+J.M.J.+
The Shadows Between the Neon
By "Matrix Refugee"
Author's Note:
I tossed this off rather quickly, and at the same time, I finished typing up an
ancient Matrix song fic I had sitting on my hard drive, taking up space,
driving me mad, like a splinter in my mind… I went to Connecticut for the
weekend, so I didn't have time to get another chapter of Zenon Eyes: Eyes of
Truth out this week, ('I love you…don't kill me.') but next week, I'll do
better.
Anyone who's really been paying attention to this series (I have yet to come up with as catchy a name for it as "Zenon Eyes") will notice that I fouled up the spelling of Hal McGeever's name: In "One of THOSE in our Midst!" he was mentioned a couple times as "Hal McKeever", but now we have a mild continuity problem. I've settled on "McGeever" as the correct spelling; it also shows off some of Hal's creative pedigree, since the character was thinly inspired from a publicity shot of Jude Law as Harlan McGuire in Road to Perdition (he looks decidedly nasty and I almost barely recognized him, but there's something to be said for a guy who still looks attractive even when he's supposed to look beat up) and the names are more phonetically similar this way. I may go back and re-post some of the chapters of "One of THOSE…!" to fix this annoying !spoO that crept in (I know, I should have a beta reader, but the one guy who might do it takes fooorrrrreeeeevvvveeeerrrr to finish stuff). And then, I started reading Stephen King's The Shining, and found that one of the characters is named Halloran (Hal's full first name), although the two characters have absolutely nothing in common. Weird. But it's fitting since Hal is such a weird character. You get to meet him in this chapter. He's to blame for the rating going up, although he wants to push it through ff.n's rating ceiling. For mature readers: I may be posting alternate, less censored versions of later chapters of this on the Yahoo Group "AI_Fanfiction", available through Laurie E. Smith's site.
Disclaimer:
See chapter 1.
3 October 24, 2159
From Who's Who in American Journalism, 178th Edition, 2159
McGeever, Halloran "Hal"
Born December 29 [?], 2128, St. Paul, MN. High school: Parkhurst Gentlemen's Seminary, Albany, N.Y. College: University of Saskatchewan, Canada, class of 2151. Bachelor's degree in Journalism and News Photography. Photojournalist for: Des Moines Trumpet, 2151-2152; Chicago Tablet, 2152-5; Detroit Star, 2155; New Boston Herald, 2156-2157; Albany Times, 2158-.
Known for an especially "hard-edged" style of photography, almost art-like in execution, but better known for photographing controversial subjects, particularly his stark portrayal of the injured in the 2153 uprising in Beijing, China.
Albany Times-Herald, September 24, 2159
Mecha Throttles Five in NightclubOmaha, NE. (AP) Five people were throttled by a possibly malfunctioning male Mecha, believed to be a lover-model, in Diamonds, a nightclub on Portland Street last night after Stephane Phuong, a local college student tried to approach it.
"It [the Mecha] was sticking to the shadows of a booth in the back," says Victor "Tic" D'Onofrion, the club manager. "I was just approaching it to tell it to leave since we have three lover Mechas working the floor…" At the same time, Phuong came up and asked the Mecha if it had any clients that night. "It looked at the young man with this utterly wild look in its eye, like a rabid dog. It told him to back off, or words to that effect." When Phuong did not leave the Mecha alone, it jumped up and tried to strangle the 23-year-old robotics engineer with its bare hands. A waitress, Donna McLachlan, and her brother Karl Reiner, the club's bouncer, tried to separate the two, but the Mecha attacker Reiner before turning on Mrs. McLachlan. Two club patrons tried to assist Reiner, but the Mecha attacked them as well. All five were rushed to local hospitals with non-life threatening injuries.
Police tried to subdue the Mecha, but it fled out the back door of the club. They were able to get a description of the Mecha, which matched the description of Mecha responsible for stabbing several people in Nova Francisco yesterday […]
The Mecha may be trying to flee north over the Canadian border.
Cecie was just heading out to rent a 2-D vid that evening when the phone rang in her room.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Cecie! It's me, Frank."
"Ah, long time, no hear from. What's up?"
"More like what's down: Hal McGeever just arrived in Sin City, USA. I met him upstairs this afternoon: he'd just got the job."
"Uh oh! That doesn't sound good."
"It is and it isn't: Finkelsteen hired him as a photographer and me as a reporter-writer, so we're gonna be working together. Kinda like the old days when he and I were working together in Chicago. It'll be better for him this way, I can keep him focused."
"If he's anything like you say he is, he'd have a hard time sticking to his work."
"Yeah, he was a little mad when I met up with him: he'd been in the city only three hours and he was dying for a poke.
"But to cut to the chase: we're celebrating; we're having dinner here tonight about nineteen o'clock. You're welcome to join us, unless you had plans."
"As a matter of fact, I didn't, but I'll be along…about seven, did you say?"
"Heavy on the about: be prepared for the guest of honor to be late. He might find a good piece of silicon and get himself sidetracked in a little dark corner."
"I can manage that: count me in."
"Oh, uh, one last thing: I'd be careful about bringing Joe along: Hal might get a little curious and that might get Phila's skirts in a knot…maybe Bernie's too, since she had a crush on the robot who looks like me."
"I can take care of that if Hal tries anything funny, and I think Joe could blow him off just as easily."
"Okay, but I warned you—geez."
"What?"
"Flyte must love you for hiring out Joe."
"Actually, he's given Joe the order to let it be on the house if I'm short of cash."
"Grrrrr, Hal would loooovvvve to be in your shoes."
"No, he wouldn't, because I don't do anything."
"Might be good for him, though, to see someone who's mastered the fine arts of just being friends with one of those."
Cecie dismissed a temptation to say, 'There's more than meets the eye with Joe and I.'
Cecie and Joe arrived at the Langiers at five to nineteen. The clammy drizzle of the night before had turned to a cold downpour and the wind made using umbrellas almost impossible. At least it was drier on the Lower Deck, but they could still hear the clatter of rain and the steady gurgle in the ductwork overhead and pouring down the ducts along the huge concrete supports of the Upper Deck.
Hal hadn't arrived by the time they reached the Langiers' door; Frank let them in. Bernie and Phila, who were setting the table, both wore higher collared blouses than usual and their skirts dragged on the floor. Cecie somewhat cavalierly wore a maroon blouse over a black simuleather skirt with a side split up to her mid-thigh and black leggings under that.
"I don't mean to criticize how you're dressed, Cecie, but are you sure Hal won't get too…interested in you?" Phila asked Cecie.
"From what Frank told me about Hal, I think you could be bundled up to the eyes the way women in the Middle East had to until the middle of the last century, and Hal would still find you a desirous object," Cecie said, as Joe helped her take off her trenchcoat.
"A woman who artfully conceals the charms of her body often incites more desire than a woman who does not," Joe commented. "Men start to wonder what treasures she has concealed."
"Well, Hal wouldn't want to see much of Bernie and I," Phila said.
Joe smiled innocently, lowering his eyelids. "I would beg to differ with that statement until it has been proven otherwise. And even then, you would still possess your unique graces."
"You're hopeless," Phila said, going back to the stove.
"Thank you," Joe replied to her back, over his shoulder as he and Cecie returned to the front room.
Frank had perched himself on the sill of one of the front windows, careful to avoid Phila's ceramic scarecrow as he looked out, watching the street.
"So, you got the job, Frank?" Cecie asked.
"I've got it, but I'll be on probation for a few weeks. You hear about the Mecha that go destroyed last night?" Frank asked.
Cecie looked at Joe, then back to Frank. "We nearly tripped on the body," she said.
"Lucky for Cecie she was with me: I saw it in the shadows when she could not," Joe said.
"I called his owner, and then the security guards came along and started questioning me."
"They held her in utter suspicion when it is common knowledge she would never harm one of my species."
"They concluded it all by telling me not to leave town."
"Uh oh," Kip said. "Did you tell them where you were all last night?"
"Yeah, so don't be surprised if you hear from security pretty soon," Cecie concluded.
"Wonder if the Broadsheet'll have me covering this mysterious rash of Mecha murders," Frank said. "Hal would loooovvvve to do the photography for it. Much as I don't want him hedging on my turf—not that it's really mine—he'd be a good photographer for the paper."
"Why, does he specialize in the borderline lurid stuff?" Kip asked.
"Unfortunately, yeah, we were in Beijing during the uprisings and he had to get a dozen memory cards for his camera, he was getting shots of just about everything—including when that assassin gashed my neck."
"Ouch!" Kip cried. Joe cast a concerned eye on the base of Frank's neck.
"Sounds about right, the creep," Cecie said.
Frank looked out, over his shoulder. "Speak of the creep, here he comes." He got up and went to the door, paused a second and opening it, stepped out onto the sidewalk. Kip followed him, so did Cecie, with Joe at her side almost protectingly.
The welcoming committee stepped out onto the sidewalk.
A throaty whistle echoed off the walls of the buildings and the ceiling of the street.
"What's that tune?" Kip asked.
"Sounds like 'Mack the Knife'," Cecie said.
"Hey, you two-timing little runt, go home and wash behind your ears!" Frank cried to the outer darkness.
"Oh, go scrape the down off yer jaw, boy!" a grating, nasally sneer retorted from the nearer shadows.
A small man inside a huge overcoat sidled up to the door. The wide-brimmed homburg that covered his head tilted up and he peered up at them from under it. The top of his hat just leveled with Frank's chin.
"Hal."
"Frank." The two men clasped hands like prizefighters shaking hands. Frank threw his arm around Hal's scrawny shoulders and hugged him roughly. Hal slugged him between the ribs with his free hand; Frank grunted and they separated.
"The only thing better'n a good enemy is a good friend," Frank said.
"And the only thing better'n a good friend is a good enemy," Hal added. With a crooked grin that showed the gaps in his front teeth where some had been snapped off short, he continued, "Which must make me your best comrade in the world."
"After my wife and my brother in law," Frank said.
"Aw, you got me on third string?" Hal griped. "Damn you, Sweitz!"
"Third's better than not at all," Cecie said as Frank led Hal up to the door and over the threshold.
Hal regarded her sidelong with narrowed eyes that made her think of a snake's. He took off his hat, uncovering his head; he wore his drank brown hair cropped close to his skull, as if to conceal the thinning spots on the back and the way his hairline had receded. He looked up at her with his green-gray eyes narrowed appraisingly: she met his leer squarely.
"So what would you say to a little poke?" he asked.
"Hello, little poke," she said.
He jerked his thumb at her as he turned to Frank. "Don't tell me 'Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer'. I can't get started with this girl."
"You cannot get started with her because you are not supposed to get started with her," Joe said, stepping between Hal and Cecie as if to protect her.
"You again," Hal grumbled, with what was supposed to be irritation, but which came out sounding like growing interest. His narrow eyes closed down to slits, but a smirk of barely veiled pleasure twisted the corner of his too-thin mouth. He parted his lips and ran the tip of his grayish tongue over them, wetly. Joe took Hal's too attentive staring with a calm silence.
"Not in front of the ladies, Hal," Frank warned.
"We'll put that on pause, fella," Hal said, as Frank led the way into the kitchen
Phila and Bernie were setting the table as they all trooped in. Frank began the round of reacquaintance, starting with Bernie.
"Bernie, you remember Hal, don't you?"
"Oh, that was a year ago; I can't remember half the people who were at the reception," Bernie demurred, offering her hand to Hal.
He took it and smiled in a way he probably meant to be seductive, but the corner of his mouth rose too high. "You don't remember me, but I remember you—you mind if I call you Bernadette?"
"Well…okay," she said.
Phila didn't lift her eyes from the baking dish she carried from the stove to the table.
"I hope you haven't forgotten me too, Philomena?" Hal asked.
"You can call me Mrs. Langier," Phila said, keeping her eyes averted
"Oh, a formal lady, eh?" Hal said. Joe took a stance as if he might interpose between Hal and Phila, but Kip stepped in.
"So you're the other guy trying to get the job at the Broadsheet?" Kip asked.
"The other guy," Hal repeated, wagging one bony finger at Kip. "I like that: folks used to refer to Frank an' me as 'the looker and the other guy', but I'm digressing…Yeah, Frank and I are eyeballing the same job, but I've settled on a photography job that just opened up. I'm better with a camera than a datascriber any day."
"Did you bring your camera?" Frank asked.
By way of reply, Hal reached into his breast pocket and took out a small digital camera. "Brought the Brownie camera: too much trouble to lug around the full rig. Besides, it's just you folks." He snapped a few photos as they gathered around the table, one of Frank and Bernie, and then without warning, a shot of Joe eyeing the Mecha skull with a dubious fold between his wide-spaced brows.
"Are you going to print out those pictures right away?" Bernie asked.
"I might doctor 'em a little first, take care of the glare on our fine friend here, for instance," Hal said, returning the camera to his pocket. "Anyone ever tell you that you photograph bloody well, Joe?"
The Mecha smiled, but he did not look at Hal. "The photographer of the wedding photos said almost the self-same words of me, only more delicately put," Joe said.
"You would say it like that," Hal grumbled. "I took a few snaps myself, meant to bring 'em, but I left 'em in my hotel room."
"Now where are you staying?" Kip asked.
"The Do As You Like Hotel, name's longer than the rooms are wide," Hal said.
Phila and Bernie had taken Frank's warning to heart; there were six Orgas at the table, but Phila had cooked enough for eight: roast beef with oven-roasted potatoes and tarragon-touched asparagus. Cecie caught Hal smiling crookedly to himself. Was that a good idea, Phila?
Kip led the blessing; Hal didn't join them, which didn't surprise Cecie somehow. Ungrateful little bugger, she thought.
At least Hal's table manner balanced his appetite. He had also mastered the knack of talking with one corner of his mouth while chewing and not exposing what he was chewing. He and Frank regaled the rest of them with accounts of their college pranks and their exploits in journalism.
"We were covering the palace uprising in Strelsoro, and we were walking through this market square, trying to get back to our hotel," Frank began. "I'm walking ahead of Hal, trying to cut the crowd for him, when he lets out this awful roar. I turn around in time to see this big woman lugging Hal away, flung over her shoulder like a sack of laundry."
"Nobody told me Strelsori women were that tough," Hal said. "And no one told me they were that good for—"
"Maybe I'd better the story," Frank said. Phila wrinkled her face in disapproval. "I had to chase them through the crowd, but I couldn't keep up, there were too many carts and people and stalls and animals in the way. I had to notify the police and the American Embassy to get Hal back."
"That's awful!" Phila cried.
"It wasn't so bad," Hal said, around a mouthful. "She just wanted someone to, er, love. She was the widow of some deceased Strelsori general: she knew what she wanted, so she grabbed it with both hands."
"You could have gotten killed," Bernie said, with a note of concern.
"True: she might have rolled on me," Hal said.
"Is this why Strelsor broke off diplomatic ties with us?" Kip asked.
Frank shook his head. "It's a lot more complicated than that, a LOT more."
In between chatting and mouthfuls, Hal kept eyeing Bernie, who gracefully kept her eyes averted not with the crouch of the old days, but almost with the elegance of a highborn lady. He tried eying Phila, but she kept looking over Hal's head.
He tried eyeing Cecie, but she met Hal's eye squarely. She half-expected to see, from one blink to the next, the pupil of Hal's eyes change from round openings to horizontal slits like a snake's.
Joe, seated on Cecie's left, looked past her head, his eyes utterly devoid of expression.
"What's this, a double stare down?" Hal asked, coolly nerveless.
"It might be if you don't back down," Cecie said.
Hal lowered his gaze from her face to her plate. She'd never been much of a meat eater and the piece she'd gotten was tough and gristly. "You gonna finish that?" he asked. He'd already had second and third helpings.
"It's full of gristle," she said.
"I'll take it for you," Hal offered. He skewered the chunk with his fork and popped it into his mouth. He crunched it contentedly in his cheek teeth and swallowed.
"I hope that doesn't give you indigestion," Bernie said.
Hal grinned, showing a pink filament of gristle caught around his eyetooth. "Don't worry about me, Bern, I've got the insides of hyena: I can digest anything."
"Some folks would argue you have the outsides of a hyena as well," Cecie said with cool humor.
"You got wit under that poker face of yours, Cecie," Hal said.
As Phila and Bernie cleared the table, Hal, leaning forward slightly, started working at his belt buckle under the edge of the table. Phila glanced to see what he was up to, but turned away as if she feared what he was up to. The buckle popped open with a faint jingle. He sighed expansively and refastened his belt a notch or two looser. Cecie wouldn't swear to it, but his left side, below his ribs, seemed a little swollen.
"Pardon my gluttony, but it's what happens when you spent the first ten years of your life in state institutions, half-starved most of the time. I wasn't as lucky as Frank here: he had family to fall back on when his folks croaked off. The syphilitic whore that bore me left me to die in a trashcan, but someone found me and took me in. The state of Minnesota stepped in, took custody of me, and tried to find my parents: they found my mother, but she had no idea who my father was and she couldn't get a license to keep me. When I was ten they put me in stasis, part of the human trials on cryogenics they had; I'm still something of a guinea pig: the experts 're still tracking my medical history to see if it continues to affect me."
"Stands to reason: I think the cryo froze some of your brain neurons," Frank said.
"See what I have to put up with, even from my friends?" Hal said, jabbing his thumb at Frank. "So far I'm told the only after effect worth noting is my stunted growth." He shrugged, then grinned crookedly. "Makes quick ones in tight places easier, and it's handy in trying to get the right shot from the right angle. I've climbed up to places other men couldn't go."
"That's awful," Phila said.
"Some of us ain't lucky enough to grow up in Norman Rockwell-ville," Hal said.
"Uh, that's Stockbridge, not Westhillston," Cecie put in.
"Close enough," Hal shrugged. "Lest you all think I had a purely institutional upbringing, I was lucky enough to get the Daddy Warbucks adoption. Caldwell McGeever of the pharmaceutical company Portnoy-McGeever found me and adopted me. Too late: fixer-upper kids are not always the walking miracles you hear about. I embarrassed Pop so thoroughly that he paid my college tuition to get me to go away."
"At least you had some hope in your life," Bernie pointed out.
"Precious little of it," Hal retorted.
"Need help with the dishes, Phila?" Cecie asked, as Frank, Hal and Kip went to the front room.
"We can use all the help we can get," Phila said. "Funny you're staying back here, I figured you'd be with the others."
"Not with the Hollow Leg present," Cecie said.
"May I offer you the moral support of my presence?" Joe offered.
"Yeah, would you stand guard over the kitchen door so Hal doesn't come looking for dessert?" Bernie asked.
"I would gladly render this service," Joe said, planting himself before the doorway between the front room and the kitchen.
Even over the rush of water, they still could hear the men's voices, talking and guffawing, regaling each other with anecdotes. They heard Hal's rasping little voice most often.
"What an unpleasant little man," Joe remarked.
"Frank wasn't kidding when he said Hal eats a lot," Phila said, scraping a plate into the trash.
"I kept waiting for him to do a Jacob Schmidt," Cecie said.
"Do what?" Bernie asked.
"Eat himself to death," Cecie said. "I'm referring to a character in Kurt Weill's opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny who has probably one of the most unique deaths in all of opera, not the usual death by daggers, poison and consumption."
"Or rather, it is a death by another kind of consumption: the consumption of comestibles," Joe remarked.
"He reminds me of Carton Jacobi," Bernie said.
"Might be the eyes," Cecie said.
"They're certainly roving enough," Phila said.
"That wasn't quite what I had in mind, but if the shoe fits…" Cecie shrugged.
When they had finished, they headed into the front room to rejoin the menfolk.
Hal had slipped on his overcoat as if he were on his way out, his left hand thrust deep into his pocket; Cecie guessed he was supporting his bloated stomach.
"Are you going so soon?" Bernie asked.
"I hate to break it to you, but I'm afraid I gotta: Finkelsteen wants Frank and me to report in at eight tomorrow, plus I'd like a little taste of the night life here, if y' know what I mean." Hal grinned suggestively. Relaxing his face, he glanced down at himself. "As soon as I work over this: take it as a compliment, Missis Langier."
"Well, get the rest you need and I'll see you in the morning," Frank said.
"You all take care and I'll see you around the City," then to Joe, Hal added, "Especially you, little fella."
"I beg to differ with this title," Joe said, looking over the top of Hal's head with an odd little smile, "Unless of course you mean it as a term of affection."
Hal grinned back, a low, jerking, grating noise rattled deep in his throat; Cecie realized this was Hal's way of laughing.
"I like your style, silicon boy: you picked the right fella, Cecie."
With that, Hal headed out into the night. They heard his whistle receding up the street.
"How fortunate we are he has gone," Joe said, with something like relief.
"I'd better get back myself: I've got a mountain of copy to write tomorrow and I want to get an early start," Cecie said. "I'm just waiting for the creep to get a goodly distance ahead of me."
"Yeah, he's a little slowed down there with that cropful he's lugging," Frank said.
"I can't help agreeing with Joe: what an unpleasant little man," Phila said, shuddering.
"I guess I was a little short on warning you all about Hal," Frank said. "He's definitely got his rough edges."
"And that man is your friend since college?" Bernie asked, somewhat suspicious.
"Hey, someone had to do it," Frank said.
"Just don't invite him to dinner again," Phila said.
"Don't worry: I won't force you all to endure him like that again."
Hal kicked off his shoes and eased himself onto the bed in his hotel room. He estimated four hours to digest his feed and get it moving, which would mean he'd be heading out after midnight. Oh well, the night would still be young.
He cradled his engorged belly with the insides of his wrists and closed his eyes.
The phone rang. He cursed and heaved himself upright. He thought he'd told the front desk to hold his calls till the morning.
He reached for the phone on the desk and picked it up.
"Hullo?"
"I have what you need, boss. I have what you asked of me."
"Whozis… Jay?"
"Yes, it is I."
"Jack off, will you? I need a snooze and a roll in the hay before I see daylight again in this town. I'll talk to you tomorrow night."
"I only wished to ask you but one thing: do you require another?"
"F--- off! No, wait…yeah, yeah, that sounds good. Do one more and then bring me the results. I'll see what I can make of it."
"So it must be one more?"
"One more's good enough for a story."
"As you want it done."
The line cut out. Hal dropped the receiver onto the cradle. On his second thought, he took the receiver off and threw it away, letting it dangle off the edge of the desk. He plopped back on the pillow with a sigh that ended as a belch.
Not a good move: the force jolted a mouthful of bile up into his throat. He gulped it back; at least it beat paying for the same amount of eats. He pulled a newspaper over his face and closed his eyes as the phone started peeping off the hook.
The rain cleared out by morning. Cecie stepped outside for her morning walk to find the sky a clear, scoured blue.
On the way back to the Graceley with her week's shopping, Cecie met up with Raymond Flyte. Since she had met him the year before after her disastrous trip to Westhillston, Flyte had taken an odd interest in her, more than friendly, but utterly free from romantic interest.
"Hiya, Flyte."
"Hello, Ms. Martin."
"Hove you been following the murders?" she asked.
"I have to follow them: the police in Omaha and Nova Francisco have wondered these destructions might not be related to the violence there."
"What, it might be the work of the same malfunctioning Mecha?"
"No, they might be some kind of retaliation. The culprit there was a malfunctioning male lover-Mecha, and so far all the victims have been male lover-Mechas."
"The guards have me under suspicion."
Flyte knit his dark brows together. "They do? They're crazy."
"That's what I thought. The only way they're connecting me is because I discovered both bodies, which the guards found a little odd. I'd expect them to suspect Joe, he was there both times as well."
"They'd hold Joe in less suspicion. They know his nature and I'm known for taking good care of my own."
"Were any of them yours?"
"No, fortunately."
"You have any trouble?"
"Not in that respect. I've just had difficulty in other areas."
"It wouldn't happen to be named Halloran McGeever, would it?"
"Yes, why, you know him?"
"Better than I care to."
"I can't blame you."
"Why, has he busted one of your Mechas already?"
"He came close. Provider-client privilege prevents me from telling you the particulars."
"If I were Phila Langier or Bernie Sweitz, I wouldn't want to know 'em."
"Why do I have the impression that your eyes have gone 'pretty please?' behind your mirror shades?"
"That's privileged information, too."
"All right, you diddled me enough: early this morning, he sent for Calla, one of my lower-budget models. She came back reeling like she was drunk. The bastard had whacked her around so that her conductors had tangled every which way inside her. Natterson's still detangling her insides."
"Oh dear!" Calla was a petite blonde Cecie had spotted several times; she mostly worked the Lower Deck, like most of the older models in the City. "Is there any way you can get payback?"
"There is: jack up his fee the next time he calls for one of mine."
"Good idea: hit 'um in the pocketbook; it's the only spot that hurts as bad, if not worse than the nuts." A thought crossed her mind. "You got any dominatrix types?"
"As a matter of fact, I have one: Xarga, she's six foot three, weighs two-hundred pounds, a brunette built like a lady linebacker. Why?"
"Oh, maybe next time Halloran McGeever asks for a smaller model, send him Xarga instead. Mind you, this is only a suggestion."
"I guessed that from the not-wholly serious lilt in your voice. It's not a bad idea, as an idea."
"My way of venting. I had supper with him and the Langiers and the Sweitzes last night."
"Isn't he a newspaper writer or something like that? Finkelsteen from the Broadsheet came up to my digs last night, said he'd just done an interview with McGeever."
"He's a photographer, or a photojournalist." She glanced over her shoulder. "Speak of the devil, here he comes."
Flyte peered over her shoulder. "The tall one's Frank Sweitz, so I guess the short one must be said devil. Hell, girl, he looks like a devil; fitting choice of word."
"You speak for yourself, Flyte."
"Excuse the curse, must have been process of association. Oy, McGeever's go a face that would stop a clock. At least I know now what to look for if ever I have to slap him with property damage charges."
Flyte went on his way on his rounds through the city; Cecie turned as Frank and Hal approached.
"Here comes the dynamic duo now," she said. "I was just talking to Mr. Flyte about you two."
"Trying to raise prejudice against the media, eh?" Hal grated.
"Too bad Flyte skipped off, we've been interviewing a few locals about the two Mecha murders," Frank said.
"What's the verdict?" Cecie asked.
"Most people are concerned, but things like this have happened before," Frank said. "They're worried it may happen again, but life is still going on."
"They needn't worry too much till it happens a third time," Hal said, adjusting the settings on the digital camera slung from a black webbed strap around his neck.
"What makes you say that?" Cecie asked.
"I covered a serial kill in Des Moines my first year of real work: it ain't serial till three bodies have piled up. Second one may have been copycatting."
"That stands to reason," Cecie said.
"So what about you? What's on your mind?" Frank asked as he pulled his pocket scriber from his breast pocket.
"Oh boy, is this going into the Broadsheet?" she asked.
"It might," Frank said.
"Well…I'm concerned; I'm worried about Joe. Is he going to be next? We can only hope these incidents were unrelated happenings and there won't be a sequel. I don't want anything like this to happen to anyone, Orga or Mecha."
"Thanks," Frank said, pocketing the scriber. "I'll get you a free copy."
"I already subscribe, silly," Cecie said.
"So you lookin' for your dark light o' love?" Hal asked, adjusting the camera.
"Watch it, Hal," Frank said, only half serious.
Cecie regarded Hal half over her glasses. "That's privileged information."
Hal peered through the viewfinder of the camera and snapped a photo of her.
"I hope I didn't look too bad,' she said.
Hal shrugged one shoulder. "You're not a bad-looker, but I may not be able to use it anyway. See what happens."
The 'Net connection was still fouled up on Cecie's scriber, and Derek the 'Net wonk still hadn't returned her calls, so she had to head out later that afternoon to Chatters, on the Lower Deck.
As she headed out, she heard footsteps behind her. She turned around, half-hoping to glance up into Joe's green-gold eyes.
Instead, she looked dead on a level into a pair of too-shiny gray-blue eyes peering out from under a straw-like shock of blonde hair.
"Hey, Alex, who's next?" she asked coldly.
"Everyone says it will be me, but not the way I prefer," the young Mecha said in a husky countertenor that yearned to be a baritone.
"What are you talking about?" she said.
He blocked her as she tried to walk away, his hands in the pockets of his tight gray trousers, tucked into calf-high riding boots. "You know what I mean." He slashed his hand from his groin to his throat.
She almost laughed, but she knew from experience that laughing at Alex would cause an undesirable scene, with him following her and taunting her viciously.
"Do you really think I'm the one who killed those two Mechas, or are you just repeating the bats' chatter you heard on the street?"
He took this quietly but smoldering even as he processed it. "I don't know about bats, but I heard some of the Orga hookers over on Concubine Street talking about it. They said you did in both Mechas. Who are you going for next? Me? I specialize in rough stuff for those who like boisterous young boys, but being on the receiving end is another matter."
"I didn't kill either of those Mechas."
"Who can say you did not? Have you ever really proved how much we lover Mechas mean to you?" he paced around her, his hips cocked in what looked like a bad imitation of Joe's stance in seduction mode. It was probably meant to look awkward: if Alex were real, he would probably be just at the age of consent: his face had that too-thin look of most teenage boys, stripped of the puppy fat, but not quite matured.
"What do you mean?" she knew, but she was testing him.
He stepped closer to her, putting his knee between her thighs and rubbing it slightly. He looked her in the eye.
"Stop saving yourself and give in to your own cravings," he said in a lusty drawl.
She kneed him in the groin, not hard, just enough to deter him.
He jumped back, letting out the too high-pitched pain yelp common to all male Mechas. Recovering, he glowered at her, then a leering grin crossed his face. "Ahhh, you do want it rough, eh?"
She walked away, her back straight as a board. "Forget it, Alex."
"Go on, go find the softie! Go find your wimp!" Alex taunted, stalking off in the other direction.
Once in the cybercafé, she signed into the guest computer and found herself a terminal. When she got onto the 'Net, the very first page, the city's home page, carried a news item:
Local Copywriter Possible Suspect in Recent Mecha Destructions.
She ignored it and checked her email, sent a few messages, uploaded a few files to her publisher and the businesses she was copywriting for. On her IM, she noticed frank was online but he had his "Away" notice up:
AutoResponse from: Heroic Reporter23:
Just got the scoop on a breaking story.
Later, in the early evening, she got herself a sandwich while another file was uploading; as she munched on the sandwich, she watched the brief sunset through the front windows of the café.
Larry passed by her terminal a little while later. "I know you didn't do any of that stuff," he said.
She turned her swivel char around. "How do you know?"
"You're too gentle with Joe. I've seen you with him: you treat him like he was your own flesh and blood. The guards came around here yesterday asking me when you'd logged out the night of the first murder. I showed them the cache on the sign up, showed them your sign in and sign out times. I'm afraid they're going to keep an eye on you the next few days."
She shrugged. "I should be used to it: one of the perks of being a misfit. They did the same to me back home in Westhillston, Mass."
"You? I figured you'd fit in there."
She shook her head. "I was the loner girl who wore black all the time in high school: all the adults figured I was sawing off my own shotguns at home, but all was doing was writing poetry and short stories."
"If you need someone to vouch for your character, I'll stick up for you: I've already got a posting up on the 'Net trying to clear your name."
She reached out and clasped his wrist. "Thanks, Larry."
When he had moved on, she jotted a note on her pocket scriber: base tech character on Larry: he knows Chanelle isn't the cyber'pire.
She signed out at 19.30 when twilight had long since given way to darkness, and stopped by the Langiers' to say hello.
She showed up as Bernie was starting to wash the dishes. "I figured the Hollow Leg would be back for another handout," Cecie said. Frank and Phila were clearing the table, while Kip was fixing the faucet in the bathroom.
"He knows enough not to show up uninvited: there's a method to his madness," Frank said.
"Have you heard about the rumors flying around about you?" Phila asked.
"Tell me about it!" Cecie groaned. "I got pested by Alex the insufferable on my way out earlier. You know there's trouble ahead when even the Mechas are holding you in suspicion."
"I don't know why people have to be so mean spirited; you wouldn't do that! You wouldn't hurt a fly, let alone…a Mecha, not that it's the same thing," Phila said.
"I've started figuring a few things out about people: they suspect you of stuff just because you're different from them," Bernie said, rummaging in the sink.
"Maybe Westhillston and Rouge City are closer cousins than everyone thinks," Frank said. "I suppose people are people wherever you go."
As he finished saying this, the square pager clipped to his belt let out a high, electronic warble, very like Joe's medallion pager.
"Okay, whoziss?" Frank asked, turning it up. The display read in green script on black: ShutterCock to HeroicReporter23: Got Mecha at Harlot Square.
"ShutterCock?" Cecie asked.
"Hal: that's his screen name," Frank said, replacing the pager and going to the other room. "He thinks it's funny."
"I don't," Phila interjected.
"I guess it's supposed to be a gross pun on 'shuttle-cock', the thing they use in badminton," Cecie said. "I don't mind double entendres as long as they're more discreet, like Shakespeare's."
"Do you have to go so soon?" Bernie said as Frank came back, shoving his pocket scriber into the breast pocket of his trench coat.
"I'll be back before midnight, please God," Frank said, hugging her with one arm and kissing her cheek.
"Maybe you'd better stay here, Cecie; they might get suspicious," Phila said.
"If they do, maybe it would be better if they got suspicious up there than down here," Cecie said.
Frank spread his hands. "Okay, I'll do what I can if they give you trouble."
The wind rose when they headed out. Frank flipped up the collar of his trench coat as they quick-walked to the escalator hub.
"Is it always this windy this time of year?" he asked.
"It can get windy in the fall, but this has been exceptional," she said.
"So where were you before you came to call?"
"I was at Chatters; Larry the tech can vouch for me."
"Gathering a cloud of alibis, eh?"
"Mine are for real."
The wind whipped up under their coats as they stepped off the escalator onto Main Plaza. Frank walked slightly ahead of Cecie as they went up Concubine Street to Harlot Square.
The square was more crowded than usual, most of it onlookers trying to figure out what the guards had discovered over near the alleyway between a nightclub and a pawnshop.
In the midst of the milling group of techs and guards, Hal's small black shadow moved, stooped, like some wizard in a dark ritual. Flashes emitted from his camera as he got every shot he could. Frank stepped in to get a few quotes on the situation.
Cecie ducked through the crowd of Orgas and Mechas, trying to get a glimpse of the victim.
The guards had covered the body with a tarp, but at Frank's and Hal's insistence, they lifted it off.
A gasp rose from the rubbernecking Orgas. On the ground lay the body of a red-headed, well-"muscled" male Mecha, clad in what remained of a black leather jacket over a gray muscle shirt and tight-fitting black jeans. It lay with its arms bent back over its head at strange angles, as if it had tried to fight off its attacker. The green license tag on its chest had been half-cut off and it had lost its luminescence, but she could read the serial number and name under the bar code: RP-622 "Ralphie". Something had ripped open the Mecha's abdomen from the base of his "breastbone" to what paralleled the Orga pubic bone. The tubes and pumps inside its groin lay scattered on the ground between its spread thighs. The lubricating and hydraulic fluids from its body had congealed with the dirt, forming gritty clots clinging to its silicon flesh. Other smaller cuts and slashes showed through rents in its clothing. Could these things fight back? Maybe it depended on the Mecha.
Looking at the unfortunate with its electronic viscerae torn out, she was nearly sick.
Stanger, the grizzle-headed guard who had scrutinized her before, looked up at her.
"Ms. Martin, could you come here a minute?" he asked.
She stepped forward. Her father, before his death, had taught her to always comply (within reason) with a cop of any sort: it made things easier in the long run and made them a lot less suspicious.
"Yes?" she asked innocently.
"Where were you about nineteen-thirty?"
"I was downstairs, signing out of Chatters."
"Where'd you go after that?"
"I went to the Langiers' apartment to say hello before I went home."
"I walked up here with her, after McGeever paged me," Frank said.
Stanger looked from Frank to Cecie and back again. "All right, we'll see if this checks out."
Hal snapped photo after photo, finding the right position, the right angle for each with almost Mecha-like precision. He worked quickly, efficiently. Not the slightest wrinkle of disgust or twitch of nerves contorted his thin face, but from Frank's tales of him, the little creep was an old hand at this brand of photojournalism.
"Hal, you wanna come downstairs to develop those?" Frank asked when the guards started dispersing the crowd.
"Thanks, but I got my digital darkroom set up in my tempo digs," Hal said, checking the battery on the camera.
Stanger caught up with Cecie as she started back to her hotel. "You might not want to leave your apartment tonight: we may be up to call."
Cecie walked back to the Graceley on legs numbed by the wind and more than the cold. She almost didn't notice Joe when he stepped up to her as he came out the front door of the Graceley. When she caught sight of him before her, she tried to step around him, but he ran his hand caressingly along her arm. She looked up.
"You seem troubled, Cecie. You seem distraught. What has brought you such unhappiness?" he put his hand to her face, brushing his fingertips across her cheek. He held up his hand. "I've found a tear."
"The guards just found another murdered Mecha," she said, breathless.
He looked into her eyes as if he could heal her throbbing soul just by looking into her eyes. "And they still hold you in scrutiny?"
She could only nod, trying to force back the tears from her eyes.
"Come inside before the cold wind freezes those tears upon your cheeks."
She let him lead her inside, through the hotel lobby to the den just off it, where a gas fire burned on the wide hearth. He helped her onto a low sofa and sat down beside her. He drew close to her, hemming her into the corner where she sat, letting her lean her head on his shoulder. She caught herself wondering how many other women had wept here with their heads nestled into the synthetic flesh at the angle of his neck. Had he just come from the arms of one?
Her chilled body warmed to the heat from the fire and the growing warmth from inside his torso. She sensed movement, and she realized he had drawn her onto his knees, into his lap. She tried to draw back but he had wedged her between himself and the arm of the couch.
She looked him in the eye. "Thus far and no further," she said. He merely smiled with smoldering suggestion.
His skin pulsed with jabs of pain, which made every step along the alleyway painful. The RP-622 had been tougher to take out; its defense chips must have been set high: it took more than a few pokes at him before he could slip his shiv into its belly and even then it had still fought till its synthetic synapses misfired and it crumpled to the ground.
He had what he needed and he could tape himself up once he'd delivered the goods to the boss. Maybe he'd get lucky and get a reward…
To be continued…
Literary Easter Eggs:
(If you've been wondering where they are…)
Derek the 'Net wonk—I borrowed this from the book ChaseR, a young adult "Novel in E-mails": in the first "chapter" the fifteen-year-old hero is describing how he finally got his computer reconnected after a long move out to the country, but only after a looong call to "Isaac the Internet wonk". Art builds from life: my computer is off the 'Net because of a software screw up (which is why my fics always appear like clockwork on Tuesday because that is the day I go to the cybercafé.). Larry the tech is based somewhat on Wally Zabierek, the tech at the cybercafé (If you're reading this, Wally, Hi!).
Hal's broken teeth—Either he got them busted somehow in his wild life, or this might be part of having had a syphilitic mother. I suspect the latter, since kids born under these circumstances often have bad teeth; I learned this from the short-lived, slightly gruesome but fascinating (in a Goth kind of way; they had an excellently chilling main title theme that sounded like something by Enigma) PBS series Secrets of the Dead.
"'so what would you say to a little poke?'"—This is based on an urban legend of somewhat dubious origin involving the SF writer Harlan Ellison. It seems Ellison and Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein were in a bar somewhere when this happened: Ellison, who like Hal was a very short guy, went up to this very tall, well-built woman and said (supposedly), "Hey, gorgeous, what would you say to a little f---?" To which the big woman replied "Hi, little f---." Cecie is, if I haven't made it clear elsewhere, about five-eight in her bare feet (almost five ten with her boots on, which puts her almost eye to eye with Joe), so I can imagine she'd blow off a nasty little runt like Hal with this bon mot.
"Do As You Like Hotel"—This is the name of the hotel in Kurt Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (the last word is pronounced something like 'ma-ha-GUN-ee' NOT 'muh-HOG-uhn-ee'), which takes place in a semi-mythical pleasure city, something like Rouge City without the sex Mechas, and with just as vague a location.