, Nim?”
“If the pig’ll sell us out once, he’ll sell us out again.”
“I’ll take that as a vote to dump his ass. What about you kids?” Herb squinted at the far end of the platform where the fat burp pipes of the heating system wove in amongst the polyps of float bladders. “Come outta the dark a second will ya and let’s get this over with.”
Armadillidium balls, the colour of inner eyelids and the height of Hellequin’s knee, rolled out into the gaslight. Each pinkish exoskeleton unrolled to reveal a soft inner belly shaped like a child. Two girls, one boy, unfolding gangly red-crusted legs and two great claws.
“Tip him over,” said one girl. Her face had a puckered quality, like skin soaked in water.
The other girl gave her sibling a knock on the carapace with a club-hand. “I like the pig man. He rolls me in the dust to buff my shell.”
“Keep him. His head makes a good scratching post,” said the boy, speaking with the same fat vowelled lisp that affected all three.
“Two for, one against. So far we’re drawing even.” Herb looked agitated. “Guess it’s left to me to be the one to call it.”
“What about my say, you sack of shitters?” called Pig Heart, rattling on his cross. Slaver dripped from his mouth to the ground.
“Forfeited your say the second you pocketed D’Angelus’s blood money,” shot Herb. “Ah, to hell with it. Send the pig overboard. I ain’t got time nor inclination to watch my back for fear he’ll stick the knife in.” He slapped a hand through the air, dismissive of further appeal from Pig Heart, and went to shut the door.
“Bare men mustn’t kill the pig. Its mine,” interrupted a sibilant voice. Long fury limbs appeared over the lip of the platform overhead and fed slowly down onto the railing enclosing Herb’s personal platform. Rust squatted on the rail, ratty hair amassed at her shoulders, black eyes shining out from a filthy face.
“Just because you and the swine can’t resist your bestial impulses does not give him room for reprieve,” cut in Lulu. He flinched as the wolf girl leapt down and raced towards him on all fours. She drew up just short of the ladyboy, fingers bracing the metal floor, her muscular thighs skimming sideways.
“And it with titties and a shlong.” Rust gnashed, a glint to her eye. “Cyber Circus is full of beasts and freaks. The pig is mine. Give it back. I will tear out its heart if it does bad stuff again.”
“You’re vouching for the pitchman, Rust? It’ll be up to you to keep him in line else I’ll have you tossed back out onto the salt plains where I found you.”
Rust nodded. Herb slumped at the shoulders, tired with it all.
“I ain’t no hunk of flesh to be whored out or mithered over.” Pig Heart buckled against the strut at his back. “Hell, Herb, fifteen years you and me have been working Cyber Circus. We’ve been through the lot of it, and you’re gonna rat me out on one mishap?”
Herb squinted over. “You sold me out, swine. Me! Not the whore. Not the wolf. You sold out my acts and put the real lady here in danger.” He held up his hands and gestured to the reverberating cavern around them. Tenderness came into his eyes, replaced with a razor edge as his gaze returned to the pitchman. “History don’t mean nothin’ if you’re gonna switch sides and play a different game.”
He thrust a finger at Hellequin. “Bitch gets her wish. Pig Heart stays. But he pays and you’re gonna make sure of it.” His finger shifted to the Jeridian woman. “Name?”
“Asenath.” The Jeridian titled her chin, exposing her throat piercings. She wore her hair in a giant Mohawk. Her red skin glistened.
“You will assume Pig Heart’s duties.” He pointed to the hessian sack the Jeridian carried, the bottom of which was wetly stained. His lip curled. “Whaddaya gonna do with those heads anyway?”
“Remove the skull, scrape out the brains, pack the eyelids with seed, pin the mouth, boil the head in herbs, and rub it with ash to keep the spirits out. Then I string it from the top mast to warn the motherfuckers to leave us be.”
Herb tugged on his shirt collar. “Sorry I asked.”
His attention returned to Pig Heart. “One thing the Jeridian’s right about – Cyber Circus has gotta have blood.” He eyed the pitch crew. “Chop him to the breeze, fellas!”
The ringmaster stepped inside his cabin and slammed the door shut.
FIVE
The country of Humock was 3,268,601 square kilometres. Wherever there was a mine in need of burrower drivers and dust handlers, a well shaft to be maintained, or a ranch to be staffed, there were men. And wherever there were men, there was a whorehouse, and a bar stocked with smoke sticks and Jackogin, and a hamam with sweat rooms and soft hands to lather up and rinse the day away. The workers had other needs too – cobblers, general stores, haberdasheries, clothhod stables, armouries, banks, print presses, and apothecaries, alongside markets selling water, bio-toughened sage, soap flakes, and other bare necessities. And while the sun beat down like a curse, and it was difficult to know where the once fertile land began and the deserts ended, Humock was still a promised land in comparison to its neighbours.
To the east, the bedrock creased to form huge black mountains. Beyond lay the much smaller country of Jeridia, and Sirin, which was tinier still. When the civil war broke out in Humock, both countries had rallied to its aid, but both had endured the fallout in isolation. All that remained of the once fertile Jeridia was a scab of bedrock. Since few of its citizens were able to eek out a living, most became refugees in the dry expanse of Humock. It was a similar story for Sirin. The fists and plated skulls of the Sirinese were useless against the erasing gas wielded by Humock’s militia. Like the Jeridians, the Sirinese were forced to abandon their homes, schools, workshops, spirit huts and graveyards, and cross the border into the selfsame country which had bombed it.
Ten years on, Humock had become a melting pot for the disenchanted, a place where men were employed to shovel dust out of the mines in the certainty it would drift back in, where a respected flesh handler like D’Angelus would rather waste the breath of every employee he had if it meant victory over Cyber Circus, and where a Sirinese warrior like Jaxx would work for blood money in an alien land, all the while despising his employer.