“My eyes!” Rocket moaned. “My fucking eyes!”
I tenderly picked up my ear and tucked it into my shirt pocket. I was tempted to crawl around, try to find the Nife, but I was afraid I’d cut off my fingers or my knees if I accidentally brushed against it.
Turned out I didn’t have to find it. Someone else already had.
“McGlade! Put down the Nife!”
McGlade had it in his good hand. He was coming up behind Rocket. “I got this, Talon.”
“Murder is against the law, McGlade.”
“Chill out. I’m not killing him. I’m just making sure he’s disarmed.”
He swung the Nife twice. Both of Rocket’s severed arms fell to the ground. McGlade thought this was hilarious, and laughed like a hyena.
Rocket, eyes bleeding, said, “What happened? I can’t feel my arms!”
“They’re right in front of you,” McGlade said. “You just need to pick them up.”
The blood was impressive. Rocket bled out in about sixty seconds. Prior to his messy death, he did actually try to reach down and grab his severed arms with the small stumps still attached to his shoulders.
“You need a hand?” McGlade asked him before he flopped over, dead.
“Dammit, McGlade. I wanted to question him.”
“You still can.” McGlade held up the Nife. “You want me to get him to open up for you?”
“Give me that.”
I grabbed his wrist, then carefully took the Nife away. Rocket’s Nife sheath, also made of carbon nanotubes, was on the back of his pants. I took it, slipping the Nife inside and hooking it to my belt.
“This isn’t right.” Stoned out of his brainpan, McGlade was flapping his hand in front of his face, twirling the broken part like a propeller.
“McGlade, stop that. You need to throw up or you’re going to overdose on morphine.”
“I’m fine, Talon. I feel fine. Look.” McGlade help up his arm, and his fingers touched his elbow. “It’s just a minor fracture.”
“That’s great, buddy. But what’s that over there?”
I pointed up. He looked. I made a fist and belted him in the solar plexus. He doubled over and puked pills all over his shoes.
“Shit, Talon! WTF? Oh, look. Someone dropped morphine.”
He tried to pick up the slimy pills, but he was using his bad hand, and all he was doing was sweeping them back and forth across the floor. I helped him to his feet, and together we staggered out of the P amp;P.
“You’re hurt!”
I glanced in the direction of the voice. It was Yummi. She ran over, but I was pretty sure I didn’t hold the same sex appeal with a missing ear and a hand squirting blood, so I didn’t get on my guard.
“What happened? Where’s your ear?”
“In my pocket.”
“I got something in my pocket, too, baby,” McGlade said. He absently reached for his fly with his broken arm, and thankfully wasn’t able to grab his zipper.
“I live nearby,” Yummi said. Her cheeks were still flushed from our previous encounter.
“We need to get to a hospital,” I told her. “And I don’t think I’m up for sex right now.”
“I am,” McGlade said. “I’m up for it.”
“He took some morphine,” I explained.
McGlade smiled. “My arm is broken.” He waved it at her, and it flopped back and forth.
“I can see that. I have a medical doctorate.”
“Can you fix his arm?”
“Yes. And reattach your ear. Is anything else hurt?”
“My balls,” McGlade said. “I need you to take special care of my balls.”
“How much morphine did he take?” Yummi asked.
“All of it,” McGlade said. He grinned, his smile as wide as a zebra’s ass.
“I’m four blocks away from dissytown. Can you both make it?”
I looked at my knuckles, then thought about my ear. I needed a hospital. Health care was free, even to dissys, but it still meant a report. I may not have had a chip anymore, but it was likely someone could recognize me.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” I said. “Thanks.”
“You’ll pay me back.” She smiled, her eyes flashing challenge. “And I know the perfect way how.”
TWENTY-SIX
The Mastermind is awed by his own power.
He didn’t expect it to feel like this.
Is it possible for God to amaze Himself?
Unequivocally: yes.
But he plays it cool. Aloof.
The recognition will come later. Or maybe it won’t. That depends on the mouse.
In the meantime, he plays the game and wears his mask.
He’s actually a good actor. The role of the concerned friend. The shocked utopeon. The interested scientist. The outraged citizen.
People play so many roles in their lives. Most of the fools stick with the part they were given, never even considering something greater.
The Mastermind is sickened by mankind’s predictability. A species should have some concern for its own evolution. Bacteria don’t get complacent. There are no fat and lazy fungi.
What began as tech and discovery has become too good for the human race. Pure science has been replaced by vendetta.
Yes, it is amusing. Why did God create life if not to be amused by death?
But now it is so much more than mere amusement.
Humanity needs a wake-up call.
It just got a big one.
And by the time the Mastermind is finished, there won’t be anyone left to wake up.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Like most BHVs, Yummi was a communist. Not in the political sense of opposing democracy or capitalism, but in the literal sense that she was part of a commune. The same urge to help others often lent itself to living with a like-minded group of people who shared the workload and ownership of everything within their community. In Yummi’s case, it was a parking farm called Eden.
“Fifteen men and fifteen women live there,” she said. Earlier she’d called ahead, and told them to prep the infirmary for our arrival. “We’re very discriminating on who we allow to join. They have to meet our high ideological and physical standards. The sex is fab. I’m bi, and so are the other girls. We swap partners all the time. I’m highly orgasmic, so it’s a perfect lifestyle for me.”
“I love you,” McGlade said. “I’ve never loved anyone more.”
We’d exited dissytown without anyone else trying to kill us, leaving McGlade’s bike chained to the fence, and eventually arrived at her building. It was multilevel parking garage, retrofitted for foliage farming.
“We sit on an acre of land, but we have nine floors, so we can harvest nine acres, eighteen if we include the vines on the ceilings. It’s mostly fruits and veggies. We only eat a small portion of it. The rest is donated to the dissys, or sold to the local supermarket.”
“Do you make enough to support yourselves?”
She snorted. “Of course not. Everyone in Eden is an SLP.”
“I have money,” McGlade said.
Yummi flipped her green hair back. “The infirmary is on the second floor.”
Instead of taking the stairs, we walked up the gradual incline. Like its biblical namesake, the garden was expansive and impressive. Plants of all types grew in a seemingly haphazard way, different species intermingling on every square inch of space. Even the pathways were clover.
“Looks natural, doesn’t it? Our horticulturalist, Barry, believes plants grow better when they compete with other species. So instead of having all the tomatoes, or watermelons, grouped together, we plant them in different locations.”
“It’s so pretty,” McGlade said. “Pretty pretty pretty.”
“Do you have any narcotic antagonists?” I asked.
“We have everything. It’s right through here.”
We veered off the path, heading for a door. I touched my head where my ear used to be. The bleeding had slowed to a trickle, but it still stung like crazy.
“We’ll fix you up,” Yummi said, giving me a pat on the ass. “Don’t worry.”
McGlade stopped walking. He was staring at a monarch butterfly, which had landed on his chest.