But the Cyrian wasn’t done. When his shoulder could go no higher, the weird muscles that Kyle had never quite understood seemed to bulge and separate, and then his entire arm dropped off. The crowd roared, and Kyle realized it was an illusion, but barely. A thin stalk of gristly muscle still connected arm to shoulder, but that was all. His hand hung almost to the ground, and in fact, his fingers stretched and picked up a pebble, which he then threw at his opponent, bouncing it off the man’s round stomach. A chorus of cheers and laughter greeted this act, and the tall Cyrian reeled his arm back in.
Kyle saw money changing hands again. Apparently, from the snatches of conversation he heard, this would be a hard stunt to top. “But wait,” some said. “Lefeertsin isn’t done yet.” Kyle had gathered that the fat man was Lefeertsin, and the thin one Gal. Their names,he thought off-handedly, match their sizes.
Gal stood, recomposed now, and accepted the congratulations of his fans with a proud smile. He looked like someone who believed he had already won the match. But Lefeertsin apparently disagreed. He stood up to his full height, which wasn’t much shorter than Gal, and hoisted his vast stomach up with both hands, fingers digging into the soft flesh there. Then, much as Gal’s shoulder had, the rolls of flab seemed to peel themselves away as if each were controlled by its own independent musculature. Kyle was reminded of a flower opening, although only in two directions, with some petals lifting up and others falling away. When the stomach rolls had finished, the crowd fell silent again. There, in the center of the stomach now that the extraneous fat had cleared itself away, was a giant eye, at least the size of Kyle’s hand from fingertip to wrist. It was bright green and seemed to have all the parts of a regular human eye. There were gasps from the crowd, but no applause yet, as if something more were expected.
Then Lefeertsin let out a loud belch and the eye winked at Gal.
The crowd went mad with delight. Spectators cheered and laughed and danced, or simply stayed in place and hopped up and down. A cry of “Lef! Lef! Lef!” started up, building and building. More money changed hands, as Lefeertsin was the obvious winner now, but no one seemed chagrined to have lost or especially delighted to have won, beyond the enjoyment they took in the performance itself. People bumped into Kyle, and one Cyrian woman hugged him to her abundant bosom, then released him with a pinch on the rear.
Kyle was starting to push through the mob, trying to get to Michelle and the others, when the mood suddenly turned. There was a hush and smiles were replaced in an instant with scowls. On the edges of the crowd, people began to melt away into nearby buildings. For a moment Kyle didn’t know why things had changed so suddenly, but when he looked in the direction nearly everyone else was, he understood.
Rolling down the street toward them was a squadron of police vehicles. Armored officers ran behind the vehicles, shields up, energy weapons at the ready. It looked like a war, like an invasion, more than a police action.
Someone grabbed his arm and Kyle started, so intent was he on the oncoming police. “Joe, come on. Let’s go!”
It was Michelle, her brow furrowed with anxiety, her eyes narrow and frightened. “Michelle, what’s ... ?”
“Let’s go,” she repeated urgently. “Now!”
“But ... were we doing something wrong?”
She tugged at his arm again, then released it and started to back away. It was obvious that she was leaving, whether he went with her or not. Behind her, Cetra and Jackdaw waited with a couple of others Kyle didn’t know. She had given Kyle the chance—more of a chance than the others seemed comfortable with, judging from the worried expressions on their faces—and either he’d take it or not. Michelle met his eyes once more and then turned to run. “Wait,” Kyle shouted, but he ran after them.
He had expected Cetra ski Toram to be slow, but the old woman surprised him with her speed and agility. As they rounded a bend Kyle glanced back over his shoulder. Behind them, many of the people in the crowd either hadn’t been able to run away in time or had chosen to stand their ground, and the police were tearing through them. Their energy weapons emitted bright blue bursts that vaporized flesh and bone, and everywhere they shot, blood splattered. People were screaming, begging for mercy, but the police showed none. Those who weren’t shooting used their shields as rams or clubs, chopping and bashing with them. Some of The End’s residents tried to fight back, but they were outnumbered and outgunned.
Kyle stood there, rapt. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. None of those people had been doing anything wrong. Even if the competition had been illegal for some reason, no one had been hurt by it. It had been a party, a street fair, improvisational theater. Michelle tugged on his arm again. “If you stay here, you’ll die like those others,” she warned him. “Please, Joe, come with us. It’s the only way.”
He shook his head as if by clearing it he could make the horrific carnage go away. But it didn’t. The street ran with red and blue blood, mixing into vibrant purples, black where it vanished into shadow.
“Yes, okay,” Kyle said. He felt detached, in shock. As he ran hand in hand with Michelle he expected the Tholian flashbacks to start up again. But they didn’t. This fresh horror was bad enough on its own. Out of the light, they kept running, past buildings so dark and silent they seemed already to be mourning the fallen. Finally, Jackdaw led the way into a building Kyle had never seen before, a collapsing wretch of a place with boarded-up doors and windows. Jackdaw entered through a side door, where a flat object Kyle only recognized at the last moment as a bed leaned up against a gaping doorway. Jackdaw and Michelle slid the bed far enough over for them to gain entry, and then they pulled it back into place, disguising the opening from the outside.
Inside, they were met in a small, poorly lit room by a handful of others. Kyle recognized a couple of people who he had noticed in the crowd outside, and who must have run here faster—not bothering to wait for him. The other two he had never seen before. One was human, two Hazimotian, and the last barely humanoid but of no species Kyle had seen before. It had what was recognizably a head and what seemed to be legs in the correct places, but that was all he could make out; the rest was a gelatinous blob that seemed to have other life-forms moving about beneath it, like fish swimming in a thick semi-opaque sea.
Michelle clung again to Kyle’s hand. “This is Joe Brady,” she said to the others. “He’s new here.”
“And you brought him with you because ... ?” one of the Hazimotians asked. She was a female, from either Stindi or Wachivus, Kyle guessed, though without much certainty. Not Cyrian, for sure. Her voice was deep and threatening, and she looked as if she’d as soon shoot Kyle as admit him into whatever inner sanctum this was.
“Because he wasn’t part of what happened out there and I didn’t want to see him die for no reason,” Michelle said. “Besides, I trust him.”
Kyle was surprised by that pronouncement. He liked Michelle, but their relationship was superficial at best. She barely knew him, really. As if she could read his mind, she turned to him and said, “I size people up quickly, Joe, and I have a lot of faith in my own instincts.”
“What ... what the hell was all that about?” Kyle asked. He flailed his arm back toward the direction from which they’d come, as if anyone could see the carnage from here. “And what is this place? Who are you all?”
“Easy now, Joe,” Jackdaw said. He was a small man, whip-thin and nasally, and his thick mane of black hair seemed like it should belong to someone else. He talked fast, as if trying to get too many ideas out at once. “One point at a time, okay, and we’ll get all this cleared up. You’re a guest here, you know.”
“I appreciate that,” Kyle said, still agitated from the attack and wondering what was going on. “I’m just not altogether sure that I’m a guest by choice.”
“I had pegged you as a survivor, Joe,” Michelle said with a frown. “If I was wrong, I’ll be disappointed.”