If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today. --E. Joseph Cossman
Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light? --Laughing Bull
If fate means you to lose, give him a good fight anyhow. --Spike Spiegel
Supposing you have tried and failed again and again. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call "failure"
is not the falling down, but the staying down. --Faye Valentine
-
"Bang..."
"Saw it, saw it. Saw the light."
"And then Spike Spiegel died..."
"Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that's been our unifying cry, 'More light.' Sunlight. Torchlight. Candlelight. Neon, incandescent lights that banish the darkness from our caves to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldier's Field. Little tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we're supposed to be asleep. Light is more than watts and footcandles. Light is metaphor. Light is knowledge, light is life, light is light."
"I saw that light."
"I screwed it up..."
"Died after fight with Vicious?"
"Nah, I was death long before, she killed me, you know, broke my heart..."
"But now its up to you, my dear self, to clean the things, to get the shape."
"And fail again..."
-
I woke up to the absolutely quiet apartment. What a dream... I said to myself.
The thing so annoying to woke me up, was the telephone. I took the phone in my hand.
"Spike, I've discovered a clue! But... uh..." Faye said excitedly, excitement vanished at the second sentence.
"But what?"
"Do you know that picture of you that's, on the dresser, the one with you in trench-coat in abandoned building? You were pretty angry when i took the photo. Then you looked sad again hands in pockets. On my way to work i found that coat, drenched in blood just before the tenement, searched through the pockets and found a piece of paper with phone number belonging to..."
"Who? Whose number is it." I asked trying to dig as much as I could about trench-coat.
"Julia." She took a very decent pause.
"The number is 555-5413." I wrote it down and line got dead. Huh?
My fingers got sweaty. Some of my buried memories. 5, Julia, 5, why is that name, 5, still deep inside of me,-5413.
The phone was answered at the third ring by a woman with an agreeable, well known voice, what said.
"Hello, Mrs. Spiegel here."
I was momentarily at loss for words, and the woman asked.
"Who is this?"
"Spike..." I said.
The voice gasped as if I had just repeated her darkest secret. In the briefest of moments, she recovered.
"I must see you at once, there's much to explain, but you can't come here right now. The servants would recognize you, and they'll probably call the police. Wait a half-hour, and I'll give the servants a few hours off. You'll find me at the Dakota on the corner of Park West and 72nd street. Tell the guard at the door you want to see Colby. Do you need money?"
"Yes." I said somehow uninterested.
"I'll bring what I can scrape together in the house. A thousand anyhow. Do hurry! I'm glad to hear your voice, take care." She hanged up before I could get in another word. I laid the receiver.
My path there took thirty minutes.
There was the Dakota, a nine-story jumble of dirty yellow brick, trimmed with dirtier terra cotta. The trim was black in the steeply gabled upper stories, tan at street level. Hell could not have a less inviting entrance than great gate house on 72nd Street, where elderly uniformed guard regarded me distrustfully. The subway entrance here was closed. A sing directed me to another entrance at 71st. Where I came from. I walked into the gatehouse.
"Stop right there," The guard advised me, as I stepped into the shadow of the tunnel entrance. "Visitors have to be announced. Who are you here to see?"
"Colby." I answered the name from the phone call.
"And your name?"
"Spiegel." I replied to his question.
The guard darted into a kind of a sentry box, where I could see him speaking on a phone. He returned and grudgingly let me enter the Dakota.
"Its Apartment 44." He said and gave me directions.
I crossed the inner courtyard to the building's northeast tower-block, and after waiting for an elevator that clicked and buzzed but never arrived, I mounted a long staircase. By the time I reached the third floor, I was breathing hard. I paused beside the open doorway of a vacant apartment that someone painted, then continued up to the fourth floor when I've caught my breath. I entered apartment 44. Before me was a Chinese table supporting a large yellow ginger jar. To my right was a partly opened double doorway from which bright light spilled into the hallway. To my left was another door. I took right. I was in a room decorated with money - not in its raw form, but in fabric and wood equivalents. A few spindly antique chairs were aswim on a swirling sea of Persian carpeting. The wood-paneled walls were a hymn to money declaring itself spent, and four chandeliers hanged from the ceiling with the same purpose in mind. All sense of individuality or personality was scrupulously avoided. A bank lobby could not be more completely consecrated to its own inordinate expense. Through a doorway concealed in the wood paneling a woman entered the room.
"Spike," She said. "My husband! At last we meet. You look quite well."
I looked at the woman who said she was my wife. She was beautiful, there was no getting around the fact. It was a beautiful that had nothing to do with character. It was not her eyes, or grace, or warmth. She was beautiful the way the sky is blue or blood is red. She reached into the concealed bar and pulled out a small, sleek automatic pistol which she pointed at the center of my chest. Smiling she said.
"So my dear husband, we're together again. It's so nice of you to drop over like this when we'd lost all track of you and just didn't know where to look. I've invited a few people to help us celebrate our reunion. Sit back and relax while we wait for them."
"Shit..." I mumbled to myself and sat.
"First, of course, there are the other women in your life. Alison, your ex-servant. Tell me, why didn't you marry the poor pathetic creature?"
"Huh?" I didn't know who Alison was.
"I told her you would never go along with her ridiculous scheme - but I hoped you might, since otherwise how were we to get around killing you? She does love you in her own misguided way." Could she mean...
"Alison was the one who - at least temporarily - convinced us that rather than murder you, we should let you go to Ganymede as Mr. and Mrs. Cameron. That's why we put on our little drama at the Sunderland." She cut me off my thoughts.
"Since we failed to convince you, of course, we've had to return to our first plan, which is to kill you and pass it off as suicide."
I felt nothing in my heart, but Alice said I loved this woman.
Is love supposed to last throughout all time, or is it like trains changing at random stops. If I loved her, how could I leave her?
If I felt that way then, how come I don't feel anything now?
"Then, of course, there is your bounty hunter bitch - Faye, I believe her name is. I haven't invited her yet, but I think we should have her here,
don't you? Tell me, do you love her?"
But then when she said bitch, I almost laughed.
"Maybe..."
"Then you should be able, having loved at least once in your life, to face death with equanimity. Even nobility. So I've read. I couldn't tell you from personal experience."
She finished her martini, and looked up with an expression of polite interest, as though she were working at the information booth of a good department store.
"Would you like to pour some more drinks?" She asked.
Thats it!
Way out.
Get her drunk, run away.
"Yeah..."
"Oh yes, I'm an alcoholic. Alcoholics usually deny they're alcoholics, but I freely admit it."
Even better.
"Getting back to our party, the third guest is Luke, whom I'm sure you remember. He's a dreadfully coarse man and I've made it clear that I will not have anything to do with him once we've completed our undertaking - to prepare you, dear one, for the undertaker."
Shit, I forgot about the others.
"We thought he'd accomplished that little task back at the chapel in the Sunderland. But in any event, I'm sure we'll relish the opportunity to try again."
"So tell me, how did you get my number?"
"Faye told me."
Another plan formed in my mind.
I decided that perhaps telling Julia what she wanted to know would give me an opportunity to find some point of weakness, some detail I could use to persuade her that my murder wasn't necessary after all. I launched into the tale of my amnesial awakening at the Sunderland. She listened to my tale with growing impatience, and finally interrupted:
"That's all very fascinating, I'm sure, and it will make for an unusual autobiography. But tell it to your ghostwriter."
"Personally, I'm skeptical about your case. It seems so convenient. There are days when I'd like nothing better than to erase my past. But I must make do with this." She glanced down at her martini glass. Refilled it and looked admiringly around the expensive room.
"You really set me up in style and I thank you."
"You're welcome...?"
"You once said to me that my life seemed 'frivolous'. I think you meant that I didn't have a job. I still don't, and I don't want one. Why should I?
I have all the money I need, thanks to your unwitting generosity."
"The Dakota is a good address, through of course it's on the wrong side of the park. With what I can save by living here I can afford my little condo at Vail. It would be nice never to have to budget, but on the whole I can't complain." She took a sip of her martini and commented, "Most people fear too much vermouth, but I believe in a four-to-one ratio. Otherwise one might as well drink raw gin. Would you like another?"
"Everybody should believe in something... I believe I'll have another..."
I thought there was no chance, but I wanted at least know what happened in that prison.
"So what happened, my memory is little screwed." I asked when I put it all together.
"Poor darling. You look really confused."
"You really don't remember a thing, do you? Well, it's a familiar tale. Boy meets girl, boy woos girl, girl says yes, boy throws over girl. There,
however, our tale took a twist, since at the time you announced to me that Faye had taken over my position as your lover, you were officially in prison."
"Meaning Zane was. You were paying him some outrageous price to serve your time on a drug bust while you were enjoying yourself as John Cameron. When you gave me my walking papers, I packed my bag, flew down to Texas, and got married to my convict fiance. Zane was delighted to go along with the joke. After all, he was allowed a week's conjugal privileges."
"I might add that he was great in the sack, although that wouldn't concern you."
"I've wondered myself at what point Zane decided to escape. If he'd broken out before I flew down there and we got married, he could have returned to being himself, the police would have been looking for Spike Spiegel, and you'd never have been able to resume your real identity or inherit the Spiegel's fortune."
Something inside me laughed again.
"Fortune, probably the change..." I said, but she took no pause in her monologue.
"But then I showed up, and we struck our deal. If I became Mrs. Spiegel, I could inherit as your next-of-kin. That's assuming, of course, that you'd be dead. Zane felt it'd be easy to manage your 'suicide'. After he escaped we tracked you down through Alison, who was helping you while you were hiding." Then again, the fortune was her plan.
"Can you imagine the expression on her face when she opened the door and saw Zane and I standing there, with Luke leering behind us like some malnourished vulture?"
"..." I was speechless.
"You were off gallivanting around the city, and before you got home - fortunately for you - Alison persuaded us that, thanks to your convenient amnesial condition, she could not only solve our problem of the two Spike Spiegels, but provide us an even larger fortune in the process." Was I rich or something?
"She would acquire from you the formula for your Texas-style wonder-drug, which she would in turn pass along to us. She would persuade you to marry her, and, as Mr. and Mrs. Cameron, the two of you would cruise of our lives into the Ganymede sunset. And we - I - would persuade Luke and Zane to let you go."
"The poor thing thought she'd have you docile as a lamb in three or four days. After four weeks, you not only didn't know the formula for the drug, you still refused to marry her and exit gracefully, even when Luke threatened you at the hotel."
Julia fell silent for a moment and stared into her martini glass intently, as though it were a cup of tea-leaves with my fortune in it.
"Sometimes I do reproach myself for having taken the side of the bad guys in all this. You're obviously a NICER person than Zane, and usually as good or better a lay. My only excuse is self-interest."
"And I truly didn't want to have to kill you. The logic is, the situation simply requires it. Once Zane killed that guard during the escape, and Alison's plan failed, there were no other options."
"So I'm already in state of decay." Part of me wanted to laugh again.
"Another drink?" Julia asked once more.
I held my glass before her. She poured what was left of the martinis into the two glasses, and emptied her own glass with a gulp and a wince. I followed suit and drank my own.
"Now then, let's proceed to business."
"What the hell do you want? It seems much bigger than some fortune I don't have." I asked.
"We want the disc you stored in the strongbox at the Sunderland Hotel, and your help in reading it. We assume that on it, under various layers of your amnesial ponderings, we'll find the formula of the drug that caused your amnesia."
"What?"
"And what a wonder drug it is. Its commercial potentials are staggering. Think what it could do for prison reform. Or for victims of abuse or accidents."
My head started to pound.
"But I keep saying 'we' - and you don't yet know who 'we' all are. Let me introduce you, then, to an old friend you may have forgotten." She raised her voice: "Zane, you may come in now."
A man entered the room; I turned to look into the face of Zane Bester. I started to sweat, my heart raced. It was like looking into a mirror. He had his hair styled exactly like mine. His skin could be a shade paler, and his chin a bit slacker, but otherwise we might be identical twins. The crucial difference between the two of us at this moment, however, was the expression on our faces. His was a look of cruel amusement; mine, (though I couldn't see it, I could feel it in the form of trickles of sweat) a look of fear. Suddenly Zane tensed, my discomfort banished from his mind.
"Somebody's outside!"
"Its just Luke," Julia told him.
"No, its not. He went to the Sunderland to wait for Spiegel. Besides, that's not his walk, I can hear it isn't him."
He pulled a wicked-looking pistol from his waistband and opened the door of the room. After glancing down the hallway, ready to fire at the slightest sound or movement, he crossed to unlock the door on the other side. To his surprise, it was already unlocked. Julia called out to him, "Be careful Zane," but it was more the voice of a cautious supervisor than a concerned friend. He ignored her, crept into the room across the hall like a spider that sensed it trapped a fly, vanishing from my view as he closed the door behind him. BANG! BANG! The sound of gunfire was followed by that of breaking glass and crashing furniture. Julia's face paled, and she ran for the concealed door, her hidden catch. Her hands clumsily opened the door. I heard the 'click' as she locked the door behind her. I was quite alone in the room. I saw no sing of Zane across the hall although various thumps and rustling noises continued to come from the room. I succeed, she was drunk, unable to guard me. This was my chance. I dashed out of the room, through the hallway, out the front door and down the steep stairs, running so fast as to risk disaster but certain that to hesitate held greater danger still. The guard at the entrance called out to me as I ran by, but made no move to stop me. Crossing the street into the park, I took a succession of paths, trying to turn randomly to frustrate any followers, then collapse to rest for a moment behind the trunk of a large tree. No one followed me. With an air of exultation I realized that I was close to solving the riddle of my amnesia. Julia's exclamation filled most of the gaps in my memory; now I could tell Faye what really happened and together the two of us could formulate a plan.
I took subway again and entered the house where Faye lived. I entered the lobby. The doorman nodded as I entered, allowing me to go into the building. I entered the elevator, pressed the button for 5, and entered Apartment 5E. I ate the tasty chicken, its grapes looked pretty, but the sauce hadn't managed to introduce them to each other. I ate it and threw away the leftovers. Faye didn't come. I waited, checking the clock every minute, then second. In that waiting, I rediscovered the hidden smoker in me and smoked one deck of Lucky strikes. My lucky charm... Then at 0:54am I settled into a lonely and fitful sleep. I remembered she said something about photographer work. Next day I woke up, Faye was not there. I sat. Suddenly phone came to life, I took the earphone to welcome Faye's voice.
"Ah, there you are. I must congratulate you, Spike, on your clever escape from our little party at the Dakota." My heart fell as I recognized Julia's voice.
"Your ingenuity has forced us to become more inventive, even aggressive in our plans. Fortunately, your friend Miss Valentine has a listed number."
"Nice try, but you'll never find her." I cradled the hope.
"Let's get down to business. Luke returned from waiting for you at the Sunderland and was kind enough, after I made a couple of phone calls and determined the correct location, to pick up Faye for us and bring her over here to wait for you."
"..." At the thought of Faye being touched by Luke or Zane, my fists clenched involuntarily and angry tears came to my eyes.
Julia interpreted my silence correctly.
"You're thinking about her being in the same room with such men of... I suppose 'action' is the best euphemism I can summon at the moment. It is an interesting thought."
"If you bring the disc here, to the Dakota, between eight and noon tomorrow, we'll let the two of you go off to Australia just as Alison had planned and you can live happily ever after. If not, Zane and Luke will proceed with their own plans, and my ability to restrain them will be gone. Am I quite clear?"
"Well, if you're gonna 'do' something to her, I will torn your guts open and spread them all over the Tharis. Then I will laugh into your face until you die."
"Your attitude may be different once Zane and Luke have dealt with Miss Valentine."
"Shut up!" I shouted when she hanged up.
I waited, tried to put it together. Then my eyes focused onto some familiar object lying on chair where I missed it yesterday. An old trench-coat, drenched in blood here and there, full of holes and memories. That helped me choose. Its choice, not chance that determinate the destiny. I chose to surprise them, I searched the flat and found Faye's Glock. It could come in handy. I was already walking out, when it started to rain, I came back and took the old trench coat. Then I was scared, first time I was afraid, after I left the hotel. Scared of thought that she will die, and the deja-vu smelt of death what the coat presented. I lighten up another cigarette. And started to smile.
"If fate means you to lose, give him a good fight anyhow."
"Who the hell said it to me?"
When I stood before the Dakota, I couldn't enter it by the main door, doorman knew me, so I walked around the building and saw an alley that seemed to be used for making deliveries to the Dakota. I entered the Alley. I was in the service alley of the Dakota. Climbing the north side of the building to my left were metal firestairs, and on the opposite side, to my right, was a large trash dumpster. I saw a tire iron lying under the dumpster. Cautiously, I climbed the steep and slippery firestairs. Guessing, at the approximate location of apartment 44, I stopped on the fourth floor in front of a small window. But the grating in front of it prevented me from opening. I took the glock in my right hand. I managed, with the help of the pistol, to smash the window through the protective grating. Glass fragments showered the interior of the room on the other side. I tried to reach some handle or something. The curtains over the window suddenly pulled apart, as if they were the last shroud covering an immense treasure. Behind them was the man who was, quite simply, me. Zane smiled broadly. I backed away. Without pausing for even a moment, he seemed to turn sideways, then unleashed a kick that dislodged the grating covering the window and sent it flying directly into my face. The impact landed me squarely on my back in the trash, I fell from the 4th floor, and stared up at the thin band of blue sky through the bars of the metal grating that came to rest on top of me. My last conscious thought was to wonder if it was he who was breaking out of the cage or if it was me who was breaking in...
"This is so familiar..."
-
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
"Failure and success seem to have been allotted to men by their stars. But they retain the power of wriggling, of fighting with their star or against it, and in the whole universe the only really interesting movement is this wriggle." Laughing Bull pointed on the sky and laid the pipe.
"What are you trying to say?"
"You will know soon enough."
"So, tell me Swimming Bird, did you succeeded?"
"I couldn't wait for success... so I went ahead without it."
"But... what is success? I don't think I know."
"To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
"Sometimes its best to forget, to get clean of our debt."
"Debt?"
"Take this."
"It will help you..."
-
I began to stir. I became aware of a general pain that seemed portioned out to each limb and organ with complete fairness, making each equally miserable. Then my head began to throb with a special focused aching that set it apart as my most unbearable pain. Without willing it I found that I was crying. I forced the tears to stop. I gritted my teeth and tried to 'think' my way to the other side of the pain. I heard a low moaning sound. I was not sure whether it was me who was moaning or someone else. "God Damn." I managed to whisper. It made me feel marginally better. My eyes were closed, and my eyelids felt almost as though it'd be too painful to open them. I opened my eyes, painful though it was. My vision slowly slided into focus as the person next to me drew a labored breath. She tried to move the hand what was cuffed to mine, but she was too weak that only the feeblest impulse conveyed by the short steel chain that linked us. And even that effort was too much for her. Her hands fell limp upon the bloodstained sheet. I realized, I didn't know if her real name was Alice or Alison.
"Alice..." I whispered to her.
Alice cracked a feeble smile, which seemed to require as much effort as a bench press. She lifted her free hand toward her throat and whispered words I couldn't understand. The hand fell limply to her chest. Wide strips of gauze were wrapped about her lower ribcage to form a makeshift bandage. There was a bloodstain on the bandage at the level of the lowest rib. About a size of a coin. She spoke a few faltering words, too soft for me to understand more than a phrase or two:
"...never meant to...can you forgive..." Sensing that I had not understood her, again she raised her hand toward her mouth, beckoning me to come closer. Awkwardly, because of the handcuffs, I twisted around so as to be nearer Alice and better able to hear her. She touched my lips lightly as if sealing them to silence, and then her eyes closed and her head fell back against the pillow.
"Spike," she whispered. "I tried to save you. Now they'll murder both of us. Forgive me if you can." She seemed thoroughly exhausted, but my curiosity grew keener by the second.
"What happened to you?" I asked, glancing at the bandage.
"I'm really not Alice Dudley, you know. All that - the wedding, what I told you in the museum - that were all lies. My real name is Alison Abrams. I was your friend, in the syndicate, you could say I was your secretary, though my title -" At the cost of a deep shuddering, she managed to smile, then continued:
"- my title was Executive Associate. I was never your fiance. I never let you know how much I wanted to be, either. Not until your amnesia began to take hold, not until you 'died' and then 'died' again. I thought then I could deceive you into loving me. Try and forgive me. I did love you. I still do."
After some moments of silence, Alice summoned enough energy to talk.
"Your amnesia was caused by a chemical agent that you isolated and called Letheum, after the river in Hades whose waters caused forgetfulness. You first encountered the chemical when you almost died and visited your Indian friend in Texas town called Santa Candelaria where some local people had claimed there was an epidemic of amnesia."
"It was the decay product of a dishwashing detergent called Shimmer. When Shimmer is stored at very high temperatures it degrades into Letheum. The people who'd used the Shimmer that had been kept in one particular warehouse and who weren't careful about rinsing their dishes were the ones who started to develop amnesia."
"No one ever had total amnesia like yours - because no one was systematically doctoring their food with it - as I was doing with yours after you came back to Tharis and asked me to help you. Before that you'd had only minor bouts of forgetfulness from your exposure to the drug from your holding of it."
"When five years ago you first announced your relation to Julia I almost stopped working with you. I knew she was a cynical, manipulative little golddigger. But she was also an accomplished sexual athlete, and so long as you were 'training' with her, she had you jumping through hoops."
"But after you switched places with Zane, and he'd gone to Texas to be tried and serve your sentence, you started leeching around, wandering like a dog."
"When Julia found out that you were alive and living happily, she went down to the prison where Zane was serving your term and got him to marry her, so that legally she had your name - and bank account."
Any further effort at all seemed to exhaust and exalt Alice. She had fallen into a kind of faint. After some time gone by, I managed to revive her.
"I want to know one more thing. Who is John?" I asked knowing that I wasn't.
"There was a real John Cameron, or so I was told. He died in a swimming accident, and his father, who was some kind of small time gangster, sold me his identity so I could help you stay hidden in Tharis while Zane was in prison. You told me you couldn't stand to go back to that prison, and you had enough money you didn't have to. The nightmares you used to have..."
"Do you remember anything about your fortune?" Alice asked.
"No."
"Your father's fortune came from a patent for a popular sedative, Bromonine, but eventually his company produced a great range of pharmaceuticals. He died when you were ten, and the money went into a trust that provided a very nice income."
"Nice, until the family fortune got your mother what got busted for murder of your father, they stopped the bank account and you went into orphanage, then grew in syndicate..."
She stopped when I gloomed.
"You didn't let anyone but me know about Letheum in Santa Candelaria, And it is potentially worth a fortune. You did it all in a little hotel room. But before you could bring the formula back, something happened with you and the sheriff's daughter, and he trumped something..."
She looked at me.
"Your eyes are beautiful, different colors."
"I had this strange feeling each time I saw them, like if someone else was driving..."
"Alice..."
"You were never dog, you were wolf."
Alice, who had seemed to be getting stronger and stronger, stopped speaking abruptly, like a radio that had its dial twisted to an empty station. Her eyes stared vacantly into mine. Is she dead? I reached for a pulse in her wrist. There was none. Her own hand, cuffed to mine, dangled limply as I placed my hand on her chest to see if her heart still beat.
There was no heartbeat either.
"I shut my eyes, in order to see..."
Even the wolf without fangs can bite.
She was dead.
I was emotionally drained and laid on the bed, almost as lifeless as the corpse beside me. I was unaware of how much time gone by. I could hear voices in the outer corridor, and footsteps. The nausea I felt earlier was almost gone. A doorbell rang, or maybe it was a telephone. A moment later the door of the room opened. Zane came into the room. He removed the handcuffs and lifted me roughly to my feet, then he marched me into a room furnished with a desk and some chrome-and-leather chairs. In a moment they bound me securely to one of the chairs with a piece of rope.
"Someone should bring our other guest in to enjoy the party," Julia commented. "Would you gentlemen be so kind?"
When Luke and Zane left the room, she turned to me.
"My advice to you, Spike, is to speak only when spoken to. Zane has been abusing a controlled substance, and he's not quite in his right mind. He may explode over a trifle."
"Red eye, it figures." I remembered his strength.
A moment later Faye entered the room, with Zane behind her. Zane had gun in his right hand, and a faraway look in his bloody eyes.
When she saw me, Faye rushed forward to embrace my bound body.
"Spike! Spike, thank heavens, its you! When that other man came to the door, I thought for one awful moment that he was you, and that you'd lost your memory again, or that I'd lost my mind."
"Where is your father?" Julia asked.
"In the bedroom, mopping up." Zane replied.
I started to gloom again.
"Good," She replied as she took out the disc. "While I boot this, would you see that Miss Valentine is comfortable?"
"Be comfortable," Zane said, waving the gun at Faye, "have a seat."
Faye whispered that she loves me, then sat in the chair nearest to me.
Julia turned to me and said, "All you have to do is give us the information we want, and you'll both be released unharmed. Will you cooperate?"
"I don't trust you one bit, but under the circumstances," I looked at Faye. "I will."
"A wise decision, Spike." Julia said.
She stared at the screen for a while, tapping the keyboard periodically.
"Our plans require that we access the data on the disc."
"You've encrypted the files, and use riddles to control access to them. If you cooperate by providing the answers to the riddles, we'll let you and Miss Valentine use the false passports the late Miss Abrams obtained for you to go off with her to Ganymede."
"Isn't that right, Zane?"
Zane nodded happily. "Sure, why not? Me and Spike were good friends in the orphanage. I don't want to murder the bastard if I don't have to."
Zane winked. With his free hand he helped himself to scratch his eyes, of the red eye that had put him, momentarily, into such good mood.
"This is really dynamite stuff. I'd share with you, for old time sake, but you better keep your head straight for those riddles, pal. Sorry if that seems unfriendly."
Go to hell.
Julia smiled with satisfaction. "So you see, Spike, how much there is to be gained if you'll only be trusting and cooperative. Now let's begin, shall we?"
You too.
Julia inserted the disc into the drive. It whirred and the first block of text appeared on the screen. Julia asked "Are you near enough the screen to read the first riddle?"
Now when she mentioned I felt pain above my left eye and blood in it.
"No."
Zane pushed the chair with me to nearer to the monitor of the computer until the words came into focus.
"Now," Julia demanded, "read what's there and tell me what the answer is."
"Although I talk of no one and of nothing else but me and mine, I hope you will not understand just who I am until the line revealing all my taradiddle as the substance of -------." I read the riddle.
"Well," Julia said, "what's the answer?"
"Riddle."
"Yes," Julia agreed. "It's pretty obvious. I hope they're all so easy." She typed the answer on the keyboard, and a large block of text appeared on the screen. The text seemed to have to do with my staying at the Sunderland Hotel -- it was hard to read all of it, as Julia scrolled through the text quickly. The text on the screen broke off, and was replaced by second riddle:
"With every question that I pose, the keener curiosity grows. Who? I ask, and then, a moment later, How come? And when? And where's our waiter? What am I?"
Julia turned to me. "The answer, please."
"Question mark."
"Mm-hm," Julia said, and typed question mark.
It was correct answer, and the monitor responded with another long unscrolling of text. Julia read through this body of text, but couldn't find what she was looking for. The text on the screen broke off, and third riddle appeared:
I am Evolution's way of saying:
'you've had long enough to play.'
I'm the unveiling of the skull,
the barnacles of the hull,
to show the noble wreck beneath,
as all shall learn who feel my teeth.
What am I?
"Good God, that's nothing but poetry! It doesn't make sense." Julia said.
"Read it aloud," Zane suggested.
Julia read the riddle aloud.
"You know what it could be," Zane said. "It could be Nemesis."
"Nemesis," Julia repeated.
Zane nodded. "Sure, it's the comet that killed all the dinosaurs. I'll bet that's what it is."
Julia asked me: "Do you have a better idea?" Clearly she didn't set much stock in 'Nemesis'.
"Bald." My answer worked.
Julia scanned the text mounting exasperation, and muttered, "Damn, no formula." She went to the next file, which was protected by yet another riddle. Julia read it aloud:
"Without and within I am skin after skin core I have none, And I shall be undone by the slice of your knife. It's a hell of a life. Who am I?"
"That one's obvious," Zane said. "The answer is hooker, right?"
"What?" Julia responded.
"Well, its hell of a life when you come down to it, and getting knifed is almost what you'd call an occupational hazard."
Julia gave Zane a peculiar look, then turned to me: "Do you have a better answer to the riddle, Spike?"
"Onion."
Julia typed 'Onion' and another installment of my memories scrolled down the screen.
"Son of a bitch," Zane said angrily. "Where's the frigging formula!"
Julia called up the fifth and final riddle, which was prefaced by a preliminary warning:
--CAUTION--
Access to file 5 is controlled by the two letter answer to the following riddle.
If a wrong answer is given, File 5 will self destruct.
At the end of struggle,
I give peace,
A chance to breathe,
another lease on life.
Receive me and achieve surcease,
For I am sweet Amnes--.
Julia frowned. "It seems too easy. There must be a trick." She turned round to look at me intently. "What are the two letters, Spike?"
I hesitated, fearful of what Julia and Zane would do once they had access to the last file and I would lost my usefulness to them. Zane placed the pistol against my head and released the safety. "Answer the lady's question, or I am going to blow your head off! What ARE the two letters?"
"IA! Its amnesia, are you stupid or what?" I said.
"Yes, but it seems so obvious," Julia said. "I keep thinking it must be a trick."
Suddenly Faye spoke. "The answer could also be T and Y - Amnesty. It makes just as much sense. More sense, really. I wouldn't say that amnesia has been a very great source of peace in the present case."
Zane lowered the gun and walked over to the monitor. He bended down and squinted at the screen. After much blinking, he asked Julia to read the riddle aloud. She read:
--CAUTION--
Access to file 5 is controlled by the two letter answer to the following riddle.
If a wrong answer is given, File 5 will self destruct.
At the end of struggle,
I give peace,
A chance to breathe,
another lease on life.
Receive me and achieve surcease,
For I am sweet Amnes--.
"And the wrong answer makes the whole thing blow up?" he asked. "Is there a dynamite in it, or what? It doesn't make sense."
"A wrong answer," Julia explained patiently, "will cause file five to be erased."
"And that file probably has the formula for the drug that gave him amnesia." Zane realized.
He turned to me. "You better produce the right answer, friend, or I'll give you peace." He brandished his pistol. "A piece of lead."
"Which is it, Spike?" Julia insisted. "I-A or T-Y?"
My forehead started to sweat. One or the other.
But since I had Amnesia, it could be only IA, but tell them the truth?
"I am pretty sure the right answer is I-A, Amnesia." I prayed for miracle.
Julia considered my response, and smiled craftily. "Do you really think I'd be so foolish as to fall into your trap? Amnesia's the obvious answer, and so-"
She typed the letters T and Y. The screen displayed a random pattern of X's and O's, and then a message appeared:
--FILE 5 ERASED--
"Bitch!" Zane screamed enraged. "He tells you the right answer and you've got to type in the opposite. God damn you!"
His hands clenched, and the pistol, it safety was released, fired. The screen of computer shattered, as Julia slumped forward.
"Julia!" I shouted.
A moment later the door to the room threw open and Luke burst into the room with gun drawn. "What the hell is --"
Zane spun around with his neurons - and his gun - firing. His second bullet, as deadly as the first, hit Luke neatly between the eyes. Luke's body smashed back against the doorframe, then rebound forward. The gun fell from Luke's hand and skittered across the floor, within inches of where Faye sat frozen. Zane's consciousness caught up with his reflexes and he moaned,
"Daddy! Daddy! I'm sorry!" He sank to his knees beside his father's corpse, and began to cry.
Very slowly, as though she were reaching forward to feed a squirrel that might suddenly took fright and bound away, Faye leaned forward and reached for the gun that laid on the floor. When the gun was in her hand, she stood - and Zane, with tears still in his eyes, but a strange smile on his lips, stood up too. Zane held out his free hand, as though he genuinely expected Faye to hand him back the gun. The red eye, what inspired his violent impulses was still percolating through his system. Faye watched Zane's hand slowly rising like a cobra's head. Faye fired. She was a bounty hunter after all. The bullet reached Zane low in his chest. A thoughtful expression came over his face, as though he'd been stopped not by a bullet but a new idea.
"You did it!" he said wonderingly. "You won! Son of a bitch! I didn't think--" He staggered toward the desk.
"For me this is...a genuine surprise ending." He touched his wound, and looked at the blood on his fingertips with fascination. Then he crumpled, as Faye untied the ropes that bound me.
Me and Faye headed for the back window. No one saw us take the fire escape down the alley and out onto 73rd Street. The nightmare was over, and we were still alive. Faye took my hand.
-
I woke up the next morning to the ringing of the telephone. I was asleep on the sofa in Faye's apartment, which looked just as I left it.
I picked up the phone and said, "Hello."
"I'm sorry to wake you," Faye's voice replied, "but I simply had to call as soon as I saw the headline in the Daily News."
"It covers the entire front page, in gigantic letters: SLAUGHTER ON 8TH AVENUE! then in a smaller headline under that: FOUR DEATHS IN BIZARRE LOVE NEST TRAGEDY. Story on page three."
"Read the story Faye." I said.
"On a cassette recorder in his room, where he laid dying amid these scenes of carnage, Spike Spiegel describes how his confederate, Luke Bester, under the influence of drugs, had first murdered Miss Abrams in an effort to extort from her the whereabouts of moneys she purportedly sequestered from earlier drug transactions. Failing to do so, Bester is said to have threatened Spiegel and his wife with a gun."
"A wild gunbattle ensued, in which both Bester and Mrs. Spiegel were killed, and Spiegel himself was mortally wounded."
"In the last moments before he died, Spiegel wrote a brief account of these terrible events, and then went on to dictate a will bequeathing his entire estate to MIT, for the special purpose of doing research into the process of memory in worms, rats, and salamanders, an area in which Spiegel felt a special interest."
"Since the death of Spiegel's mother years ago, at a time when Spiegel was already member of Red Dragons syndicate, Spiegel's estate is estimated to be worth some forty million woolongs. Spiegel is not known to have other living heirs, and his bequest to MIT is not likely to be challenged in court."
Faye paused, then asked: "You're not disappointed, are you? I mean about the money. Forty mil is such a lot, but then it's nothing new for you living in cheap surroundings."
"We'll be able to afford more if you're willing to live outside Tharis... I mean don't you think love is more important than money?"
"Who, being loved, is poor?" I answered.
Faye laughed cheerfully, and said, "I never knew you'd say something like that. Don't leave bed. I'll be right home with the newspaper and a pint of Haagen-Daaz. What's your favorite flavor? No, don't tell me. I know."
"We will go to docks tomorrow Faye." I said.
"Why?"
"Don't you think Jet is a little bit lonely?"
"You remembered!"
"Yes..." I laid the receiver.
What you need to know about the past is that no matter what has happened, it has all worked together to bring you to this very moment. And this is the moment you can choose to make everything new. Right now.
Right now.
Right now...
Just who the hell Am I?
Spike Spiegel, sure, but who am I...
Where am I?
They're dead, Julia, Vicious, Alison, Mao, Anastasia, Lin, Shin... all dead...
I took gun in my hand.
Right now...
Bang...?
-
Failure and success seem to have been allotted to men by their stars. But they retain the power of wriggling, of fighting with their star or against it, and in the whole universe the only really interesting movement is this wriggle. --Laughing Bull
A/N: There is still conclusion remaining.