The Cinnamon Horizon
by Elliot Bowers
"The Voice of Love" vocal by Julee Cruise, with lyrics by David Lynch and music
by Angelo Badalamenti
Chapter 6: The Distant Smell of Something Burning
_____A week passed by since Sera had started her new job: prize-fighter at the arena. Right
now, it didn't pay much--because she was a newbie. To do something all of one's life and almost
start over in a new line of work would have been difficult for someone older. But she was still
young. And because her body was replaced when she was barely an adult, maybe she would
always be young. Or maybe time and experience could mature her.
_____Now, the red-haired young cyborg reclined in a black long chair--well-cushioned. This
luxurious recliner was the most comfortable piece of furniture in the room. Otherwise, there were
some tall metal stools set in front of some cyber-equipment, along with a slotted metal table in the
middle of the room: the table for repairs and maintenance. This room was a preparation and
repairs room for electromechanical gladiators.
_____Sera was the one who wanted the recliner in here. And she loved it. The cushioning was
close enough to real leather to be a real luxury, full of soft material. Not that she could fully
enjoy the softness of the cushioning, as her armored physique was very insensitive. It still helped
her relax before matches.
_____She wasn't really worried about her physical performance. Her sponsor's technicians made
sure that everything worked before every match. There were even functions of her body that she
never used before, and the technicians were able to see that those functions
worked too. So being able to fight was no problem; her body would work just fine.
_____It was her mind that needed the maintenance sometimes. This new job of hers was
outrageously stressful. With her previous job, all that she had to do was... Well, it was a great
deal more relaxing than this one! The bouts these past seven days have been painful. She had
taken blows to her limbs and midsection--miraculously avoiding hits to her head. Yesterday, a
few attacks to her chest had dizzied her before she was able to pummel her opponent into
submission. Were these matches becoming harder?
_____A door opened. "Almost time, Sera. Can't keep that crowd waiting!" said a man's voice--
one of the arena's staffers. He was a chubby kind of man who tended to dress in slacks and
short-sleeved office shirts. Sera didn't know exactly what the guy's job was. She just knew that
he was some kind of manager.
_____"Oh, okay..." she answered. The cushioning flexed as she sat up and looked around the
hard room. The hard metal and plastic of the furnishings gleamed: cyber-equipment lit with
florescent lighting. Standing, she stroked back wayward lengths of hair and began walking
towards the door.
_____The manager-type was still standing there, leaning against the door jamb, his thick arms
crossed. He put on a sly smile as he glanced up and down her sleek body. "You look hot,
but you don't sound hot, girl," he said as Sera stepped out into the dim, industrial-style hallway.
_____They both took a left, walking down the hall. Now the sound of the crowd was audible.
It was a roaring kind of sound that echoed along the hard walls and floor. "Hear that? That's
the crowd! They're cheerin' for YOU, because the wanna good fight! You gotta have HEART
if you wanna fight a good fight! Besides, you're making damned good money from the start."
_____"I'm not doing this just for the money, okay?" said Sera as they approached the end of
the hall. The sound of the lake-sized crowd was massive now. A person had to speak up to be
heard here, but it wasn't just necessity that made her put some volume into her voice. Now she
was a little angry. "I'd tell you why, but I suppose my whole life's story is probably plastered all
over the newsprints." They walked a few more steps, and she added. "Yeah, and now everybody
who works here knows and it'll be a HELL of a lot harder to get the last bastard I'm after because
he's probably gone into hiding! Or he could have just left this whole damned sector!"
_____"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...! Not true, babe!" said the manager-type. He began walking closer
to Sera and spoke up. "Listen to me, doll. You weren't supposed to know about this until later.
So you didn't hear this from me. There's something you've gotta know about that rogue cyborg
you wanna kill. That guy named Carbon."
...
_____"GYA-A-A-H! You silky BITCH! So YOU'RE the one who had this done to me! N-n-rgh!"
Drool and froth flecked away from Carbon's mouth as he angrily whipped his head side to side.
His synthetic face was twisted up with angry madness, eyes bulging. "Rr-r-rgh... My boys and I
would EAT over-sexed sluts like you for dinner AND the next morning's breakfast! I DARE you
to come over here! I'd tear out a bloody piece of your throat with my BARE TEETH! ARGH!
COME HERE! C'MERE-C'MERE!"
_____His threats echoed bounced of the large windows at one end of this room--seats in front
of it. Below the windows were video screens that gave closer views of the fighting ring itself.
This floor was carpeted, and the ceiling was made of echo-dampening tiling. It was part of the
soundproofing that kept the roar of the crowd down to a faint and distant sound. The room
was a "skybox"--luxury arena seating suspended above the crowd.
_____The skybox seats were reserved for VIP's--Very Important Persons--like the high-ranking
executives of the Feng-Long Society like Miss Patsun. And here she was, two bodyguards
standing by the door. Her slim figure was dressed in a dark silk gown, matching her night-dark
hair. Her smooth face showed no real reaction to the threats made by Carbon. Or what was left
of Carbon.
_____His mouth was probably the only dangerous thing about him left...because his metal arms
were removed: severed with diamond-edged spinning buzzsaws and pulled off with clamps. The
legs and pelvis were gone too; his torso was practically cut in half with industrial equipment. Enough
of his torso was left to hold in the machinery that served for his artificial organs. He was now bolted
to a metal table on wheels. Suffice to say that the cyborg had lost a lot of weight.
_____Miss Patsun wanted this jackass alive. She wanted him alive at least long enough to serve
as a prize for Sera. What the cyborg-girl did to him was her business after that. But she wanted
to put out a little punishment herself.
_____She would not tolerate being disrespected. "You, come here. Come hold his head still,"
she said to one of her bodyguards. The dark-suited figure stepped away from the door and
walked over to the wheeled metal table. Carbon grunted and snarled as metal hands closed on
his head. The machinery of his neck was not strong enough to break the grip.
_____He turned his eyes to see Miss Patsun standing close by, next to the bodyguard that held
his head. "GET CLOSER! ARGH!" he shouted. "I can't BITE you from here!"
_____"What...? Do you want to see my blood?" asked Miss Patsun. "It seems so, because you
have been shouting for it for some time now. I suppose granting this sort of request would be
the only way to shut your mouth..."
_____Carbon went silent for a second, stopped trying to get his head out of the bodyguard's
metal-handed grip. Then he began struggling again. "HELL YES! I wanna see your blood! I
wanna see it everywhere!"
_____"Hmmph..." said Miss Patsun. Her dark eyes looked down at where Carbon's body was
cut away. She put a pointer-finger there, stroked it along the dangling wires and jagged metal
where his big steel belly was once joined to his metal pelvis. Her fingertip stroked sharp edges,
and she began to apply a little pressure.
_____"Hey... HEY! Watch it, bitch!" grunted Carbon. "What are you doin' down there, huh?"
He tried to tilt his chubby-faced head up, trying to see. But he was securely bolted and couldn't
adjust himself to see. Anyway, his big metal tank-belly got in the way of the sight.
_____Patsun's hand twitched when the delicate fingertip was pierced--drawing a swelling red drop
of blood. She then raised the fingertip, looked at it. Speaking to her bodyguard, she said, "Do you
have a firm grip on the head? Good. I don't want him to turn his face."
_____She moved around to the side, raised her fingertip, then deliberately dripped her blood onto
Carbon's ceramic eyeballs. "What? WHAT...!" he said as the liquid covered his sight. Blink and
struggle as he might, he could not turn his head nor keep the warm red liquid from covering over his
eyes. "ARGH! You fucking skinny-ass BITCH! YOU'RE gonna be MEAT, you hear?
R-R-R-RGH! O-OOH! I'll...!"
_____"I asked if you wanted to see my blood," she said, turning from Carbon. She licked her
bleeding fingertip, then clenched the hand into a fist. "You said you wanted to see it everywhere.
I simply granted your desire."
_____She heard the mutilated cyborg yowl and grunt in response, cursing and complaining about
his eyes. Satisfied, she and her bodyguards now moved away from the wheeled table--getting over
to the seats. Tonight's fights were going to begin sometime soon, once the huge crowd had settled
down. They didn't want to miss the opening exposition: tantalizing fights before the main course!
Yet the opening fights were exactly why the high-ranking female executive was here, also why
Carbon was mutilated and brought along on such short notice.
_____She sat over there by the skybox windows, looking out and down on the massive spectacle
spread before her. The smaller video monitors below the windows showed various angles of
the arena, but she stared out at it all.
_____The raucous crowd was a sea of jostling, cheering humanity held within this vast
bowl-shaped arena. With the arena's overhead lights dim, the individuals in the crowd seemed
to blend together into one gigantic mass. They filled the seats to near overflowing, all around
the brightly lit fighting ring below--a large white concrete circle.
_____So many things led up to this moment. Too many things? Though Miss Patsun's eyes
were looking out the window, her focus was inward: on her thoughts. She had the notion of
just simply GIVING Carbon over to Sera. It would be so easy: Just stop the young cyborg from
going into that arena and hand over the big metal mutilated bastard. Wrap him up in gift-paper.
Tie a pretty bow around his neck. Happy holiday, Sera! Here's the last cyborg you wanted to
kill.
_____Ha-ha-ha...! No-no-no, that would not do. Miss Patsun knew that Sera would get more
from killing Carbon if she earned the chance to do so. She, the executive, knew this because
she had undertaken a few acts of revenge herself. Maybe that was why she cared so damned
much about Sera. Or maybe she cared because she had no one or no thing else to care about.
When a person had reached the heights of power within a small kingdom, the lives of little people
could became hobbies.
_____As she sat by the window, thinking and looking, the mutilated cyborg continued to make
noises. His noises were loud and obnoxious anger sounds before. His sounds were turning to
pained sounds. He was now without arms and legs for at least ten hours, bolted to this table
they wheeled him around on--like some damned meal on a cart! Then that bitch coated his ceramic
eyes with blood. No matter how hard he blinked, the stuff covered up all he could see. His eyesight
was coated with a layer of darkening red. And when the blood dried, he would be in more trouble.
_____He tried blinking more fiercely, tilting up his head and grunting some more. Now he was just
reacting, grunting and shaking his head--in a world of his own suffering. A thinking mind can be
reduced to the level of an insect when there is enough physical pain and trouble: merely reacting
to sensory input.
_____What the...? Things were getting quiet. First, Carbon thought that his artificial hearing was
malfunctioning. No, that wasn't it. He had the idea that someone was deliberately dampening his
hearing. Then he began to hear a too-familiar rhythmic sound. It was the gentle hushing rhythm
of a push broom being brushed along a hallway. That meant... Fuck!
_____Exposed wires and tubes of Carbon's shoulders and lower body began to heat and
spark as he tried to run. But there were no electromechanical limbs connected to those wires
at all. The wires were just heating air and sputtering sparks as the cyborg tried to RUN. But
no one escapes the faceless one with the broom, even if one did have legs to run with.
_____"No... No! N-n-no! No-o-o-OH! OH-WHOA!" he yelled, consumed with his own fear.
He felt a hand closing over his head, and then he felt that hand somehow close over him completely.
Then he felt himself shoved into a small dark place.
...
_____Outside of the arena, out in the parking lot, there was the faint low hum of the underground
power station. A person could hear it--even feel it--if one stood in the right spot. This was the
right spot, outside of the streetlamps that lit up the flat lot, away from where the executives'
personal cars were parked. There was a disturbing gust of wind, and some of the streetlamps
flickered. Something just happened.
...
_____Carbon found himself in that Other Place. It was that place where he could barely see
anything, a place with flat and smooth floor. The wind howled on through, carrying the sound of
THEM giggling. THEY were all around him. Like that time he (foolishly) tried to chase the Janitor
into the sewer about a week back. What a fucking dumb idea. It was like a worm trying to chase
a hungry, sharp-toothed lizard.
_____Now he was the worm. Now he was swallowed. Down in the darkness, he waited for
whatever was going to happen next. There was no running, no screaming. There was nothing
he could do but look.
_____Hee-hee-hee...! THEY were giggling at him. Carbon looked around and saw them
starting to skulk and stalk. Like before, he couldn't tell who they were. Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!
He was in for it now!
_____Click. Squeak... Click. Carbon heard a door opening in the darkness, somewhere on the
right. Footsteps clacked along the dark floor. High heels? Someone moved a chair, sat down.
The giggling sounds reached a high point...then shut up.
_____A flash of bright light slashed down from above, burning away a portion of the darkness!
Now he could see the Dream Woman--sitting at a table, dressed in that pale silk gown of hers.
The florescent bright whiteness of her skin matched the bright ghostly tone of her hair and her
gown. In contrast, her lips were deep red, as red as her large blood-red eyes. She looked generally
human but wasn't. Couldn't be.
_____The Janitor stepped into the scene, into the spotlight that shone down on the Dream Woman.
He made a gesture, and three bowls appeared on the table. These were gray bowls, made of
some hard and shiny material--powdered metal and ceramics. Two of the bowls were empty.
One of them was half-full of something that looked like oatmeal sprinkled with a lot of cinnamon.
_____"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha....!" Her high laughter pierced the darkness as she lifted one of the
empty bowls. The bowl seemed large in her left hand, at the end of a slender arm. Swish-WHAM!
Shards of the bowl exploded in all directions when she SMASHED it against the table. Someone
screamed in the darkness, a familiar scream. What the Hell? Who would scream over a broken
bowl?
_____She tossed the leftover bowl-shard she had in her hand, then the second bowl on the table.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Swish-WHAM! Yet another gray bowl was shattered against the hard
shiny top of the table. There was another familiar scream in the darkness, this time someone else.
Just smashed to jagged bits.
_____There was one bowl left--the one half-full of cinnamon oatmeal. Glowingly pale hands
wrapped around the bowl. The blue-capped Janitor leaned closer to the table and watched
with deep interest. "Ha-ha-ha...!" laughed the Dream Woman. Then Carbon felt everything go
down. He seemed to be floating above the dark floor before he felt himself blown to the side by
unseen forces and... He gave soul-tearing scream.
...
_____When he recovered consciousness, he found that he could see a little. His eyelids had
kept blinking while he was out, managing to wipe away enough of the blood to give him at least
blurry vision. Damn, it was dim here. He saw that they had dimmed the lights in this skybox as
they watched the opening of tonight's events.
...
2.
...
_____WHAM! Joel slammed down the now-emptied glass. "Why the FUCK doesn't she like me?
HUH?" The glass had hit the table pretty hard. Luckily, the thing was made of tempered glass. It
would have broken otherwise. Very drunk people could be careless and hurt themselves--doing
some things they would later regret.
_____"Really? You haven't told me everything," said the darkly clad stranger seated across from
Joel. He was a cyborg, though his dark outfit covered most everything but his metal hands and
his synthetically-fleshed face and head: dark clothing. Dark jeans, dark leather jacket, and black
sunglasses, he also had dark crew-cut hair. Though his face and hair were synthetic, he had on a
real leather jacket, which was rare. Leather usually cracked and fell apart in this city because of
certain toxic pollutants in the air. Somehow, his jacket didn't
_____His voice was also unusual. The stranger's voice had a somewhat tinny sound, meaning
that he had a rather old-fashioned voice synthesizer. How old, one couldn't be sure: Parts were
parts, and cyborgs took the best of whatever they could get to keep their bodies working. More
desperate cyborgs took anything they could find--even if the parts were of low quality. This
stranger didn't seem like the desperate sort, though. He had a calm and smooth sort of confidence
that led people to trusting him.
_____It was even easier for drunken people to trust him, like Joel here. Drunken people were
vulnerable sometimes, easily gullible. That was especially true when they were depressed. So
the stranger--intent on getting Joel more drunk and gullible--tilted the red bottle, pouring some
more wine into Joel's glass. Drink up, fool.
_____Joel did, drinking some more wine. "I understand, Joel," said the stranger. "I understand
A-A-ALL about it. I was young once. Of course, I'm talking about the times of my HUMAN
youth--prior to becoming old and becoming what I am. I grew old and have enjoyed the
companionship of many beautiful girls in my time. Some were kind, and some were some cruel."
_____"Y-yeah..." Joel gulped some of the wine. The whites of his eyes were reddened, and a
line of drool did a quick drop from his mouth. It took some effort to successfully put the glass
back down on the table without spilling what was in the glass. To him, the table looked unstable
and far away. Everything looked and felt far away. Because he was drunk of course! Yeah, his
world was all softened up with a comfortable warm red haze. Mmmh, goo-o-od wine...
_____The stranger noticed that Joel's eyes beginning to glaze over. That was the stranger's cue
to say something invigorating and keep Joel awake--keep him from falling into a drunken slumber.
Don't sleep now, boy, thought the stranger. You still have too much information to tell me!
And I want you to tell all! Tell me more about this oh-so-pretty hacker-girl that hurts you so
much, who hurts my current employers even more...
_____"Funny how the most pretty girls are sometimes the most cruel," said the stranger. The
stranger himself didn't really believe what he just said; he just said it to slap up Joel's emotions--
keep him awake. And, BINGO! The boy suddenly straightened up as if high-powered electrodes
had goosed his back muscles.
_____"Wha...!" BURP! What do...YOU know about pretty girls?" asked Joel. He tried wiping
his mouth to clear his speech. Then he leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Tell me. What the
fuck can I do to... You know... Get her. I want her. How do I get the pretty girl? Right now,
she's being a bitch! She HAS to love me..."
_____"Well now!" said the stranger. He gave an exaggerated look around the bar. No one was
looking over here, of course. "You have such mean words for the young lady who has captured
your attention! I said that pretty girls could be cruel, but I did not mean ALL of them." He leaned
forward and spoke in a lower tone. "But just between you and me, from one man to another, I'd
say that I have discovered all of the meanest pretty girls just need the right kind of treatment. Like
this beautiful Lissette of yours. Secret, SPECIAL treatment."
_____"REALLY? TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" Joel got up and nearly stumbled atop the table.
Heads turned to look over here. "TELL ME HOW TO GET HER!" He shook with excitement, his
normally well-groomed dark hair was now loose and unkempt.
_____"Joel, be calm. You are drawing attention to yourself!" said the stranger, smiling. "It's a
secret, remember?" The stranger then gave an exaggerated wink. "Now just sit back down, and
I will tell you all about it."
_____"I hear you," said Joel. Burp! He slumped back down in his seat and shook his head,
slapped himself in the face--had to sober up to hear what the man was going to say. "Okay,
okay... I'm listening!" His voice went up a few notches, but he kept it under control.
_____Ah, yes... I've got you now, boy! "It is rather easy, Joel. You have to relate to her in a way
that relates to what she does. I know that she is a computer spy, a 'hacker.' Now tell me more. You
must tell me more before I can give further advice."
_____Just then, a certain look flickered on Joel's eyes. It was a look of clear worry and hesitation.
The look cut through all the drunkenness and the confusion that filled his head. Then the clarity
began to fade--sinking beneath the waves of intoxication again.
_____He blinked a few times, and the clarity was gone. "M-maybe I'm not supposed to tell you
some things. E-everybody knows about th' Parasol Club. 'Cept strangers..." HICCUP! "Wait a
minute... Are YOU a s-s-stranger?"
_____"What, ME? What ever do you mean?" The dark-clad stranger feigned shock. "Why
I'm your friend! I'm someone you trust, right? If I WAS a stranger, you would not have been
holding a conversation with me right now."
_____Still, Joel held back. He was now in a quiet stupor. Head tilted downward, he regarded the
dark-clad cyborg. Something was still wrong here. Something at the back of his mind was telling
him to shut up and run away.
_____"What's wrong? Have some more red wine, Joel," said the stranger. He reached forward,
gently pulled Joel's drinking glass across the table and nearly filled the glass. "It is very good stuff.
And it is good for digestion, be your insides real or artificial. It will let you swallow anything."
Indeed, it will even let you swallow the God-damned lies I tell you!
_____"Thanks..." Hiccup! Joel took back his glass and had himself some more of the red liquid.
Was it really wine? It tasted more like wine cooler, but sweeter. He drank down the entire glass
and another rush of comfortable warmth filled him. Why did he just insult his new friend here?
Insulting friends was wrong. The cyborg couldn't be a stranger, someone from outside of this sector.
Strangers didn't give good advice and good wine. Well, Joel would have to remember to ask the
guy where he got the red wine. He never had such good stuff. Oh yeah, this was damned good
stuff, even better than the shipments of locally-made wine that was supposed to head for Zalem.
_____"I would surely forgive you if you told me about this girl of yours. Or rather, the girl you
wish to have." He paused. "You can HAVE her, Joel. She can be all yours, like a replicant
servant to you deepest...personal desires." He smirked, but drunken Joel just saw it as a smile.
"She may seem fiercely independent, but all she needs is a good man to come along to subvert her
will." The stranger was barely able to keep himself from laughing aloud at what he was saying.
But the boy was JUST SO GULLIBLE! "And it all depends on how much you can tell me about
what she does. What you do with her. Because the more I know, the better I can help you..."
_____"Do you really mean it?" said Joel. All the while, there was this feeling at the back of
his mind. Something still irked him about this guy in dark clothes. But that feeling was all clouded
over with drunkenness. It was an irritation at the edge of his mind.
_____The irritation was like a casually dressed midget far and away, deep back within the foggy
mist of his drunken mind, telling him to stop! But that imaginary well-dressed midget of
consciousness was no match for the mind-clouding might of this special red wine. Nor was that
imaginary midget any match for the thought of having Lissette naked and into bed.
_____Why the HELL was he thinking about a midget? Hmmph, must be this wine... HICCUP!
He hoped there was nothing but alcohol in this stuff. No telling sometimes what they put in some
drinks around here. Snore.
_____"As I was saying..." he heard the stranger say. Then everything lapsed into deep red waves
of comfort. Joel's whole world was all swimming in happy warmth and bliss. He heard a low wind
blowing through, pleasant and seductive...
_____Whoa! This damned good wine must have knocked him out for a few seconds. Joel had to
tell that darkly dressed man about the Parasol Club. This, as so the guy could tell him how to get
Lissette. "This is h-how we get things done," he began. "Y'see, the Network may have a SMART
mega-computer thing runnin' it. However..." He raised a wavering, drunken right hand, finger
pointing up. "It's s-security isn't worth SHIT! Heh-heh-heh... I said shit. Y-you HEARD me?
Shit-shit-shit-shit-shit-shit..." BURP!
_____"I have heard you," said the stranger. "Such language from a young man of your bearing!
Anyway, please go on. What were you saying about Network security? What do you do about it?"
_____Now THIS conversation was getting good. He suspected something like this for some
time, but here was this drunken boy telling him outright. It was one thing to suspect something, and
it was another thing to hear the truth. Here it was, sitting here in the form of a drunk person.
_____"So it's just so damn' easy to jus'..." HICCUP! "Jus' set up some servers an' get to h-h-hacking!
We crack Network security like frozen ice on top of... What was I sayin'?" His head swayed and
his eyes wandered, as if he could find his train of thought floating around the bar's tables. "Oh
YEAH..." He gulped some more wine. Burp! "An' to get 'round the REST of the butt-crack
security, we jus' use some s-special sof'... Software we made our own damn selves. Some of it,
we just--heh-heh--borrowed from some Deckmen. 'Course, the Deckmen won't miss it b'cause
we broke 'em."
_____"Ve-e-ery interesting," said the stranger. Just interesting? Hell, this was SWEET information--
getting increasingly sweeter by the second. Using Deckmen software to break through Network
security, now who would have thought that? Who would have thought that the ignorant masses
down here on the planet's surface had brains enough to pull a trick like that?
_____"An' we got bi-i-g computers," said Joel. He threw out his arms as if he could show that
stranger how big the computers were--nearly made him fall out of his chair. "Really, r-r-really big.
I mean, we prob'ly have got the biggest fucking machines in the whole damn sector. Bigger than
any machine in the whole city!" Hiccup! "But you wanna know wha' the bes' part is?"
_____"Really? What is it?" The stranger refilled Joel's glass, the metal hand gleaming in the bar's
lighting as the sparkling red wine splashed into the glass. Go on, boy. Spill your secret. That, as
so I may spill your guts. Empty your head of secrets--so I can chop it off and sell it!
_____"Wanna know where we keep our hacking computers? In s-s-ecret places. We got
SE-E-ECRET labs. Undergroun'! Most nobody knows where they are," he said.
_____Uh oh... Now that damned imaginary midget at the back of his mind was acting up again,
really yelling up a storm. He wasn't sure what that imaginary midget was saying, but it had
something to do with cinnamon oatmeal and giving away secrets. Some crazy stuff like that.
_____The stranger took out a notepad and a pen. Had Joel been sober, he would have noticed that the
pen was made by a company that was dead and gone for a very long time. Sober, he would have noticed
all the peculiarities of the stranger. He would not have been telling the stranger anything in the first
place.
_____Too bad! The wine had Joel's lips more loose than a thief's moral code. So he told the
stranger the locations of the computer labs. There was one beneath two night clubs. Oh, and there
was one in the converted basement of a certain restaurant. Another one was in a modified
sewer-room near the arena in this sector. There were more...
_____"Thank you," said the dark-clad stranger. "Thank you very much. You cannot know just
how helpful you have been to me and my pursuits. Were it not for you, I would not have known
where to look for your criminal friends and their destructive actions against the network."
_____"Now you can tell me how to get Lissette," said Joel. "Wha' do I do? Try an' ask her out
the next time I go to the lab? Do I brin' her to a club an' dance with her? TELL ME!" Now he
was going to get it.
_____"You will have Lissette--in your dreams," said the stranger. He pocketed the strange pen
and notepad, putting them into his dark leather jacket. "You won't have to worry about dreams
anymore, though. In fact... You won't have to worry about anything, anymore."
_____"What the HELL are you talking about?" blurted Joel. Then his eyesight became covered
over with a deepening red mist. He shook his head to try and clear it, instead fell to the floor. He
heard the imaginary midget screaming and banging on a table.
...
_____He was a fool to trust the stranger! Why didn't he LISTEN? But the imaginary little man
soon went quiet. And then came the singing. It was the singing of a woman in white gown, lilting
and sweet--such a sad song. It was almost as if she was crying. Joel felt himself going down and
away, into the darkness where the singing woman waited. He had never met her before, but now
he would.
...
_____"Poor bastard. He must have had too much to drink," said the dark stranger to the others
in this bar. He got up from his seat and walked around to where Joel's body lay slumped on the
floor. The trouble with strange red wine was that the stuff killed human brains. It made
people tell the most amazing secrets, like sodium pentathol, but was more powerful. Unlike
sodium pentathol, though, this special red wine could not be found anywhere on Earth.
_____Outside the bar, the poor bastard's dead body was soon in the trunk of the stranger's car--
a black Mustang convertible. Joel's internal organs would make a pretty decent dinner after the
dark-clad stranger had gotten back out of this sector of the city. And after he told his employers
about Joel, he would get a tidy sum for the head. So the dark car roared off into the city, flames
sputtering from the tailpipe. The roar was deep and throaty, like the sound of a beast from Hell.
...
_____In the Other Place, the spotlight came on, and the Dream Woman was sitting at the table.
She put her small hands in her lap, waiting. But not for long. The delicate musculature of her neck
corded as she looked to the left--seeing the Janitor emerged from the surrounding darkness.
_____He had returned. Standing here, he carefully laid a cracked, empty bowl atop the table.
It was empty, but not clean: there was a reddish residue along the inner rim. The oatmeal was
gone from it, yet it left behind the cinnamon contamination.
_____She understood. Nodding to the Janitor, she then made a gesture to the bowl. It vanished,
faded off of the table. She knew that the cinnamon was becoming stronger. There was going to
be more of it. Cinnamon would darkened what was in more bowls.
_____Bowing once, the Janitor turned and again returned to the shadows. A door opened, and
he had left again. He still had work to be done. So long as Carbon was alive, the Dream Woman
would have the Janitor to do her bidding. The Janitor would continue to exist.
...
_____Sera's foot slammed right through the damaged abdominal armor of the cyborg. It had taken
her a good eighteen minutes of straight pummeling and dodging to weaken the bastard enough to
finish him off. To last that long despite being damaged meant she was getting good. Indeed, the
main reason she used kicks to finish him was because her right arm was damaged.
_____The massive crowd, all around, made a massive roar of sound! They not only shouted, but
they pumped their fists, whistled and stomped their feet. What a show! Oh HELL yeah, the
red-haired cyber-chick was GOOD! She could kick ass!
_____After the defeated cyborg was taken away, she stood in the ring with her left hand on a
hip--right arm hanging loose. The fight over, she took in a deep breath--the air in this ring smelling
all thick with smoke.
_____"Here ya go, babe!" said the manager-type, coming into the ring after the broken cyborg
was taken out. He had a lumpy bag in his left hand. "This has gotta be worth plenty. Heh-heh...
A nice little prize."
_____Sera turned and took the bag with her left. Her right arm feeling shaky, she had to fumble
a bit to open up the bag--which had credit-chips... But the credit chips were covering up something
else. Hmmph... Shaking the bag around revealed the head of someone familiar: the head of a cyborg
hit by a truck. Gale's head. Now she was sure that he was done; there was one more to go.
...
3.
...
_____Later that night, the executive's four-seater car approached the apartment complex where Sera
made her home. He was going this way anyway, so he was glad to give Mr. Yin's favorite cyborg a
ride home. Mr. Yin himself had to talk to some entertainment executives; he was probably going to
try and negotiate more pay for Sera. After all, she was good for a newbie.
_____Though the man in business suit tried small talk and congratulated her on a series of
fights--back-to-back victories--she was generally quiet. She kept her hands on the round bag in
her lap. Was she happy or sad? He couldn't tell because there was just the indirect lighting of the
streetlamps illuminating the inside of this car, and that long red hair of hers obscured her expression
from the side--hid her face from the driver's side.
_____He had to concentrate on driving, anyway. This wasn't like a few centuries back, when
cars could drive themselves. And back then, there were street signs and signal lights at streetcorners
to make driving somewhat safer. Not these days: Driving took a great deal more skill.
_____"Hey, thanks for the ride," she said, slinging her small purse over her left shoulder--taking up
the prize bag with her other hand. She then opened the car door and got out, began walking towards
the brightly lit front entrance of the building.
_____Good night to you too, thought the executive as he watched Sera walk away and getting
over to the foyer. Over in there was a bored-looking security guard. He opened the steel-and-glass
door for her as she walked in. If only the security guard knew what was in that bag she carried.
Oh well, that wasn't the executive's problem. He shifted the car's gearshift and drove off into the
city night.
...
_____Up the elevator and along the hall, she unlocked her apartment door and stepped in. Arm
raised, she flicked on the light and closed the door. Looked around... It was very quiet here in the
front room--the armchairs and couch unoccupied. Regardless of how many times she came back
here, she always expected people to be here, to welcome her back.
_____Of course she still missed her family! Damn it.... She sniffed, blinked, and walked over to
the armchair. The low coffee table in the middle of the room was the perfect place to set the prize
bag. (She wondered why they ever called it a coffee table. People never served coffee in their front
rooms these days...) Bag on the table, she opened it up and sat back in the armchair.
_____The cyborg-head now rested in a low pile of credit chips. And it, the head, just happened to
be positioned as so the eyes were staring in the direction of her armchair. Blue eyes in a middle-aged
face looked forward. They were still and unmoving eyes--the eyes of the dead. Funny thing about
synthetic faces: They looked "alive" even if the brain was dead.
_____You're dead, thought Sera. And if I had ever seen you again before that truck hit you, I
would have been more than glad to kick off your head myself. I can't have my family back, but I
can sure as Hell have your head on my table! Hell... HELL!
_____Sure...as...HELL! "Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...!" Sera found herself laughing aloud at the statement.
The dead, wide-open eyes continued to stare at her and had no response. She didn't care; at least
SHE thought it was funny. But the head just stared, stuck in an expression of surprise and fright.
_____She leaned back into the seductive comfort of the armchair, feeling obscenely sleepy. Darkness
and exhaustion began to close over her brain, shutting her down. There was something wrong with
falling asleep while staring into the eyes of a severed head. She just didn't know right now. Nor
could she care. The girl-cyborg was just too tired to care.
_____Gale's dead blue eyes stared at her, still wide open. And Sera felt herself being pulled into
that gaze. Everything else seemed to fade out as those eyes stared. Into the stare... The black
pupils in the blue eyes seemed to swallow everything.
...
_____Swish-swish-swish... A tired-faced man in bathrobe opened his apartment door enough to
poke his head out. It was barely sunrise. Why was the cleaning crew at work so early? Though
the sound of the broom was gentle, it still managed to get his attention. He looked to the right,
saw someone in blue coveralls and cap.
_____The Janitor was in the hallway, coming in this direction with that broom of his. Swish-swish
swish... His presence in the hall was as much audible as it was visible. As he came by, there was
the sound of his broom brushing the floor. It was the sound of the Janitor at work... Swish-swish-
swish.
_____Staring, that man in the bathrobe watched the Janitor go by. The sound, it was a rhythmic
and whispery sort of sound--that gentle swish-swish-swish of the broom. Swish-swish-swish went
the broom. Oddly enough, the Janitor's broom wasn't on the floor at all...
_____For some reason, this frightened the man in the bathrobe. If the man with the broom wasn't
making that sweeping sound, then where was it coming from? What was going on here?
_____Swish-swish-swish... The Janitor walk past his door. The man in the bathrobe stared,
dumbfounded, as the Janitor continued to walk along the hallway. Then he was gone, a breeze
blowing through the hallway. Even after the Janitor had gone, the man in the bathrobe stayed there
for a very long time.
...
_____The sky changed color. It went from red-edged sunrise to bright blue morning. Sera's
body was still in the front room of her apartment, not in the bedroom. Then her body stirred as
she returned to consciousness. It took a little while as her brain was just getting started. As only
her brain needed sleep, she shouldn't have had to be unconscious all night. What was wrong with
her?
_____She had fallen asleep staring into those dead eyes. Oh yeah... She had a dark and terrible
nightmare. Awful, horrible. Lingering thoughts from it troubled her. Was it ever a good idea to
sleep with a severed head on a table?
_____It had changed, too--the head. Sera stood up and knelt down in front of the low table. The
head was very different now, radically changed. Instead of rugged synthetic flesh on the face, it was
now shriveled and blackened, tightened onto the metal skull. Charred. The hair had soot in it and
smelled like smoke. And the artificial eyeballs were clouded with damage. A clear, colored liquid
had seemed from the nose and ears. It smelled... cooked.
_____It was just a dream, wasn't it? A nightmare? The nightmare was about being in a dark
place, standing at a door. There was fire on the other side of the door, she knew. Why had she
been laughing in that dark place, laughing while someone burned? How did the head burn?
_____"This isn't happening," she said aloud. "That wasn't real." Her voice sounded painfully loud
in the quiet of her apartment. The neighbors in the adjacent apartments were most all off to work
by now. Other than some stragglers and the maintenance crew, this building was almost empty of
people.
_____This damned severed head was trouble, she knew. She knew Gale was dead, so there was
nothing to do but toss his now-charred head down the waste disposal. And she needed a drink,
something strong. None in her apartment's kitchen, though--nothing in there but some glucose-rich
snacks in the cabinets, with some glasses she used for water.
_____She went over to the door that led to the apartment's bathroom. There she showered her
metal body and silky red hair. There had been some dark smudges on her face, which washed
off too. Her day purse was still in the front room, along with that damned charred cyborg-head.
She would get both before leaving her apartment.
...
_____Some time later, she was out and away from her apartment. She was now at one of several
local clubs--a table to herself and a tall drink in front of her. Earlier, Sera had dumped that
charred--and quite smelly--cyborg head into a trash can in an alley somewhere. She didn't even
remember where; she just got rid of it. And she planned to never again get into a staring contest with
dead eyes again.
_____She had kept the money from the prize-bag. Or should she have called it a head-bag? The bag
had looked an awful lot like factory sacks those bounty hunters use in other sectors of the city: white
in color, with a tie-off sort of top.
_____Mmm.... She sipped. This was good bourbon. Though she lost the privilege of enjoying
most physical comforts, she could still enjoy the fiery taste and warm feeling of a good drink. And
it got her mind off of that head she had dumped.
_____Feeling vague and off-balanced by the drinks she had consumed, she saw things in a sort of
daze. So the sudden influx of fleshies and cyborgs in business suits and work clothes was
something of a surprise. They came in through the front entrance, sitting down at tables and going
over to the drinking bar itself. Wow, it must be the afternoon already.
_____Had she been here that long? She wondered that, wondering while a great deal of activity
was going on around her. The hustle-and-bustle sound of a fresh lunchtime crowd was all around
as they ordered food and drinks from the waiters and waitresses.
_____What was the hurry? Sera didn't seem much of one. She had all damned DAY to do a
lot of nothing! She should probably call Mr. Yin this afternoon to see what was up with whatever
was planned for tonight's match. Something like that. Not that she cared right now. Why did she
care?
_____Why did ANYBODY care? Another gulp of her drink, and she looked at the business-types
sitting at the table next to hers. "Why do you care? Why does ANYONE care about ANYTHING?"
she asked aloud, somehow keeping her voice from slurring. "And why all the rush and hurry?"
_____"Don't you know?" said one of the cyborgs in expensive businesswear. He glanced past
Sera, then went back to talking to his three comrades. He had treated Sera as if she didn't know
anything.
_____She leaned forward and dipped her head enough to put her mouth down near the glass.
"Hmmph..." she said into the glass. Then up tilted her head, up tilted her glass--tipping more of her
drink down her mouth and down her throat, the liquid going into her body. The alcohol getting to
her brain.
_____Then everything went quiet, a glow coming from one end of this restaurant. Everyone had
had hushed. Sera set down her drink and looked to her right. A stage. There was a curtained
STAGE over there, and she hadn't even noticed. A blue spotlight shone onto the stage.
_____The sound of high-heels clicking came as the singer stepped out from behind the curtain.
She was thin and dark-haired, dressed in a sleeveless black satin gown--low cut. It exposed a
lot of her milk-toned skin. When her large eyes looked to the crowd, they sparkled green. They
were the most dreamy and wonderful eyes Sera had ever seen.
_____But the singer closed those jewel-like eyes of hers. Sera almost wanted to beg for her to
open them again! Just so beautiful... Then the music began--the notes of a sad piano and electric
organ. Both were probably pre-recorded. Yet the singer's voice was real--incredibly real. The
young cyborg could hear the voice coming directly from the singer and from the speakers attached
to the microphone. Beautiful singing...
WHEN... When all the world fa-a-lls
And when... When you are here
There's a glow ju-u-ust li-i-ike the stars
I hear a distant voice
Listen. LISTEN...
I DREAM, I dream of STAR-LIGHT
I dream, I dream of you-u-u
There's a glow just like the sun
I hear a distant voice
Listen... LISTEN!
I hear the VOICE
I hear the VOICE
I her the voice...of lo-o-o-ve...
_____The singer bowed her head, and the instrumentation faded off. This crowd was stunned
silent before they let loose with much applause. Sera was herself too stunned to clap herself. Sera
could feel sadness welling within, and it was getting hard for her to breathe. Sobbing, the young
cyborg waved over a waitress, set a few credit chips atop the table, then got up to leave as that
waitress approached.
_____There were no tears from Sera's eyes, yet she was racked with sobs. The pain of misery was
just so deep, too deep. It was like a blade in her chest. The sound from within the singer was just
too beautiful for Sera to take right now--music so beautiful that it hurt.
...
4.
...
_____She was not hurting as much as Joel was hurting at the moment. Well, not hurting as much
as Joel's BODY. Joel was beyond worldly pain now. It was high afternoon, and his corpse was
in bad shape, having been jammed into the trunk of the low black-painted car. Worse was how it
shifted and bounced around in the trunk when the vehicle was in motion. It wasn't the streets to
blame for the jarring and unstable ride: it was the driver. Because there was so little traffic on the
road, the dark-clad stranger had an excuse to drive like a madman. He turned corners with tires
squealing. This made for a clumsy THUMP at ever sharp turn as the dead body shifted and
flopped about in the trunk.
_____Worse yet, the dead meat was beginning to stink. Black is a color that eats sunlight and
turns it to heat, so the black-painted trunk of the black car was pretty warm; it made the body
pretty ripe an hour into the drive through the city streets. And, damn it, even driving with the
windows open couldn't stop the stench.
_____The dark-clad stranger wasn't much of a fan of bathing, being metal-bodied and not needing
to wash, but he didn't like people who stank. The stink also meant that his dinner was getting
spoiled. He should have packed some ice or something into the trunk....
_____Hmmph. One of these days, he was going to install cooling units into his trunk: great for
packing beer or bodies. It would have come in especially handy on this drive. Yeah, the cooling
would have kept the stink from starting!
...
_____He slowed down into a residential area, brown-bricked apartment buildings all around.
There were plenty of fleshie kids in ragged clothes, running around and doing whatever: playing
with broken appliances and what-not on sidewalks and in vacant lots, along with some dirty dogs
that probably ate trash. In general, they were just hanging around and making noise. It took a
little effort for the dark-clad stranger to suppress the urge to veer his vehicle and ride along the
sidewalk--running over some of those skinny, scraggly brats.
_____All children were vermin to him, big rats with human skin. They were randomly scattered
all over the place: on sidewalks, on front stoops... Hmm, yes, maybe he would take out a spare
day and start running some over. Right now, he had to deal with the stink of the dead body...somehow.
He turned his car into a pretty wide alley--which had trash and fleshie kids in it. Trash, fleshie kids,
what's the difference?
_____The kids ran as soon as the dark stranger out of his vehicle. He was probably one of those
"crazies" their parents and local adults told them about. You know, the kind of cyborg that
goes nuts and starts killing human kids. He'll probably try to eat us. So let's get out of here!
_____"Run, vermin..." he muttered, watching the kids run. Yes, was a pretty good and wide alley.
Not only did he have enough room to open his car door and walk out, he also had enough room to
walk around back and open up the car trunk. He thumped it a certain way, and the mechanism
popped open.
_____Disgusting... What a terrible stink! The dead body really looked dead now--limbs bent
every which ways from the driving, a deadpan look on the face. Ha, deadpan! Get it? Smirking
despite the smell, he put his hands on his hips. What to do, what to do, what to do...? Then the
solution hit him as hard as the stench.
_____Stupid, stupid, stupid! HE DIDN'T NEED THE BODY! All he needed was the head! So
he fumbled about in the trunk and found the bonesaw. Left hand gripping the bonesaw, he used
his right hand to grab the body by the head of hair and... Alley-oop! He yanked the body out
the trunk, dropped it to the alleyway pavement. Still gripping the head, he began sawing into the
rubbery flesh of the neck.
_____It didn't take long. He took the shirt off the now-headless body to catch some of the blood
dripping from the head's neck-stump. He closed the trunk. "Well, dead-head," he said to the
severed head, "It looks like you and I are still going to continue our little road trip--body or none."
Carried the shirt-bandaged head over to the driver's side and leaned in enough to shove the head
into the glove compartment.
_____The glove compartment WAS equipped with a refrigeration device to keep bounty heads
cool and relatively fresh. You see, he had thought of THAT some time ago. The glove compartment
was metal-lined and big enough to hold cold meat-snacks (whatever that meat may be) and bounty
heads...
_____Wait just a second. He had the feeling that he was being watched. The dark-clad stranger
could sense when people were nearby, a well-developed sense. So he stepped back out of the
car and looked around. Damn kids! They were spying on him from the alleyway entrance.
_____The cyborg still had the bonesaw with him when he stepped out of his car and began walking
towards the back of the vehicle, where the body still way. Crouching, he cut off the dead body's hands
and feet--shoes still on the feet. Then he set the bonesaw atop the car trunk and stood, holding a severed
hand in one hand and a severed foot in the other.
_____"Hello, kiddies!" he shouted, voice getting louder. "Let's play FOOTBALL! Get it?
FOOT...BALL! AAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA..." He leaned back with one arm back, then
let loose an awesome throw.
_____Swish... THUMP! He had hurled the severed foot, hitting one of the kids over there. A
skinny, raggedy boy was knocked onto his back--wide-eyed with fear. It was more emotional
shock than physical shock, his eyes wide open as he sat up and looked at the foot.
_____"You poor kids could use a hand..." added the dark-clad stranger. He leaned back, an
exaggerated and wide-eyed grimace on his face--leaning back with left arm cocked as if he was
going to throw a ball. Except, in this case, the "ball" so happened to be Joel's right hand.
_____The kids helped up their fallen comrade and made a run for it. They didn't want to end up
like that guy who was in the trunk! He was dead and headless, all chopped up now! The
grown-ups were right; the crazies WERE out to kill fleshies.
_____That little incident done, the stranger in dark clothes wiped the bonesaw on the corpse's
pants-leg and put the tool back in the trunk. He stepped into his car, closed the door shut, and
maneuvered out of the alley--meaty crunchings sounds coming as his car wheels drove over the
body. Out of the alley and on the road, he turned right and continued his drive.
...
_____He passed several intersections when he began talking to the severed head in the glove
compartment. "There's nothing quite like an afternoon drive in the city," said the dark-clad
stranger aloud. "Oh, don't be such a stiff. You can talk to me..." He glanced over at the glove
compartment before slowing down at the next corner: Trucks were passing. This sector of
outlaws must have a pretty well-developed local economy, shipping all of those goods around.
_____Stopped at this intersection, he had that feeling again, being watched. He looked to the
right, looking through the rolled-down car window. The Janitor was standing on the sidewalk,
right hand on his broom. It looked as if he was going to do something.
_____The dark stranger forced himself to look away. Though slightly frightened, he deliberately
put on a smirk. "Guess what, head? It seems that there is someone in this sector from...somewhere
else! But, oh-h-h... Don't you worry! He won't be able to get me. I know the rules!"
_____Good, the intersection was now clear--the trucks done passing. He lowered his foot on the
accelerator and drove on. There was the sound of his car's engine rumbling along the city road, the
wind whipping through the open windows as he continued his ride, driving along the hot road. He
saw the occasional cyborg and gaggle of kids along the way.
_____And he saw the Janitor again. He slowed his vehicle and eyed the guy in blue coveralls and
hat, the broom set to the sidewalk. He was looking right at the Janitor, and the Janitor was looking
right back at him--head slowly turning as this dark car went on by.
_____This was disturbing, physically and mentally. Seeing him gave the dark-clad stranger a cold
feeling within his artificial chest. For a being like the Janitor to appear in full daylight meant that
something had gone very wrong in this sector.
_____But the dark-clad stranger was prepared. Just as he had senses strong enough to detect his
bounty and sense people nearby, he also had sense enough to be prepared against the likes of the
oddball in blue coveralls. "Oh yes," he said aloud. "I've got just the thing for you, my creepy
blue-wearing friend..."
_____A friend? No, a fiend! He took a hand off the steering wheel and hit a switch near the
dashboard radio. Instead of the noisy prattle of the local radio stations, there was a different sort
of sound altogether: a low hum coming from the car's hood. It was the sort of sound made as the
strange machine turned on. (The damned thing must have had a name; it was just that the dark
stranger never bothered to remember it.)
_____But it wasn't a good idea to just ride around with the strange machine activated all the time.
The problem with using the strange machine was that it sucked so much energy from the car's
electrical system. And, it caused him a headache.
_____The hum wasn't what gave him the headache. It was something else generate by the machine.
And the dark stranger wasn't exactly how the thing worked. Oh, it snagged the fabric of reality or
something illegal like that. He had obtained the device from some abandoned laboratory somewhere-
once run by someone named Dr. Nova.
_____The headache meant that the thing was working. It made the dark-clad stranger uncomfortable,
but the discomfort would be six times worse for the Janitor if he were to try and follow this vehicle!
The stranger had to be careful: That fiend with the broom would probably be extra sure to get him
if he turned off the strange machine while still in this sector, because nobody was supposed to have a
strange machine like the one in the trunk. Nobody.
_____Whatever! As far as the dark-clad stranger cared, it worked. It kept that creep in blue
coveralls out of sight and out of mind. For the rest of the ride, he didn't see that Janitor any more.
It was worth the double price of headache and possible car trouble.
...
_____It was getting late into the afternoon by the time he drove out of the sector run by Feng-Long.
There was no exact transition between that sector and the rest of the urban landscape, but there was
a difference. There were fewer people--fleshie or cyborg--out walking the streets. More people
were at work in the factories, working later. The buildings were a bit grittier, though still standing.
And there were fewer vehicles on the roads, a lot less traffic. Overall, things were a lot more
practical and organized when the Network runs things: people at work, factories humming, and the
city was one great big machine. All the people and all the automations were parts.
_____And that was the way things were under Network control. Thank God for that great big
computer up in the floating City of Zalem! It ran the factories and gave bounty hunters great
rewards for keeping the worthless masses under control, keeping the ignorant masses from doing
such counter-productive things as destroying industrial property and killing each other.
_____His big black vehicle stopped right in front of the gigantic white building that served as a
Network headquarters. It was a massive structure, stretching up over forty stories to the sky and
taking up three blocks of space. Most of the building's space was occupied by computer-machines
and Deckmen, keeping things running: a cybernetic bureaucracy.
_____Having parked, he turned off his car--was glad to power down the strange machine in the
hood, stopping the headache. A metal hand to the refrigerated glove compartment, and he took
out Joel's cooled head. Lifting it to eye level, he said, "Here we are, head! This is where you get
dropped off and where I get paid for my services to the Network." Then he stepped out of the
vehicle and walked up to the entrance of the mountainous building, carrying Joel's head by the
hair.
...
_____First inside was a gleaming white-and-gray foyer, a cube-shaped room. A reception Deckman
was set behind a desk, like a kind of man-sized appliance. Like most Deckman, that one was a
metal cylinder four feet in height--with big rubbery cheeks and lips near the top, round black
cameras for "eyes."
_____"Good afternoon, Mr. Stranger!" went the Deckman's tinny voice. Its big blubbery rubber
lips flexing as it spoke. "I see that you have brought a head! Are you here on bounty business?"
_____Having human brain parts integrated into Deckmen made them smarter than most machines.
But they were still machines. And machines lacked common sense at times. Machines were more
reliable than people, yet they lacked sense sometimes.
_____"That is exactly it, my highly electromechanical friend," answered the dark-clad stranger.
He hefted the head. "And THIS is sure to be worth something." Walking closer, he asked, "Is
the bounty supervisor available?" Nowadays, it was better to ask instead of just trying to walk in.
_____"Yes, the bounty supervisor is available," answered the Deckman. "However, please be advised
that some technical difficulties are present within the Network and is leading to intermittent
interruption of operation. Rest assured that these technical difficulties are being addressed."
_____The dark-clad stranger frowned, his leather jacket creaking as his shoulders slumped. "Yes,
understood. I hear you. At least the Deckman is operational, you say. You are operational, still."
_____Hmm... This continued news of Network problems worried him. There was talk going
around about problems in Zalem. But those were probably just minor technical woes. Yet Zalem
was centuries old, as was the mega-computer that ran it. It would continue... Right?
_____"For access to the bounty supervisor, please step into the left hallway and go into the sixth
door on the left," said the Deckman. Part of the sectioned back wall slid aside, revealing a brightly
lit hallway beyond.
_____The dark-clad stranger walked past the Deckman-and-desk setup, walking into that
hallway. He knew where the bounty supervisor's room was, having been here plenty of times. The
metal door on the left slid opened up and into a metal-lined room: metal floor, metal walls, and a
metal counter-top--with a Deckman installed in it. "Please enter, hunter," went this Deckman--a
slightly deeper voice than that of the receptionist Deckman.
_____He did, stepping inside. "I have here the head of an unregistered fleshie. The head of a
cyber-criminal!" he said, voice echoing off the metal walls. "Our suspicions were correct. A group
of computer spies, also known as 'hackers,' are responsible for disconnecting an entire sector from
Zalem's control."
_____"If that is true, then analysis of the brain will serve as evidence," answered the bounty
Deckman. "The analysis of the brain will be especially effective if you have kept the head refrigerated
to reduce breakdown of the neurochemicals."
_____"Ha-ha... That I have, my friend," he said. He stepped up to the counter, and a thick round
tray opened up. He set the head there. The edges of the thick tray closed and gripped the head.
This tray setup was connected to a motorized metal rod that began lifting it up to a circular hole in
the wall--where heads were deposited...
_____What? That motorized tray stopped halfway to the wall. It was held up in the air, with the
heady payload stuck there. Lights flickered, and the bounty supervisor made some odd chittering
noises. Its lips flexed as if it was trying to say something.
_____There was a whirring sound, and then the head-tray resumed its movement towards the
head-deposit hole in the wall. "I apologize for the interruption in service," said the bounty Deckman.
"That was a slight malfunction. Please be assured that the interruption in Network operation was
just a temporary glitch. Now, here is your preliminary reward!" A big sack of credit-chips raised
up out of the counter. "More will be given if the computer hacker theory is proven by the analysis
within the head. If not, and analysis of the head disproves your theory, then you yourself will be
declared a common murderer and will have a bounty on your own head. Have a nice day!"
_____Taking up the sack of cash, the dark-clad stranger smirked. That would be pretty damned
ironic: a bounty hunter ending up with a bounty on himself. And the Deckman said it in such a
non-threatening, cheerful manner: a threat with a smile. "You have a nice day too, Deckman-036,"
answered the dark-clad stranger.
...
_____After a telephone call, he walked out of the massive building--the sack of credit-chips slung
over his shoulder like a small laundry bag of wealth. He set down the bag and leaned against the
white wall, holding the sack loosely. Waiting...
_____Some time later, he turned his lead left, looking at the trio walking in this direction: two
males and a female. All three of them had their own style of outfit. Uniqueness was part of bounty
hunter pride.
_____The female cyborg was somewhat on the short side, a pert face and shoulder-length green
hair. Her metal body was clad in red jeans and red leotard top. "Hey there, Stranger!" she said.
"We got your message. So what's up? Are we gonna RAID the sector or what?"
_____"If suicide is your game, then go on ahead," answered the dark-clad stranger. He saw a
look of wide-eyed shock come to her face. "Sorry, Mai. Let me explain. That sector is better-organized
than you would believe. They have a full-blown setup, run by an entire criminal organization."
_____The taller male bounty hunter shrugged. This one wore a trench coat and fedora, had a
gruff attitude. "Hell, that doesn't sound like much of a problem! We just call on the rest of the
bounty hunters in other areas. You said that the Network was willing to post PLENTY of
bounties for this deal. We can get as much help as we need. Know what I'm sayin'?"
_____Hmmph... Funny he should mention Hell, thought the dark-clad stranger. He spoke to the
tall cyborg wearing the trench coat and fedora. "That's quite an attitude, Stevedore. But attitude
alone won't help you against what's in that sector. I should also tell you that they have their own
anti-bounty hunter force, as well as a mysterious stranger on their side."
_____"Why are YOU scared?" asked Mai. "I thought you were good at dealing with mysterious
stuff! You could just do some weird things and get rid of him... Right?" She looked around as if
she expected something to come out of nowhere and get her. The dark-clad stranger had told
her--or tried to tell her--about people who weren't quite people, about people who were not quite
from around here.
_____He answered. "Let's just say that this mysterious stranger is pretty strong at the moment. It
would be best if we waited this one out a little. Wait until the coast is clear." He enjoyed seeing
puzzlement come to their faces; they had never heard that saying before.