“I’m not.” Defiantly. “The bastard was stepping out on me when he got killed. Neck snapped and the body turned to a block of ice — him and the bitch both. They said Black Shadow did it. That cold bastard.”
“Ah.” Not certain what else to say.
“I met Black Shadow myself just a few weeks ago. Here on the Rox.” She shuddered. “He knocked my block off. And all because I fell in love.” She waved her hands. “I thought about it, you know. I mean, sometimes you fall in love with the person, and sometimes it’s just with the person’s style. And it was his style that I fell for.”
“Ah.”
“Diego was a jumper, right? And we were both gonna be jumpers together, and rich, and he’d have a black Ferrari and I’d have a red one, and we’d both have great clothes and drugs and parties, and we’d have adventures. But Diego got killed, and so did the Prime, so I never got made into a jumper. And now I’m sitting here in this tower and I haven’t got any eyes.” She reached up into her bandage and made swabbing motions with her fingers. “Still got tear ducts, though. Yep. Still do.” She shook her head, then looked up blindly. “How come I’m doing all the talking here?”
“Probably because I haven’t got a whole lot of news you haven’t already heard.”
“Oh. Okay.” She laughed again. “Just wanted to find out.” She paused, licked her lips. “Would you mind taking me to the toilet?”
“I’ll take you, I don’t know where it is.”
“I’ll give directions, you do the steering.” She put her feet on the floor and rose hesitantly. Modular Man stood and offered her an arm.
“Thank you,” she said. “Anything here we can use for toilet paper?”
“A spare roll of paper for the stenograph machine.”
“Great. That’ll do.”
Modular Man reached for the roll and handed it to her. “I’m glad the toilet paper shortage is one problem I’m not going to have to face,” he said. Patchwork laughed. He escorted her out the misshapen door and then down the black-and-white-tiled corridor. At the top of the stairs they turned onto a long balcony that overlooked the stairwell, then turned off onto the battlements.
The toilet was a little shed built onto the massive wall of the inner bailey, a two-holer that simply dropped waste out into the mile-wide moat. Patchwork said thank you, patted his arm, and disappeared inside, pulling the door shut after her.
Modular Man waited. Both his radar and his optics reported a lot of air traffic overhead.
The door opened and Patchwork reemerged. She stuffed the roll of paper into a pocket and held out her arm. Modular Man took it and led her carefully back inside.
“The governor can make all sorts of things appear,” she said, “but there are some necessities he can’t be bothered with. I’ve got a couple unused tampons I’m guarding with my life.”
A pair of young men dressed in a mix of military gear and black leather with zips were waiting just inside the keep. One had a buzz-cut and one didn’t. Both carried guns. One had a roll of computer printout under an arm. Apparently they were heading for the toilets.
“Yo, Pat,” buzz-cut said as he passed — he stuck out an arm and clothes-lined Patchwork with his forearm.
Electronic hash sizzled through the android’s macro-atomic circuits as Patchwork’s head came off and bounced. Her jaw came loose and skittered over the hard surface.
Patchwork’s body staggered, then recovered. Headless, it bent down carefully and began to search for its head with its hands.
Knocked my block off. Now Modular Man knew what she’d meant.
“I love it when that happens,” buzz-cut said.
“Don’t do it again,” said Modular Man. He picked up Patchwork’s head and handed it to her. With a practiced gesture she reattached it. Eye sockets gazed blankly from under the disarrayed bandage. The android retrieved the jaw — the tongue was still attached and flapped frantically — and gave it to Pat.
“Don’t do it again?” buzz-cut smirked. “What happens if I do?”
Modular Man grabbed him by the throat and hung him out over the balcony.
“We find out if you can fly,” he said.
The boy’s arms and legs flopped wildly. His friend made a move, but Modular Man saw it on radar and the servomotors on his right shoulder swung his microwave laser up and pointed it straight between non-buzz-cut’s eyes.
Non-buzz-cut decided not to continue moving.
Buzz-cut was turning purple. Evidence of a savage effort showed in his face. He stared at Modular Man and narrowed his eyes menacingly.
“By the way.” the android said, “I can’t be jumped.”
Buzz-cut passed out.
The android hauled the boy in and lowered him to the floor. All through his movements, Modular Man’s laser remained focused on non-buzz-cut. Then he straightened and took Patchwork’s arm.
“As you were,” he said. “The toilet’s free.”
Though, judging from the smell, it was a little late for the toilet in buzz-cut’s case.
Modular Man led Patchwork back along the walk overlooking the main stairs. He glanced down and saw someone climbing it.
Astonishment didn’t come easily to him. He was a machine and for the most part he accepted the readings he got on reality. He’d seen some pretty strange things and accepted what he’d had to.
Still, seeing Pulse climbing the stairs was the cause of the first double take in his life.
Bodysnatcher was performing a relentless series of pushups. The Outcast could hear the steady counting inside his head: … seventy-six … seventy-seven … He could also tell that bodysnatcher was as disappointed in this body as with any other, finding it soft and flabby in comparison with his old body, the one the aces had destroyed …. Seventy-eight.. … seventy-nine.. … eighty…
The right arm spasmed and went out from under him. He slammed hard onto the wooden floor. “You’d never have made a hundred anyway,” the Outcast said. The penguin appeared alongside him. It was doing curls with a set of tiny barbells as it skated around the Outcast’s feet.
“Jesus” The rage inside bodysnatcher’s head went to sudden fright and then cold. He rolled to a fighting crouch, sweat raining on the floor. His eyes narrowed but hands relaxed. “You’re the one Juggler was talking about. The Outcast. You really the governor?”
“You really Zelda?”
“Zelda died, motherfucker.”
The Outcast ignored that. “Oh, he’s the gov, all right,” the penguin told her. “Same old weenie, different package. Like YOU.”
“Shut up,” they both told the penguin at the same time. It shrugged, doffed its funnel hat, and skated out the door, still doing reps. “Juggler’s going to surrender,” the Outcast said to bodysnatcher.
“Thought you had talked him out of it with those fancy pyrotechnics, Governor.” Bodysnatcher managed to put an edge on the word as he went over to a bench press, grabbed a towel, and started to dry off.
“I did, for a while. I didn’t think it’d last and it hasn’t. Juggler’s talked several of them into it: Creamcheese, Porker, Rain Man, the twins, some others. I can’t really say I blame them.”
“Yeah? So what do you want me to do? Go give them another goddamn pep talk? Let the little fucks surrender. We don’t need ’em.”
The Outcast smiled. “No,” he said. “I’ve said that I’d never hold anyone here who didn’t want to be here, and I meant that. I don’t keep slaves. If they want to go, I’m not going to let anyone stop them. But… I’ve been thinking about it. What do you think the Combine’s going to do with the jumpers when they give themselves up?”