The David Lynch Blues
Rambling On My Mind
By Machiavelli
There are a couple of things a man would rather not find after he's walked three miles in the pouring rain with a bullet in his shoulder. One is finding your door won't open at the exact moment when the rain starts REALLY coming down.
For the first minute or so, Jet figured Spike had just locked the hatch. Okay, no problem. He punched in the keycode - had to do it with his right arm, damn it, his left wrist wasn't working - and leaned on it again. The door wouldn't budge an inch.
Cut to five minutes of banging his left arm on the door as best he could, screaming curses at the top of his lungs. Underneath his coat, the gauze was starting to soak through, which wasn't doing anything to improve his temper.
Just when he was about to give up and break in through the window, the door opened just a crack. "Jet ?" Spike directly on the other side.
"What the hell took you ?! Open the door !"
"Hold on a second," said Spike. The door closed again. On the other side, there was the sound of something being dragged away across the metal ceiling.
Soon as it sounded like whatever it was was clear of the door, Jet busted his way through. Spike was standing a few feet away from him, yawning. Again the wall was Jet's couch. From the skidmarks on the floor plating, it had been set right in front of the door.
Spike was looking at Jet, specifically his left arm. "What happened to you ?"
"Why the hell did you block off the door ?" said Jet.
"I was looking for an interesting place to take a nap."
Abruptly, some part of Jet's brain started laughing insanely in the back of his head. Oddly enough, it was the same part of him that wanted to pull out his gun and murder Spike, right then and there. Under the circumstances, Jet might have considered listening to it, had his body not decided that it had lost quite a bit of blood recently, thank you very much, and it was time to shut everything down. He tried to land on the futon as he collapsed; instead he bounced off and hit the floor face-first.
Ten to one Spike could've made that, he thought as everything went dark.
He smelled Raman noodles, a little while later. He opened his eyes to find himself in the living room, lying down on the couch. Staring up at the ceiling fan.
The smell was coming from his left. Jet turned his eye that way. Spike was sitting across the table from him in one of the chairs. He was apparently trying to eat steamed noodles out of a mug using a spoon. He seemed to have gotten the hang of it, somehow - basically used it a shovel, slurping up whatever was left.
"Your table manners are horrible," said Jet.
Spike shrugged.
"You mind if I ask you something ?" Spike didn't respond, so he went ahead. "How'd you do it ?"
There was a pause as Spike swallowed a bite. "Do what ?" he said.
"Get shot up like this and keep bouncing back. Like at the cathedral."
Spike shrugged again. "Family secret." He went back to the noodle cup.
Now that Jet thought about it, the pain didn't seem to be that big a deal. It was still there, but it sort of far away and distant. He glanced over on the tabletop, and noticed an empty morphine vial left on the table. Okay, that explained that.
Also on the table was a big serving plate Jet had never seen before. There was a lot of blood on it. Plus a pair of tweezers, and this little lump of metal.
He glanced back up from Spike. "That from me ?"
"Yeah."
Huh.
At that point, everything started to get fuzzy again. Jet remembers Spike asking him a question, but he didn't quite catch what it was.
"What'd you say again ?" asked Jet.
"I said, what happened to Faye ?"
"Oh. Her." And maybe Jet said something after that, but if he did, he'd be damned if he could remember what.
Afterwards, Jet could really only remember a series of incidents, in no understandable order.
At one point, he was sitting up on top of that building with Taxim again, and they both looking at the sunrise. Taxim was holding his tape recorder in one hand; in his other hand, he had a gun, which he was pressing to Jet's temple. He was also talking to Jet, in a tone that really reminded Jet of this one instructor he had at New Quantico.
"I have three songs on this," Taxim was saying. He held up the tape recorder. "The first one destroys people. The second one gives them life."
"What's the third one do ?" Jet remembers himself asking.
Taxim opened his mouth, like he was going to answer. But it was right about then Jet realized that he couldn't be back on the roof, so logically he had to be dreaming. And just like that he woke up.
Later, or before or maybe at the same time, he remembered waking up to hear gunfire, somewhere near. Instinctively, he had tried to get up, figure out where it was coming from. Sounded like it was close. And that was where the memory stopped, like somebody had hit stop on a VCR.
And then at some point, he remembered watching Spike exercise. It looked like he was shadowboxing, except he was moving all over the room. Punching outward one way, dodging left to counter it. All into the air, against some kind of invisible attacker or an imaginary Vicious. Jet remembered that he personally couldn't move a muscle, not even his eyes. So he just watched Spike fight whoever it was, and then he slept some more.
And then abruptly everything came back into focus.
Jet opens his eyes. It's dark in the living room; looks like it's night. Christ, he feels like shit. Like someone tried to pull his brain out through his nose.
He pulls himself up on the couch. Glances at the clock on the table; it's five am. All right, so it's not night, it's early morning. Big difference. He gropes out with his hand, finds a lamp cord over by where his head was.
The light hurts his eyes, well, more than they're already hurting anyway. The lamp sheds a little cone of light across the room. First thing Jet notices is the floor's a mess. Ramen cups all over the place; on the table in front of him there's this pyramid of squashed beer cans. Spike never had been big on trash cans.
That having been said, his shoulder feels better. He tries moving it around; it starts hurting again almost immediately, so he stops. So then he tries the left arm; it's still basically the way it was after the rooftop. Spike probably didn't know what to do with it, though from the toolkit next to the beer can pyramid it looks like he tried. Maybe Jet can do something with that later.
The handprint is still there, underneath the elbow.
The hatch opens behind him. Jet looks up; it's Spike. He looks pissed. He jumps over the stairs, kicks a couple Ramen containers violently out his way. Drops a gun onto the table; it slides right into the beer can pyramid, which collapses over the tv. He collapses in the chair across from Jet and sits down, lights a cigarette.
Jet takes another glance at the gun. It's a Glock 17, military issue.
"Where'd you get that ?"
He looks at Spike. Spike just glares at him, then goes back to the cigarette. Uh. Okay.
Jet tries the shoulder again. A little bit better this time; pain's still there, but he's ready for it. He manages to get it to rotate in place. Flexes the elbow and the wrist; they ache, but they work.
He looks up. "You got another one of those ?"
Spike gives him a who-do-the-hell-you-think-you-are kind of look. Then he takes out a box and passes them across the table.
They sit there for a couple of minutes. It occurs to Jet that he doesn't know how long he's been out. Feels like his first cigarette in maybe a year. He glances over at the clock again - okay, make that a week. Felt like a year, though.
Across the table, Spike seems to have downgraded from pissed off to mild annoyance.
"Hey," says Jet. "Didn't know you knew how to pull bullets."
Spike looks up. "I don't."
The ache in Jet's shoulder intensifies. Probably just psychosomatic.
There's a bang, somewhere out on the deck. Across the table, Spike sighs and mutters something underneath his breath. Then suddenly he's on his feet and holding the Glock.
Jet eyes him. "Something wrong ?"
"You could say that," says Spike. He's heading towards the hatch now. He hits the plate; it starts to open.
"What does that mean ?" Jet says.
Spike glances back at him. "Watch some TV." Then he's out the hatch, and it closes behind him.
So Jet turns on the TV. He grabs the toolkit and starts in on his arm while he's at it; as a result, he figures out Spike wasn't trying to fix his arm. He's just been using a screwdriver to open beer cans.
The TV's on CBC when it comes on, so Jet just leaves it there. Speaking of the beer cans, something's been slowly dawning on him - his head hurts, yeah, that's to be expected. But the dry mouth, the way everything seems kind of distant… Spike wouldn't have been feeding him the beer, would he ?...
-- and therefore perhaps open a new chance for peace on a battered world. I'm Andrew Peshganiv, CBC News. Back to you, Bill. Thanks, Andrew --
Getting off the wrist plating will the handprint is going to be hell. So he works with the hand for a little while. It's not really the main problem, just some minor tweaks here and there. One thing at a time.
-- now we turn to Judi Tressna with our hourly BountyWatch. Judi ? Thanks, Bill. --
Oh, yeah, this. Jet's never trusted the network bounty coverage. Usually they'd just give you the party line. That other show, what was it called - that at least had some good info. Looked like shit, but research was a lot better. Don't know why they canceled that…
-- police have issued a 800,000 woolong reward for anyone connected with the case. In recent news, in a near unprecedented turn of events, authorities have AGAIN upped the bounty on one Jet Black, a former ISSP officer now classified by authorities as a terrorist threat --
Wait, what ?
-- now at 34 million woolongs. Black, age thirty-six, graduated from ISSP training at New Quantico with honors. A native of Ganymede, he retired in 2064 for unspecified reasons. Black was last seen in Aruba City on Mars two and a half months ago. His current whereabouts are unknown. Today on Venus, authorities confirmed the capture of one Vanessa Robinson, fourteen, wanted for armed robbery --
It's a joke. It's got to be a joke of some kind.
Behind him, the hatch opens. He looks up to see Spike walk in. Spike is holding another gun in his hand; he tosses the Glock to Jet.
"Here. One of them had a Jericho."
Jet points to the TV. "This is some kind of joke, right ?"
-- and that's it for BountyWatch. Please tune in next hour, as we continue to update you on the most recent information. Back to you, Bill. Thanks, Judi. --
Spike looks back at him. He's got lines underneath his eyes, like he hasn't slept for a while. "Who'd be laughing ?"
-- so what do you think of that Jet Black character, Judi ? Former ISSP officer gone bad ? It's a tragedy, Bill --
Jet stares at the TV. "How long has this been on ?"
"Since the night after you got back."
-- seems like they let anyone onto to the force these days --
"It started out at five million," says Spike. "They upped it to twenty on Saturday."
"Has anyone come after me ?"
"Where do you think I got the cigarettes from ?" Spike points a thumb into the corner behind Jet.
-- you know what they say, Bill. When angels fall, they're the worst of all… --
In the corner of the room, lying against the wall, there's a pile of guns. Three pistols, a shotgun, two submachine guns. Even one or two grenades.
"How many ?" Jet hears himself ask.
"Only four or five so far," Spike says behind him. "Two just now. I'm surprised there haven't been more."
-- take care, Bill. You too, Judi. Now onto sports with our own Sanjay Shah. Sanjay ? Thanks, Bill. So far, it's turning out to be a great season to be a hockey fan --
Maybe Jet's still sick. Maybe all of this is a dream, and all he has to do is close his eyes and wake up.
Or maybe the world's just gone insane.
Across the table, Spike collapses again in the chair. He pulls out another cigarette and lights it. He looks exhausted. Like he's been fighting a war.
"As much as I like Mars, Jet, I think it might be time for a change in scenery," he says.
-- bringing the Crush to victory. Final score, thirty-four to nine. Back to you, Bill.
Rambling On My Mind
By Machiavelli
There are a couple of things a man would rather not find after he's walked three miles in the pouring rain with a bullet in his shoulder. One is finding your door won't open at the exact moment when the rain starts REALLY coming down.
For the first minute or so, Jet figured Spike had just locked the hatch. Okay, no problem. He punched in the keycode - had to do it with his right arm, damn it, his left wrist wasn't working - and leaned on it again. The door wouldn't budge an inch.
Cut to five minutes of banging his left arm on the door as best he could, screaming curses at the top of his lungs. Underneath his coat, the gauze was starting to soak through, which wasn't doing anything to improve his temper.
Just when he was about to give up and break in through the window, the door opened just a crack. "Jet ?" Spike directly on the other side.
"What the hell took you ?! Open the door !"
"Hold on a second," said Spike. The door closed again. On the other side, there was the sound of something being dragged away across the metal ceiling.
Soon as it sounded like whatever it was was clear of the door, Jet busted his way through. Spike was standing a few feet away from him, yawning. Again the wall was Jet's couch. From the skidmarks on the floor plating, it had been set right in front of the door.
Spike was looking at Jet, specifically his left arm. "What happened to you ?"
"Why the hell did you block off the door ?" said Jet.
"I was looking for an interesting place to take a nap."
Abruptly, some part of Jet's brain started laughing insanely in the back of his head. Oddly enough, it was the same part of him that wanted to pull out his gun and murder Spike, right then and there. Under the circumstances, Jet might have considered listening to it, had his body not decided that it had lost quite a bit of blood recently, thank you very much, and it was time to shut everything down. He tried to land on the futon as he collapsed; instead he bounced off and hit the floor face-first.
Ten to one Spike could've made that, he thought as everything went dark.
He smelled Raman noodles, a little while later. He opened his eyes to find himself in the living room, lying down on the couch. Staring up at the ceiling fan.
The smell was coming from his left. Jet turned his eye that way. Spike was sitting across the table from him in one of the chairs. He was apparently trying to eat steamed noodles out of a mug using a spoon. He seemed to have gotten the hang of it, somehow - basically used it a shovel, slurping up whatever was left.
"Your table manners are horrible," said Jet.
Spike shrugged.
"You mind if I ask you something ?" Spike didn't respond, so he went ahead. "How'd you do it ?"
There was a pause as Spike swallowed a bite. "Do what ?" he said.
"Get shot up like this and keep bouncing back. Like at the cathedral."
Spike shrugged again. "Family secret." He went back to the noodle cup.
Now that Jet thought about it, the pain didn't seem to be that big a deal. It was still there, but it sort of far away and distant. He glanced over on the tabletop, and noticed an empty morphine vial left on the table. Okay, that explained that.
Also on the table was a big serving plate Jet had never seen before. There was a lot of blood on it. Plus a pair of tweezers, and this little lump of metal.
He glanced back up from Spike. "That from me ?"
"Yeah."
Huh.
At that point, everything started to get fuzzy again. Jet remembers Spike asking him a question, but he didn't quite catch what it was.
"What'd you say again ?" asked Jet.
"I said, what happened to Faye ?"
"Oh. Her." And maybe Jet said something after that, but if he did, he'd be damned if he could remember what.
Afterwards, Jet could really only remember a series of incidents, in no understandable order.
At one point, he was sitting up on top of that building with Taxim again, and they both looking at the sunrise. Taxim was holding his tape recorder in one hand; in his other hand, he had a gun, which he was pressing to Jet's temple. He was also talking to Jet, in a tone that really reminded Jet of this one instructor he had at New Quantico.
"I have three songs on this," Taxim was saying. He held up the tape recorder. "The first one destroys people. The second one gives them life."
"What's the third one do ?" Jet remembers himself asking.
Taxim opened his mouth, like he was going to answer. But it was right about then Jet realized that he couldn't be back on the roof, so logically he had to be dreaming. And just like that he woke up.
Later, or before or maybe at the same time, he remembered waking up to hear gunfire, somewhere near. Instinctively, he had tried to get up, figure out where it was coming from. Sounded like it was close. And that was where the memory stopped, like somebody had hit stop on a VCR.
And then at some point, he remembered watching Spike exercise. It looked like he was shadowboxing, except he was moving all over the room. Punching outward one way, dodging left to counter it. All into the air, against some kind of invisible attacker or an imaginary Vicious. Jet remembered that he personally couldn't move a muscle, not even his eyes. So he just watched Spike fight whoever it was, and then he slept some more.
And then abruptly everything came back into focus.
Jet opens his eyes. It's dark in the living room; looks like it's night. Christ, he feels like shit. Like someone tried to pull his brain out through his nose.
He pulls himself up on the couch. Glances at the clock on the table; it's five am. All right, so it's not night, it's early morning. Big difference. He gropes out with his hand, finds a lamp cord over by where his head was.
The light hurts his eyes, well, more than they're already hurting anyway. The lamp sheds a little cone of light across the room. First thing Jet notices is the floor's a mess. Ramen cups all over the place; on the table in front of him there's this pyramid of squashed beer cans. Spike never had been big on trash cans.
That having been said, his shoulder feels better. He tries moving it around; it starts hurting again almost immediately, so he stops. So then he tries the left arm; it's still basically the way it was after the rooftop. Spike probably didn't know what to do with it, though from the toolkit next to the beer can pyramid it looks like he tried. Maybe Jet can do something with that later.
The handprint is still there, underneath the elbow.
The hatch opens behind him. Jet looks up; it's Spike. He looks pissed. He jumps over the stairs, kicks a couple Ramen containers violently out his way. Drops a gun onto the table; it slides right into the beer can pyramid, which collapses over the tv. He collapses in the chair across from Jet and sits down, lights a cigarette.
Jet takes another glance at the gun. It's a Glock 17, military issue.
"Where'd you get that ?"
He looks at Spike. Spike just glares at him, then goes back to the cigarette. Uh. Okay.
Jet tries the shoulder again. A little bit better this time; pain's still there, but he's ready for it. He manages to get it to rotate in place. Flexes the elbow and the wrist; they ache, but they work.
He looks up. "You got another one of those ?"
Spike gives him a who-do-the-hell-you-think-you-are kind of look. Then he takes out a box and passes them across the table.
They sit there for a couple of minutes. It occurs to Jet that he doesn't know how long he's been out. Feels like his first cigarette in maybe a year. He glances over at the clock again - okay, make that a week. Felt like a year, though.
Across the table, Spike seems to have downgraded from pissed off to mild annoyance.
"Hey," says Jet. "Didn't know you knew how to pull bullets."
Spike looks up. "I don't."
The ache in Jet's shoulder intensifies. Probably just psychosomatic.
There's a bang, somewhere out on the deck. Across the table, Spike sighs and mutters something underneath his breath. Then suddenly he's on his feet and holding the Glock.
Jet eyes him. "Something wrong ?"
"You could say that," says Spike. He's heading towards the hatch now. He hits the plate; it starts to open.
"What does that mean ?" Jet says.
Spike glances back at him. "Watch some TV." Then he's out the hatch, and it closes behind him.
So Jet turns on the TV. He grabs the toolkit and starts in on his arm while he's at it; as a result, he figures out Spike wasn't trying to fix his arm. He's just been using a screwdriver to open beer cans.
The TV's on CBC when it comes on, so Jet just leaves it there. Speaking of the beer cans, something's been slowly dawning on him - his head hurts, yeah, that's to be expected. But the dry mouth, the way everything seems kind of distant… Spike wouldn't have been feeding him the beer, would he ?...
-- and therefore perhaps open a new chance for peace on a battered world. I'm Andrew Peshganiv, CBC News. Back to you, Bill. Thanks, Andrew --
Getting off the wrist plating will the handprint is going to be hell. So he works with the hand for a little while. It's not really the main problem, just some minor tweaks here and there. One thing at a time.
-- now we turn to Judi Tressna with our hourly BountyWatch. Judi ? Thanks, Bill. --
Oh, yeah, this. Jet's never trusted the network bounty coverage. Usually they'd just give you the party line. That other show, what was it called - that at least had some good info. Looked like shit, but research was a lot better. Don't know why they canceled that…
-- police have issued a 800,000 woolong reward for anyone connected with the case. In recent news, in a near unprecedented turn of events, authorities have AGAIN upped the bounty on one Jet Black, a former ISSP officer now classified by authorities as a terrorist threat --
Wait, what ?
-- now at 34 million woolongs. Black, age thirty-six, graduated from ISSP training at New Quantico with honors. A native of Ganymede, he retired in 2064 for unspecified reasons. Black was last seen in Aruba City on Mars two and a half months ago. His current whereabouts are unknown. Today on Venus, authorities confirmed the capture of one Vanessa Robinson, fourteen, wanted for armed robbery --
It's a joke. It's got to be a joke of some kind.
Behind him, the hatch opens. He looks up to see Spike walk in. Spike is holding another gun in his hand; he tosses the Glock to Jet.
"Here. One of them had a Jericho."
Jet points to the TV. "This is some kind of joke, right ?"
-- and that's it for BountyWatch. Please tune in next hour, as we continue to update you on the most recent information. Back to you, Bill. Thanks, Judi. --
Spike looks back at him. He's got lines underneath his eyes, like he hasn't slept for a while. "Who'd be laughing ?"
-- so what do you think of that Jet Black character, Judi ? Former ISSP officer gone bad ? It's a tragedy, Bill --
Jet stares at the TV. "How long has this been on ?"
"Since the night after you got back."
-- seems like they let anyone onto to the force these days --
"It started out at five million," says Spike. "They upped it to twenty on Saturday."
"Has anyone come after me ?"
"Where do you think I got the cigarettes from ?" Spike points a thumb into the corner behind Jet.
-- you know what they say, Bill. When angels fall, they're the worst of all… --
In the corner of the room, lying against the wall, there's a pile of guns. Three pistols, a shotgun, two submachine guns. Even one or two grenades.
"How many ?" Jet hears himself ask.
"Only four or five so far," Spike says behind him. "Two just now. I'm surprised there haven't been more."
-- take care, Bill. You too, Judi. Now onto sports with our own Sanjay Shah. Sanjay ? Thanks, Bill. So far, it's turning out to be a great season to be a hockey fan --
Maybe Jet's still sick. Maybe all of this is a dream, and all he has to do is close his eyes and wake up.
Or maybe the world's just gone insane.
Across the table, Spike collapses again in the chair. He pulls out another cigarette and lights it. He looks exhausted. Like he's been fighting a war.
"As much as I like Mars, Jet, I think it might be time for a change in scenery," he says.
-- bringing the Crush to victory. Final score, thirty-four to nine. Back to you, Bill.