This stopped even Semple’s fixed smile in its tracks. “Need you? Why should he need you? You don’t do anything but watch TV inside a tumor.”
Jesus turned on the couch and looked at her with a nastiness she hadn’t previously observed. “Well, it sure as shit beats dragging a cross through the streets of Jerusalem, doesn’t it? How would you like to get crowned with thorns, scourged, and crucified? You want to spend your time schlepping up loaves and fishes for thousands of the great unwashed, start doing miracles at parties when the booze runs out, and have to ride around the desert on a recalcitrant stinking donkey? Or maybe you’d rather have me go through that shit all over again? Are you one of those miserable traditionalists?”
Semple had no diplomatic answer to any of this, and Jesus might have railed on much longer had not something on the forward screen caught his attention. The air on the horizon had become a smudge of dirt and pollution. “We’ll have to discuss this later. That’s Necropolis up ahead.”
***
Jim was strung out, a million molecules stretching to near-infinity, playing host to a traffic of vibrations that manifested itself in the form of screaming, unimaginable, and totally unendurable pain. Pain defined his entire being. The receptors in his brain howled and hurt for things they couldn’t have. An interlocking helix revolved around him at sickening speed, blazing with colors unconfined to the limitations of the visible spectrum. He felt like he was going through an even more hideous death than his last one, but he knew this wasn’t the comparatively ordered interface between life and death, this was something far more complicated and far more awful, and that Dr. Hypodermic was deliberately doing it to him. His only recourse was to wail in his agony and helplessness. “How much more do you want from me? I fucking died for you the last time, didn’t I?”
In response, a voice hissed in his ear, a voice with the faintest trace of a French Caribbean accent. “My petit ami, Sid Vicious told me you were running away from me.”
“I wasn’t running-”
“So what were you doing?”
“I just didn’t want to get involved again.”
The red eyes of Dr. Hypodermic glowed like twin sources of malignant energy in the deep black space beyond the interlocking helix. “Involved?”
The helices increased their dizzying speed. Nameless blind larvae of things too iniquitous to contemplate snuffled at Jim’s stretched and strung-out molecules and Jim groaned. “Just make this pain stop.”
The disembodied eyes were pitiless and the voice ignored his plea. “Jim Morrison doesn’t want to get involved?”
“I don’t even know that I’m really Jim Morrison.”
“You know exactly who you are, and besides, mon fils, would it really matter? You made the addict’s compact, whoever you might be. I never forget one of my own.”
Jim was suffering to the point where he’d agree to anything. “Okay, okay, I don’t deny it. I’m yours. I’m a fucking thrall. I belong to you. I’ll never try to get away again. Just make the pain stop.”
“Look on this as a negative reinforcement, a remembrance of anguish past.”
Jim wondered if abject pleading might do any good. “Please, in all mercy, make the pain stop.”
It didn’t. “Now you know what Hell used to be like when Lucifer was running the show.” Explosions of blazing orange-yellow lava rocketed through the helix spirals, creating trajectories of fire. Suddenly Jim’s agony grew exponentially worse, and Dr. Hypodermic chuckled. The sound was blood-chilling. “Where’s it written that death would separate us, mon brave?”
“There was nothing ever written.”
“Wasn’t the accord of addiction ratified in blood?”
“I told you already. I give up. I’m yours, anything you want. You don’t have to torture me to make your point. I’m not fucking resisting.”
“And I am not making a point, mon ami.”
“So what’s this all about? You already said it was a negative reinforcement. Is this Limbo?”
“Not Limbo, just a reprise of the pain before the gift of relief.”
And suddenly the pain was not only gone but hardly a memory. Jim free-floated fetal, curled naked, in the surrounding safety and warm liquid protection of a perfect womb, a dark star child whom no one could touch and only one could approach. The Caribbean hiss of the Doctor was his complete lullaby, the only one he needed or cared about. Hypodermic laughed again. “And now the gift of relief before the return of the pain.”
***
Mr. Thomas glanced back at Jesus. “Dirigible with fighter escort at eleven o’clock.”
The tallest towers of Necropolis were now visible on the horizon, as were one large black dot and three smaller ones in the air above the city. Jesus laughed. The prospect of the attack on Necropolis had raised his energy levels to a point where he was close to manic, and the messianic adrenaline seemed to be pumping double-time. “They always send up the air defenses first. It’s the standard opening move. Anubis is looking for a chess game.”
Semple was still standing slightly behind Jesus’ command chair. “Are those planes going to be a problem?”
Jesus grinned and shook his head. “The last time he went after Tokyo, they sent Fl 6s against him. All they managed to do was make him angrier.” He glanced at the goat. “What do you think those things are, Mr. Thomas?”
“One Zeppelin heavy gunship and three fighters. Two Fokkers and a Sopwith Camel, as far as I can tell. Either he’s confusing Godz with King Kong or he’s going for a World War 1 motif.”
Jesus grinned. “This is going to be a November turkey shoot.”
He hit the remote and to Semple’s surprise she found herself looking at a split-screen triptych. The center panel was the forward view as before, but on either side were two medium-shot side views of Gojiro moving across the desert. “How do you do that?”
“It’s the second and third unit.”
This piece of illogical tech was more than Semple cared to delve into, so she remained silent. If Gojiro traveled with his own movie crew, she really didn’t want to know the how or why. She was content to watch as he loped across the desert. As the three elderly planes homed in on him, the King of the Monsters made no attempt to attack or evade them. Either he or Jesus, whoever was really in control, held the same course, going straight for the city. The Zeppelin cruised at an altitude roughly equivalent to Gojiro’s eye level. Jesus noted this and nodded knowingly. “Whoever’s in command of the thing thinks he can come in head-on, make a half turn, and open up with a broadside. He doesn’t have a clue what he’s dealing with.”
“They’re very confident of themselves in Necropolis. Particularly the officer corps. I think it comes from a regular diet of roast baby.”
Mr. Thomas glanced at the two of them. “The commander could be a woman.”
Semple shook her head. “Not in Necropolis.”
The three fighters were adopting a different tactic. They were climbing, gaining height for a formation power-dive attack. Gojiro seemed to see the planes for the first time and slowed his pace. His giant brow furrowed and he stopped completely, letting out a slow, tentative growl.
“Ggggrrraaapph.”
The three fighters reached their operational ceiling and went into a slow turn.
Jesus’ eyes gleamed. “Here they come. They do think he’s bloody King Kong.”
The fighters dived, gathering speed as they dropped. Gojiro looked up; in the dome, the leading plane increasingly filled the forward screen section. Despite herself, Semple ducked and Jesus and Mr. Thomas exchanged smiles. The next moment, Gojiro took a deep breath and exhaled violently. The leading biplane was enveloped by his electric-blue, radioactive breath. The plane instantly burst into flames and spun out burning. The monster continued to breathe out, hosing down the other two fighters so they also burned and fell. Jesus let out a whoop.
“Yes!”
Semple’s eyes narrowed. To her mind, the way Jesus exulted in the thrill of the kill was a little close to unhealthy-something to note for future reference. The Zeppelin had now started to turn, though whether to bring its guns to bear or simply to get the hell out of there was unclear. This time, Gojiro chose not to use his radioactive breath. He charged forward, tail waving, and grabbed for the dirigible like a child reaching for a toy balloon. The airship managed to elude his reaching hands with a sudden and desperate surge of speed, but hardly had the maneuverability to do it a second time. The King of the Monsters grabbed and twisted the length of the fuselage very much like a man tearing apart a baguette of French bread. The aluminum skeleton that gave the airship its rigidity buckled and snapped, the fabric skin ripped, but then a spark must have been struck, for a hydrogen fireball suddenly exploded right in Gojiro’s hand. The monster hurled the blazing Zeppelin away from him with an angry shriek of pain.