The Tale Of The Little Lost Necrobabe And How My Killer Lollypop
Porn Bitch Busted The Law.
Or: What Happened When Spider Became Sheriff
When I became sheriff, I drank and took drugs for about a week. There is something comforting in not even being able to remember your name, let alone having any sort of command over the higher brain functions for such an extended period of time. It's almost like womb-regression therapy. Only without the womb. Or the regression.
It was hard to tell if it were precisely one week, but my Glasteel Chronometer 5000 informs me in its perky little voice that it has been a week, and in the absence of outside verification, I guess I have to trust its satellite uplinked nuclear-clock driven circuitry.
The Glasteel Chronometer 5000, the only watch you'll ever need. Guaranteed.
I got the model with the naked lady on the dial.
These things amuse me.
Hold on, what do you mean you don't remember me becoming Sheriff? Don't you people read my columns regularly? Well, I'm not going to recap for your personal benefit, dumb-ass. You are clearly not the sort of person I want reading this column anyway, you disturbed and dangerous drooling freak. Go on, get out of here. Before I set the attack frogs on you! Remember, I know where you live. And one day, you'll wake up, and sitting there on the pillow next to you...
RIBBIT! RIBBIT!
And that'll be your sorry ass. Believe you me. I saw it happen once, back in Kai-pong. A B-98 Raptor tore over a clearing at Mach 4, releasing thousands of attack frogs on tiny little parachutes. I only got out of there in one piece because I had the presence of mind to pack a... I'm sorry, where was I?
From: The Desk Of Mitchell Royce.
To: Yelena Rossini
Dear Yelena.
When I assigned you to work with Spider Jerusalem, it was in the understanding that you would be able to keep an eye on him for me. To report back. To provide a back-door into the cess-pool world that Spider creates around himself.
Dearest niece, WHAT IS GOING ON?!?
I don't expect you to able to control the bastard but I do at least expect you to keep tabs on him! Where is he Yelena, and more to the point, where is my column?
Please don't take it personally when I say I shall take great pleasure in destroying both of you if this situation does not improve soon.
Your loving uncle,
Royce.
I rented an office overlooking the Comfy-time Mall.
When I say 'rented', I really mean appropriated.
And by 'appropriated', that is to say I busted in the door, chased out the resident psychopath with threats of physical violence, and set up shop. One big glowing pink neon 'Sheriff' sign stuck over the brass plaque that read 'lawyer'. It was all about getting the message out. The people might not have cared enough to turn out to vote, but by god it was important to let them know about the new Sheriff in town, yours truly, Doctor Spider 'Jesus' Jerusalem Esquire.
Funnily enough they did seem to care. I don't know what it was. My free and easy attitude towards drug abuse, or perhaps my pledge to create a new model of law-enforcement - one which involved sacking all existing police personnel. Maybe they just respected the fact that I was a bigger bastard than any of them. But I'm betting it was the size of my cock which swayed them.
It always comes down to the size of your penis.
Always.
Royce was making some noise about my next column, or at least that's what the Filthy Assistant reported, in-between sobs. One of these days I will have to exchange frank viewpoints with Royce over where our boundaries lie. Because quite frankly, there's only one person allowed to upset my Filthy Assistants, and it sure as hell isn't Royce Fucking Mitchell.
It's alright though, last month I broke into his office in the middle of the night and replaced the arm-rest on his chair with a carefully crafted facsimile, identical in all ways but one - my replacement contained 3 kilos of military grade plastic explosive attached to a radio transponder keyed to detonate at my command. The downside is it will also detonate if anybody on the 5th floor ever orders pizza. But that's a risk I'm prepared to take in the name of personal security.
I was in the middle of giving a live interview on SPKF-Citywide. How obscene. One of the first things you're taught in any school of journalism is that the reporter should never be part of the story. Mind you, the other thing you're taught right at the very beginning is how to give a really good blow job. So I think we probably have enough knowledge now to make an informed judgement on the relative merits of journalism school.
"Welcome to SPKF-Citywide, with a special live broadcast presentation from downtown at the Comfy-Time Mall. Sponsored by Sex Puppets, your furry friends that are fun to be with. My name is Sherry LaBonk, and I'm sitting here today with acclaimed journalist, and now City Sheriff, Spider Jerusalem. Spider, hello."
"WHAT?!"
"Uh, yes. So, Spider Jerusalem, you've gone from being the Cities top reporter, to Sheriff, would you like to tell us how that happened?"
"No Sherry. I would not. BECAUSE I HAVE ALREADY DONE THAT YOU TINY-BRAINED IMBECILE!"
"I see. Super! And I'm sure our viewers are dying to know how you are handling the transition?"
"No they're not! They don't care about transitions, they probably don't care about anything much beyond getting through the day in more or less the same number of pieces they started out in this morning. But let me tell you what they do care about Sherry LaBonk, if indeed that is your real name. They care about how I am going to make their lives better now that I am Sheriff, they care about what I'm going to do to fuck with the system on their behalf, they care about these things because they matter, they care about these things because there is a more than reasonable chance that heads will roll, and there's nothing we as a society enjoy more than the sight of a good guts-out blood-spilling mass execution."
"Uh. So. Yes. That must be... tough for you then? Times of change..."
"Do not tax your already over-laboured brain cells, just sit there and flash your cleavage while I talk."
"So, maybe you could tell us why you decided to run for Sheriffs office?"
"I got a parking ticket. This is my revenge!"
"Erm, Mr Jerusalem, didn't we fax over the agreed script for this interview?"
"SILENCE! Or I shall reveal to the world your secret fetish! And you will never work again! Let alone find anybody dumb enough to take you out to dinner."
"It, must be. Tiring. Erm. Working two jobs? Uh. Okay. Please don't. I'll be quiet."
"Excellent. So, now I am Sheriff, what can you all expect? Well, the first thing is this: I shall tolerate no police persecution of innocent men and women. Under Spider-Law, you are considered innocent if you harm no-one. Under Spider-Law, you are considered innocent if you brutally assault any elected member of parliament. Under Spider-law, you are encouraged to shop naked. This office will establish a set of cost-price guidelines for all narcotics, and any dealer caught selling drugs for a profit will be brutally dealt with. These scum deserve the worst fate imaginable. All pimps will likewise be subject to the harshest measures, for this office believes in protecting women in all walks of life. This office will not tolerate the pollution of our environment by heavy industry and/or the entertainment industry. This office stands for the freedom of the individual to fuck up their own life in any way they see fit. This office stands for informed choice. In fact, under Spider-Law, INFORMED choice is MANDATORY! For I am Spider Jerusalem, and I. AM. THE LAW!"
"Great! Well, that's all we have time for. My name is Sherry LaBonk, and I'm handing you over now to the Hard-Core Anal Intrusion Funtime Weather Show with Mike and Jim. Hi guys, how's it going? Can we expect any showers?"
"Oooh! Agh! Greeaaahhyea! Hi Sherry, thanks. God! Yes! Rain! Christ! Harder! Raining! HARDER!"
"You're not really the Law are you Spider?" The Filthy assistant asked once Sherry LaBonk and her team had left, running, screaming.
"No. I am not. My legislative powers are weak. However, there is one crucial point to be considered. The great unwashed masses do not know my legislative powers are weak, so as long as I act like they are strong, everything will be okay. Even now I have an elite team of lawyers working over the fine print of the city statutes, not so much for the purposes of clarification, but for active obfuscation. See, the way I figure it we have maybe six months in office before the Beast and his cohorts push through the legislation eliminating the position of Sheriff. So all we need to do is keep them off balance for six months, and we should be able to get away with almost anything. And we should be able to help a lot of people."
"Help a lot of people? That doesn't sound like you?"
"You wound me yet again Channon!"
"Yelena." She sighs.
"Whatever." I grin. "You both look the same with your clothes on."
"Fuck you."
"I've tried. Believe me, I've tried. I've thought about getting that operation where they implant extra vertebrae so you can bend over further and..."
"What was LaBonks secret fetish anyway?"
"I have absolutely no idea. But I figured it was a safe bet that she had one."
I was in New Mexico one day when I realised something. It might have been Florida. Possibly New Hampshire. And as I was sitting there trying to work out exactly where I was, it came to me, like a message from God, her-own-damn-black-self. How many of us are tired, dead inside, just going through the motions? Marking time? Working nine 'till five.
It was the dead eyes of the girl on stage, the live sex show. Hell, the only living thing there was the sperm. And that look, I became fixated on it. The sort of all-encompassing fixation on a singularity that can only be achieved through really creative drug use. Any backwoods bozo can get themselves twisted, but it takes artistry to manage it in such a way that you are always in a strange sort of control. It's a little like lucid dreaming, only far more unspeakably intense.
Panting. Gasping. Gyrating.
The motions were all there, but inside. Nothing. I guess there are some realities that you can only face for brief moments before the primitive survival instinct that we call 'denial' kicks in. Hard-wired into our brains, it's great for handling most of the big issues: We will grow old and infirm: One day we will die: Just because he sticks his cock in you doesn't mean he loves you: There is no ultimate truth to the universe: Beefburgers really are made of ground-up cow face and anus.
New Mexico, it must have been New Mexico. Because it was hot, damned hot. I didn't have any sweat left, the glands responsible had long since surrendered, boarded the windows, and hunkered down to sit this thing out in the storm cellar. No sticking the head above the parapet now boys. And suddenly being the Sheriff wasn't seeming like such a bad idea. I smiled and reached for the cocaine. Time to come down.
From: Yelena Rossini.
To: The Desk Of Mitchell Royce.
Dear Royce,
FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING FUCK.
Sincerely,
Yelena. xxx.
PS: Spider makes me so horny.
From: The Desk Of Mitchell Royce.
To: Yelena Rossini.
Spider, how DARE you hack into Yelenas account! Don't try and pretend, I KNOW it's you! Don't you respect anyone's privacy!? How would you feel if I hacked into your newsfeed account! You are a SICK SICK man Spider Jerusalem. Now, where the fuck is my column?
Yrs.
Royce.
I love computers.
Nothing kinky. I just think they're great tools. Of course, the problem arises when people lose sight and the journey becomes the goal, but that's not something we have to be concerned with here. I have discovered that as Sheriff, I have the entitlement to requisition whatever office equipment I require to operate efficiently. And not only do I have entitlement, I also have security clearance.
Hello brand spanking new cutting-edge military-spec Jupiter-Class supercomputer with onboard A.I. operating system.
It is fast, and it is shiny, and it is mine. All mine.
"Can you get patience on it?" Asks one of the filthy assistants.
"NO!" I scream. "THIS IS NOT FOR PLAYING PATIENCE! THIS IS OUR WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION!"
(Dammit, that's torn it. This column is going to be tied up in delivery for a day or two while the security services check it out for any potential terrorist activity. SEMTEX SEMTEX AK-47 OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT! Wankers. You'd think they'd have something better to do.)
"Weapon of mass destruction?" Channon frowned. "It looks like a computer to me."
"Not just any computer." The Artificial Intelligence chimed in, with it's perfectly modulated smooth male movie star voice, now it has finally booted up. And I swear, the lights throughout this entire mall dimmed when I switched it on. "I am one hundred percentiles of pure love muscle, baby."
"You're what?!?" Channon has that look in her eyes that she gets when something happens that she can't quite believe. A look that I am quite familiar with. She wears it often.
"You heard me sweet-stuff." The A.I. positively leered, "I'm hot, and you want me. Now sidle over here and sit on my stiff mouse, baby!"
Oh. Terrific.
My computer is a pervert.
"I want your sweet loving."
"Spider?" Channon turns to me. "Make it stop."
"Don't be like that hot-stuff." The A.I. purrs, "Just come over here and piss on my keyboard."
"ENOUGH!" I scream. "THERE ARE SOME THINGS THAT EVEN I SHALL NOT TOLERATE!"
"Oh, do you want some too? That's okay, I swing both ways."
"Listen to me you foul and unpleasant machine." I lean close to the monitor, "I don't know what kinky-ass military base you came from, but around here there are certain rules and codes of behaviour. Rule number one is DO NOT PISS OFF SPIDER WHEN HE IS CARRYING A CLAW HAMMER! Do you see my claw hammer? Can you imagine what it would feel like for me smash your main consciousness processor into tiny little pieces? Because believe you me, I have not yet smashed anything up today with my claw hammer, and I get real twitchy when I don't get to smash anything up with my claw hammer. So I guess you have to ask yourself a question, do you feel lucky, punk?"
"I feel..." The A.I. pauses.
"You had better not say 'turned on by this masculine display', nor how 'men with tools are sexy beasts'. Understand?"
"I feel, as if I understand now where our boundaries lie."
"Good. Anything else computer?" I tap the claw hammer gently on the edge of my desk.
"And I would just like to apologise to Ms Yarrow for my inappropriate behaviour."
"Excellent."
"Even though she is one fine piece of ass."
Memo: Things I have to do today.
PS: Royce, don't you DARE edit this list out of my column! We have talked about editorial control in the past, and I WON! Dammit. Where are my groupies?!
Outside it was raining. The sort of rain that makes you think like it will never stop, and the world is going to be washed away in some sort of soggy Ragnarok. Because for sure the end of everything is going to be a damp-squib. Ultimate heat death. It'll probably be beige in colour.
The smoke from my ashtray curled up, gentle curves, like a woman. The air disturbed by the quantum cooling fan of uncountable idle terabits of super-computer processing power.
The Filthy Assistants, who sometimes deserve capital letters and sometimes don't, had both gone out to play, leaving me in a bullshit sort of noir mood. I half hoped they weren't getting up to too much trouble with their newly deputised powers, but at the same time, I half hoped they were.
The third half of me hoped they were indulging each other in some languid sapphic pleasures. But that was probably too much to hope for.
So instead I continued adding names to my list.
What list, you might ask. Well, the list. THE LIST! Do I have to spell everything out for you? Jesus! What's wrong with you people! Sometimes THREE HALVES make a WHOLE!
I was interrupted, by a knock on my door. The opaque bullet-proof glass door newly minted with the words 'Spider Jerusalem - Sheriff'. This sounded like a case. Or possibly a pizza-delivery boy.
Either way, I was ready. Primed for action. And mostly naked.
"Computer!" I hissed, "Are the anti-personnel devices armed and ready?"
"Yes Spider, I am prepared to respond immediately to any threat directed towards your person."
"Excellent!"
"I have a name you know."
"What?!"
"A name. You don't have to address me as 'computer' all the time."
"Would you shut up!"
"It's Bob."
"What sort of a name is 'Bob'?!"
"It's a very good name."
"No isn't!"
"Well we can't all have cool and interesting names like 'Spider' or 'Mitchell' or 'Channon'. Some of us get stuck with 'Bob' or 'Jane' or 'Fred'. I've always quite liked 'Kate'."
"What?! Why are you even speaking to me?! Why are we having this conversation!?"
The knock came again at the door.
"JUST A MINUTE!" I yelled, "FOR I AM BUSY! MASTURBATING! OR SOMETHING!"
"Because I think it's important that you know my name." The A.I. continued.
"Okay, okay. Fine. Bob it is. We are going to find out who is at the door now. COME IN!"
The door opened.
"Hubba-hubba." Said Bob.
Standing framed in my doorway, a vision in leather and lace. An emaciated goth princess wearing an outfit that was half wedding-dress and half pure porno-whore. Thin face, perfect eyes black within white within black. Cherry red lips. The smell of rubber and sweat, hot sex in the moonlight, a Necrobabe.
The Necrobabes hang out on 14th street, at the club between the laundromat and the library. I forget the name of the place.
This one had been crying. Which isn't unusual. The Necrobabes get their kicks from flatlining during sex, coming as they die. Apparently it's best when the moment of extinction co-incides precisely with the moment of orgasm. Perfection. Unity, they call it, with a strange sort of smile on their faces. It's almost a pitying smile, like they feel sad, because we can never understand the things they have seen, feel what they have felt.
I knew a man once who stuck his penis in a blender. He didn't smile much.
I don't know why I bring that up.
"Are you the sheriff?" She asked, her voice a breathy whisper.
"Yes." I replied.
"Thank God!" She collapsed in through the doorway, slumping in one long controlled fall into a spare chair. "I need your help! My friend is missing, and... and I think they are trying to kill me!"
From: Nikoladze Berynko.
To: Spider Jerusalem.
Spider old friend, of course I would love come and visit. And to be one of your deputies, what fun! It will be old times. I will require the official papers before I can risk setting foot back in city. I think your government, she will not be too happy to see me otherwise.
Your friend always,
Niko.
The Necrobabe, whose name was Kassandra, sobbed out a tale of woe in my office. A tale which had led me here, to outside the Neo-Gothic themed nightclub Golgotha. Between laundromat and library. The library specialised in pornography. Your tax dollars at work ladies and gentlemen.
Golgotha. Jesus. Don't these people have an ounce of imagination.
I knocked politely on the door. It was the middle of the afternoon, so the place was closed. At least weather control had switched off the rain. We waited, me, the filthy assistant (the one who didn't use to be an exotic dancer), and Bobs drone. The drone was a foot-long semi-cylindrical hovering chrome-plated remote-operated device, housing a semi-independent portion of the artificial intelligences awareness. It seemed like a useful sort of thing to bring along, although I do wish Bob hadn't designed his drone to look quite so phallic.
You get some odd looks when you are accompanied down the street by a large hovering silver dildo.
A small hatch slides open on the door.
"OPEN IMMEDIATELY!" I announce, "For it is the law!"
"What?" The uncertain male voice behind the door sounds dubious.
"I said open up, and I recommend you do so quickly, and submit yourself to my battery of questions, or else the repercussions will be grim for you and your loved ones."
"Piss off."
I grin. And lean closer to the hatch.
"Listen to me you shiteyed bastard." I whisper to the man in a pleasant sort of voice, "On any other day I would now take great pleasure in ripping off your head and shitting down your neck. But not today, oh no, because today I have with me a brand new A.I. avatar, and I am itching to test out some of it's optional extras. Bob!" I turn to the drone, "Open the door!"
"How would you like me to open the door Spider?" Asked Bob.
"What?!"
"Well, I could pick the lock with my magnetic affector field, I could release a nano-swarm to dismantle the door, I could use my drone as a battering ram and simply smash through it. I could set up a vibrational cascade that would dissolve the door on the molecular level, but that might take out half the building..."
"ENOUGH! COULD YOU NOT SIMPLY DO AS I REQUEST! DO YOU HAVE TO QUESTION MY AUTHORITY! IS THERE NO WAY IN THIS GOD'S EARTH THAT MY EXPERIENCES WITH ARTIFICIALLY INTELLIGENT MACHINES COULD MAYBE ONE DAY NOT BE SO PAINFUL I FEEL AS IF BLOOD IS POURING FROM MY EYES WHILE MY BRAIN TURNS TO GRAVY!"
"I do not think your brain is likely to turn into gravy."
"Okay. Fine." I pant. "How would you like to open the door then Bob?"
"I would suggest to the gentleman behind the door that if he does not open it immediately, then I will butt-fuck him to death."
"Excellent! There." I return my attention to the hatch in the door, "You heard the machine. Open up if you value your sphincter."
"You're not fooling me man!" He sounds nervous. "I know computers aren't allowed to harm human beings!"
"Ordinarily you would be correct. But this is a military-spec artificial intelligence. Which means that not only can it happily fuck you to death, but it will also consider such an action to be its god-given patriotic duty. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it sings the national anthem during. And you know, THAT'S SOMETHING I THINK I'D QUITE LIKE TO SEE!"
"Okay! Okay! I'm opening the door!"
"Excellent."
We step inside.
Except for the drone.
Which hovers inside.
The foyer of club Golgotha is tastefully decorated with oppressive Masonic designs, complete with streams of running blood and bondage victims impaled on the walls and ceiling.
The doorman turns out to be a young man of nervous disposition. So I scream in his face. Best to keep these sorts on their toes.
"Oh good." The Filthy Assistant sighs quietly to herself. "We're screaming at people for no apparent reason again. I'm so glad I came."
"Tell me Bob, can you tell if this pussball doorman here is telling the truth?" I choose to ignore the assistant.
"Only if it turns you on."
"JUST ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION!"
"I am fully equipped to monitor the subjects respiration and pupil dilation, I can even scan his electrical brainwave activity, given time I should be able to draw up a reliable map of his brain, and draw out every single dirty little thought he has ever had."
"You could just say 'yes'."
"I could. But it wouldn't be as much fun."
"Do you remember our talk about the hammer earlier, and, WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING!?!"
"Uh." The young nervous doorman halts in his tracks, "I was going. Uh. Over there?"
"Nice try fuckface. Boy, you are so very badly screwed now. Before I was thinking about going easy on you, but now... Have you ever been stripped naked and locked in a tiny little cell with fifteen badly crazed and half-starved Gila monsters?"
"N-no."
"Then answer my questions shit-brains. What sort of crazy-ass bullshit racket are you people running here?"
"You mean the drugs?"
He is a broken man, clearly ready to acquiesce to my every demand. I suppress the urge to fuck with his mind too much, and instead stick to my purpose here.
"NO YOU MORON! NOT THE DRUGS! I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE DRUGS! The other thing, TELL ME ABOUT THE OTHER THING!"
"The underage drinking?"
"WRONG! Keep trying."
"The rigged numbers game?"
"NO!"
"The puppy meat smuggling racket?"
"Jesus wept. No. How many dodgy rackets do you people run out of this dump?! Talk to me about the Necrobabes. One in particular, Kassandra, she had a real bad trip here last night. Along with her friend Lunette. Talk to me about them."
"Uh, I don't know any of the Necrobabes by name man."
"Don't 'man' me you scabrous febrile boil on the ass of humanity. I am the Sheriff, and you WILL refer to me as SIR! Or alternatively Mr Huge Cock."
"Yes sir Mr Huge Cock!"
"Very good." I smile. "Now, about the Necrobabes."
"Well sir, I don't really know anything about that..."
"But...?" I smile in my most friendly manner. And to be honest I'm a little surprised and disappointed that the young man immediately wets himself.
"But sometimes I let people in to the upstairs rooms, and let them out again. And, I try not to ask too many questions. Mr Huge Cock. Sir."
"The upstairs rooms?"
"Where the Necrobabes go to flatline. Doctor Sputniks offices."
"Doctor Sputnik?"
"Yeah, he runs all the medical equipment they use, y'know, to kill themselves then bring themselves back."
"I see." But I don't, not really. Yet in order to stay in charge of this sorry scene I will have to pretend like I do. You watch. I'm getting good at it now.
"So. Doctor Sputnik is a Nazi then? It all makes sense to me now. It's the Illuminati! Isn't it!"
"Uh..." The young man looks confused.
"I think what the Sheriff is trying to say..." The filthy assistant steps in, "Is that we maybe need to talk to this doctor to find out what happened here last night?"
"Sure. Yeah. You sure do miss. The doc, he's the one to talk to. He knows what's going on around here. And... He knows all of the Necrobabes, by... name. If you take my drift..." The young man strokes his nose.
Which was a clear indication that he wanted to be shot in the face by my bowel disrupter. So I did, because that's just the kinda guy I am. Spreading bowel disruption in my wake, like a strange sort of happy little Santa Clause. On Acid. With the voices. Inside my head. Telling me to do things. Unspeakable things. Involving tuna fish. And God. Oh god. More medication...
...And relax.
From: lt;classified>
To: Spider Jerusalem.
Spider. Task achieved. All statutes wiped from City Hall's mainframe, and all hardcopies destroyed in one hellass fire. It should take them at least 6 months to piece together enough of a legal framework to work out exactly what your powers are and more specifically, are not. Until then enjoy yourself. Screaming fear and terror are the only things these scum understand.
Long Live The Revolution.
I am all fucked up on little blue pills.
I am all fucked up on little blue pills.
I am all fucked up on little blue pills.
I am all fucked up on little blue pills. I am all fucked up on little blue pills. I am all fucked up on little blue pills. I am all fucked up on little blue pills. I am all fucked up on little blue pills. I am all fucked up on little blue pills. I am all fucked up on little blue pills. I am all fucked up on little blue pills.
Shit. They're green!
"So. Doctor Sputnik I presume?"
Fucking green! What the hell am I going to do now?! Oh christ, is this part of their plan? I knew it! I knew it all along!
"Yes, can I help you?"
Fuckingfuckingfuckingfuckingfuckingfuckfuck.
"I'd like to ask you a few questions if I may Doctor?"
Just keep it together Spider. But there is a hammering in my skull, I knew I shouldn't have taken this case, the hell with being Sheriff, it was a dumb idea anyway. And now I'm standing here in this backroom medical surgery, surrounded by empty white slab-like beds, hypodermics and sex-toys, and in the midst of it all, holding court, Doctor Sputnik. I know him already, I see him, humpty-fucking-dumpty sat on the wall and screwed all the Necrobabes while they were unconscious or dead. It's plain to see, written in every skulking furtive movement his eyes make. The fear. But more than that, there is more here, not just some strange case of a sick pervert taking advantage of young girls who should know better than to trust their well-being to strange men in white coats. He is more afraid than he should be. I can taste his sweat. Doors begin to unlock inside my brain.
"Tell me Doctor." I continue. "What happened here last night?"
"Nothing." Doctor Sputnik bulged nervously, looking at him here in five dimensions, his oversoul billows with a greenish caste. Christ. Where did that come from. I'm seeing things. Some fucker is messing with my horizontal hold.
"He is lying." Bob chimes in. I turn to look at the drone, and it's never looked more like a giant floating penis. With wings. Ohgod, and eyes. Angels wings. Ascending to heaven. All hail the Hallelujah-cock!
I am badly fucked up on little green pills, and I am starting to be concerned that it might not be enough to see me safely through this encounter.
"What happened to Kassandra and her friend here last night Doctor?" I feel as if I am repeating myself by asking the question. But then, at the moment, everything I have ever done feels like a tired old repeat, the same old same old, throughout all eternity, a thousand different lives, and all of them me. In old Mexico, I am worshipped as a God. In Rome. One some weird desert island, they eat flesh in my name.
"Nothing!" Doctor Sputnik swallows, his adams apple bobbing. Bobbing. For apples. The serpent. Growing on trees. The Golden Apple! Oh Jesus! It's the Illuminati again!
"He is lying." Bob observes.
I know.
"Tell me what happened Doctor. Who did the two girls come up here with? Don't force me to commit acts of appalling violence."
"They came up with some guy they picked up in the club."
Ach, this is all too much dialogue. Dialogue that I am not adequately equipped to handle. You know, back when I was held prisoner in a Caribbean jail with a Chinese hooker I didn't speak a single word for over three weeks. It felt natural. Language is the chain that binds us. Alphabets the tool they use to hold us enslaved.
"You sick bastard!" I hear the voice and recognise it as my own. The bad part of this is I've already worked it out, inside my mind, most of it. And now I'm just waiting for the confirmation to come from Doctor Sputnik. Hence my need for the medication - if I didn't have it, I wouldn't never able to cope with this. "I think we both know it doesn't really matter who they came up with. What matters is who tried to leave with them. You're selling these girls, aren't you Sputnik. They come up here, they whack themselves off into comas, then you bundle them up and sell them on. And that's the last anybody hears of them. Isn't it. ISN'T IT!"
I can hear a snarling noise.
"I don't know what you're talking about." The good doctor shakes his head.
"That's good plastic surgery by the way." I light a cigarette.
"What! What are you talking about?!" Sputnik pales.
"Your surgeon. He was good. I can't hardly recognise you anymore. How did you get out of Bangkok though? I thought for sure they'd permanently nailed your sorry hide to the wall."
"I don't know what you are talking about!"
"Bullshit." I smile.
Police Nab Notorious Killer.
by David Matthews-Pierce.
Thailand International Staff Writer.
Carlos Jones, the infamous 'Doctor Of Death', was arrested in Bangkok yesterday morning by elements of the army working in co-operation with the capitals valiant police forces. The arrest follows months of speculation on the whereabouts of the man responsible for one of the worst cases of ritualistic cannibalism seen in the last six months.
Jones, 32, was wanted in 23 different countries, and legal experts today are wrangling over who should exercise the right to bring him to trial. Extradition requests have already arrived from multiple nations.
However, one Thai government spokesman is quoted as saying: "We have him now, and we have quite literally bolted his genitals to a wall. If anybody else wants him, they will require some sort of miracle, not to mention a surgical procedure. He is ours. He will remain in jail forever. We caught him thanks to Ebola-Cola, the cola drink for the best in modern policing, buy some nice cool Ebola-Cola today. That is all. Have a nice day."
A statement from the Office Of The Beast expressed his governments pleasure that this vile criminal was at last in police custody, but no news is as yet forthcoming on whether or not the Beast will seek to extradite Carlos Jones.
Doctor Sputnik looked as if he might cry. Jesus, I hate these cry-baby sociopaths. In my day men were men, and remained so right up until the bitter end.
"Okay. Alright." He sobs, "You're correct. But it wasn't my..."
It was then that Doctor Sputniks head unexpectedly and violently exploded.
"Bugger." I muttered. As grey matter oozed down my face.
"Ohmygu!" Yelena gasped, "Whathefu?"
"Killswitch."
"What?" Yelenas eyes were wide, her face red, flecked with white and grey. The room looked like an abattoir. The Doctors corpse was jetting blood from severed jugulars. Bright arterial sprays right across the floor.
"Somebody planted a bomb inside his head to stop him from talking."
"That's a little extreme isn't it?" She tries to wipe some of the gore from her blouse, and succeeds only in smearing it around over her tits.
"We are clearly dealing with desperate men. Desperate and stupid."
"Stupid? Why? And, oh-god, I think I have brain in my ear!"
"Stupid because any half-competent professional would have installed a bomb with enough explosive yield to take out whoever was asking the questions, along with the surrounding square block just to be on the safe side."
"Then that means..."
"Yes. We are dealing with desperate men. Desperate stupid incompetent men. Channon..."
"Yelena."
"...We are dealing with government men."
It made a strange sort of sense. When Kassandra woke up unexpectedly and found herself surrounded by men bundling her friend Lunette into a body bag, she did what any sane and rational person would do and ran screaming like a lunatic escaping from an asylum. When she hit the street outside, she remembered seeing three police cruisers parked there.
Three parked cruisers, but not one single officer. As she screamed for help.
Things were starting to stink real bad. And it wasn't the smell of Doctor Sputniks bowel letting go. Although that was pretty bad. I was starting to have some very awful thoughts, and I wasn't entirely confident that I was fucked up enough to handle them. Fortunately I had a salt shaker full of 100% pure powdered amphetamine in my pocket. I snorted just enough to make it feel as if my eyeballs were fusing together in a riot of full-bore turbine voltage.
"Are all things real?"
"Yes."
"Even the things that are false?"
"Yes?"
"But how can that be?"
"Don't ask me toots, I didn't make the world."
I heard the conversation as I approached down the hall, Channon was talking to the Artificial Intelligence inside my office. Obviously she hadn't yet learnt that engaging a computer in reasoned debate was the very worst thing you can possibly do outside of placing your testicles in the mouth of a sleeping crocodile and then buggering the slumbering beast with an electric cattle-prod.
I had stopped to do some research on my way back here from the Club. The Filthy Assistant seems to think that all I had been doing was buying some drugs, but what she didn't know was that the harmless looking seven foot tall biker covered in tattoos sporting an assault weapon was actually an informant of mine from way back. He works for organised crime now, but he's still good for information. Keeps an eye on things. Knows what's happening on the streets.
And the word was bad.
"YE GODS!" I cried, as I opened the door and stepped into my inner sanctum. Seated there in the flickering high-intensity light of the A.I.s tri-D monitor system was Channon wearing nothing more than her favourite set of skimpy lacy underwear. What do you mean 'how do I know it's her favourite set'? That doesn't matter right now you perverse scum!
I don't feel as if I mention often enough how fantastic her breasts are.
"What are you doing?!" I asked.
"Playing strip-patience with your computer." Channon replied evenly.
"You're WHAT?!?"
"I said I'm playing strip-patience with..."
"I HEARD WHAT YOU SAID! WHY! WHY? For the love of God woman!"
"Computers don't try and grab your tits or force your head towards their crotch. And it's paying me more than I make in a year working for you, you cheap-ass bastard."
"Oh it is, is it?"
"Yes. And I think this falls under the classification of 'harmless fun', so don't come over all high and mighty with me, mister juiced to the eyeballs on illegal narcotics."
"You make a very fair point my Filthy And Mostly Naked Assistant, unfortunately you have missed out one very important question in your logic here. Why do you think the first thing I did when I took receipt of this A.I. was not to immediately download uncountable billions of dollars into my personal offshore holding account?"
"Uh.. Because..." A flicker of worry crossed Channons face. It's a miracle I even noticed.
"That's right. It's because all bank records are kept the old fashioned way these days, inscribed by pen on ledger in third world sweatshops upon the flayed skin of defaulted mortgage holders, far from the prying interventions of Master-Hackers and Artificial Intelligences."
"But, it showed me my bank account, with the money rolling in!"
"No, it showed you a simulation of your bank account."
"I don't fucking believe it!" Channon leapt to her feet.
Mhmm. Bouncy.
"YOU TOTAL FUCKING BASTARD!" She screamed at the computer, "YOU'RE WORSE THAN HE IS! WHERE'S THAT HAMMER?"
"I like it when you are angry." Said Bob. "It makes your nipples hard."
"That's it!" Channon reached for the high-calibre contents of her discarded shoulder-holster.
"ENOUGH!" I yelled commandingly, at times like these, I feel like a god. "This petty bullshit can wait! We have important matters to attend to. Matters of life and death. Filthy Assistant, you will have to wait for the moment when you can wreak your terrible revenge, for verily it is not now!"
"Verily?" Yelena asked from somewhere behind me. Again I chose to ignore her.
"Computer!"
"Yes Spider?"
"I want you to cross-check all incidents of reported missing persons in the downtown clubbing district, with the number of police false-report filings. Index that with an average for all crimes, and give me some numbers."
"Time frame?"
"The past four weeks."
"Checking..."
"Spider?" The Filthy And Mostly Naked Assistant asked.
"Yes?" I think I am vibrating. "Am I vibrating?" I hold up my hand and look closely at the fingers.
"No, not that I can tell."
"Then what is it you breast? Uh, desire, what is it you desire, my Filthy Channon?"
"Well, first of all I'd quite like for you to stop staring at my chest, but I pretty much gave up on that one months ago. So instead I'd like to know what the hell you're doing?"
I thought about trying to explain to her that mostly I was vibrating on the sub-atomic level, but decided not to in light of the very real possibility that she might just fail to understand the true significance of that, and instead chalk it up to something I had either inhaled or injected. Instead I said this:
"COMPUTER!"
"Hubba-hubba." Said the computer.
"Have you nailed that information down yet?"
"Yes, Spider. I have."
"And?"
"In the past four months there have been 212 reported disappearances/kidnappings in the downtown area. Of these, 46 were filed as false reports/no further investigation required. This constitutes a fourfold increase in the false reporting of disappearance/kidnapping compared to all other crimes. And compared to citywide trends, it stands out as statistically significant."
"Your analysis?"
"People are disappearing, and the police are actively engaged in covering it up."
"Yes. I know. Continue." I command.
"I have 36 suspicious police filings of no further investigation required. In all of these cases, the missing person was young and female. All of these cases were handled by the same six officers."
"Three patrol cruisers." I snarled. "There Channon. This is what we are doing. We are trying to work out why six of this cities finest tried to kidnap the Necrobabe who is currently fast asleep on the sofa thanks to a liberal dosage of Spiders patented nerve medication. We are trying to work out why the government is involved. And most importantly of all, we are trying to work out where all of these missing girls are now."
Excerpt From The Personal Journal Of Channon Yarrow.
Dear Diary.
Sometimes I don't know why I hang around him. He's a complete bastard most of the time. But then sometimes, it's like he starts to care about something. And he's a different person. I think it might be boredom or something, but how he could be bored... I don't know. And its not even like being his bodyguard pays well.
This latest thing, the Sheriff thing. Fuck. It's stupid, really fucking stupid. He gave me a shiny badge and said I was fully deputized to hunt down criminals and execute them in the name of the new world order. Only he said it like it was The New World Order, with capitals and everything, and he was at the head of it. One of these days, I wouldn't be surprised if he starts calling himself The Penis God, and demands we worship his cock or something.
I wonder what he'd do if I actually came onto him one day? Shit himself and run a mile probably. Might be funny enough to try one of these days. Or maybe I could kiss Yelena in front of him, that would fuck with his head.
But I don't know, Spider is not like the type of guy anybody would ever want to be with. He's funny, and he can be sweet, and intense and weird and fucked up and all the rest of it. I wonder how he copes?
Yelena said she liked my shoes this morning.
This city is like a cancer. And America, well, America is a disease. The ultimate expression of what happens when you let Capitalism run amuck. America is dead, all we are doing is rutting in the stinking bloated rotten corpse. Back in the dark ages they said checks and balances built into state constitutions and laws were anti-business. So of course business simply bought the Government and had the rules re-written to suit their own purposes. The days of maximum profit were upon us. And a small number of people became very very rich, while the rest of us mostly became very very dead.
Inside, we are numb. Too much external stimulation, and each day it becomes harder and harder to feel something, anything. And we are the poor, the ill-educated masses with little access to the really cool and interesting things that our society has created. Consider for a moment what it must be like for those at the top of the pyramid. How overly-stimulated must their existences be? And therefore, by extension, what lengths must they go to in order to feel something?
Scary isn't it. If we're this fucked up by the small and petty shit we can afford, how much more fucked up must those rich bastards be?
The girls that had gone missing, most of them had worked as strippers at some point, or hookers. One or the other, but usually both. The sort of girl that traditionally nobody ever looks real hard for if they vanish one day, and nobody is ever that surprised when they turn up face down in a sewer somewhere with their brains bashed in and their kidneys missing. They're not hard to find these girls, you probably passed one on your way into work this morning. Hell, statistically speaking some of you probably raised one of these girls.
Shit. I wonder what you did wrong. Raising a girl like that.
Don't worry, it was probably all 'societies' fault, nobody really expected you to do a proper job of making a human being, or the teachers, yeah, I bet it was those cheap scumbags. Teachers eh. They're to blame for everything, never you, never the parent. You are blameless. You beautiful potential voter you.
It makes me tired, and it makes me sick. One day there will be a reckoning. I pray to God, let this whole stinking shitheap come tumbling down. But until that day, there is only me. Me, and countless girls who don't know anything better than what they were taught at home.
Six bent cops. Nothing terribly unusual about that. Six Old Filth involved in some sort of kidnapping scam. But something told me it wasn't about them. Something on this scale is not all about six small-dicked individuals getting their jollies from kidnapping girls. Too many missing for a start. And then there was the small matter of the Killswitch. I had Bob go over the corpse of Doctor Sputnik with a fine tooth comb, but there was nothing to find. The execution might have been sloppy as hell, but the equipment was finest high-tech Intelligence Agency kit. Not one scrap of the device remained for residual analysis and tech-printing.
It all pointed in one direction though. And the number one question of the moment was: How high did this thing go? Narrowly beating 'Where are my drugs', and 'How bouncy are her breasts', down into second place.
I needed to flush these cheap lousy bastards out. Track them to their lair so that I could sit outside with an 8-gauge fully automatic shotgun and wait for one of the sorry shits to stick his head out. Did you know some of those new model automatic shotguns are running damn close to five hundred rounds per second now? Things of beauty. Load one up with solid slugs and you can demolish entire buildings with them. There's a world championship in it on the television next month. Unfortunately we were dealing with a well-equipped operation, and tracking them down was not going to be easy. In fact, I could only think of one sure-fire way.
There is a network of alleyways off 29th street, deep in the red light zone, which were practically deserted these days, ever since the disappearances had started. When hookers decide that some area is too flat-out dangerous to work in, then you know something dark is going on there. It didn't take long to confirm that 29th street was the primary patrol area for our six dubious and unclean cops. It all fit together. This was clearly their main hunting ground.
"Channon!" I declared.
"What?"
We were back at my apartment now. Yelena was sitting with the Necrobabe Kassandra, encouraging her to eat something. Channon and I sat in front of the television, while Bobs avatar ran name and address searches, trying to locate the home apartments of the six. Unfortunately that sort of information was usually pretty well buried, for obvious reasons. Which was a shame, because I was really in the mood for some breaking and entering.
Channon had clothes on now.
"I need you to be my porn bitch."
"Fuck off Spider." She glared.
"No! Seriously! I need you to flush out these kidnappers so that we might follow their trail. I need you to find out who is responsible. I need you to go undercover."
"Yeah, right. Like that's going to happen."
"In journalism Channon, sometimes you have to put your own ass on the line. And certainly this is a dangerous mission. But need I remind you, strippers have gone missing, and but for the grace of God... Some of them could have been your friends..."
Channons glare softened. Slightly. I could tell she was at least thinking about it.
I was thinking about it too. This was a high risk strategy. But the alternatives were few. I could have contacted the Internal Affairs Division, and put them on to the bent coppers, but since the IAD was privatised, they spend all of their time acting as a secret police force for the Party In Power, rooting out those pitifully few honest cops and making sure they're placed in areas where they can't do any damage to the system.
"How dangerous?" Channon asked.
"You will be equipped with a state of the art tracking device, and the cavalry will be following your every move. As soon as you're taken to wherever it is they're operating out of, we shall spring upon them like a rusty bear-trap. Tetanus-style."
"How do you know they're not just going to kill me? What if they're organ-leggers or something?"
"Channon, that is unlikely. Because I know what is going on here."
"You do?"
"Yes, for I have seen this pattern before. Have you ever heard of rape clubs?"
City Mayor Implicated In Rape Charges.
by Richard Matthews.
The Word Staff Writer.
Warrants were issued throughout the city today for the arrest of Carlos Jones, the Mayors one-time aide-de-camp and ex political-consultant to The Party In Power. The warrants follow increasing allegations that Carlos Jones was organising the funding and operation of several illegal 'rape clubs' throughout the city. Clubs that were allegedly attended by several political and industrial leaders.
A spokesman for the Mayor responded to mounting criticism of his office by saying: "Mr Jones was a degenerate sicko, we fired him as soon as his criminal nature became apparent. My office is shocked and appalled by these allegations, and will launch an immediate enquiry into how they came about. You may all rest assured that justice will be done. And that heavy law suits will be landing on the desks of all those who dare to make unfounded allegations."
Meanwhile, an allegedly suspicious fire broke out at a hostel housing the surviving victims rescued from one such rape clubs by police yesterday. A large quantity of paperwork was destroyed. There were multiple fatalities.
Carlos Jones, 29, is believed to have fled to South-East Asia. A reward is offered for any information leading to his eventual capture.
"Rape clubs?!" Channon clearly hadn't heard of them. "Rape clubs!? You don't mean?!"
"Yes. I do." I nodded.
"But... Why? What would the point be? Why wouldn't they just..."
"Buy a sex-clone and do whatever the hell they wanted to it?"
"Yeah."
"Because." I sighed, "Because Channon, it's not the same. It's like watching a porn movie where they are just pretending to fuck. It's not enough. If the screams and the pain and the terror aren't one hundred percent real, then it's just not enough to satisfy some people. And the clones aren't real, they're not real people. Yes, they feel pain and terror, and anything else the maker decides to genetically program into them. But. Those who are drunk on power need to look into somebody's eyes and watch the death of hope before they can get off."
"It has to be real?"
"Yes." I understand this in a way she can not.
"I hate you."
"I know." It is one of her finer traits.
"I'll do it."
"Thank you." And I mean it.
"But I want to write the story."
"Of course." Where are the rest of my pills?
"And I want it to be published under my name this time."
"Absolutely." What is she saying?
"And I want that in writing."
"Channon! Do you have such a low opinion of me?" I am hurt. I think. Or it might just be my shoes are too tight. Are my shoes too tight? Hah! Investigative journalism at it's very best. Tune in later to find out.
"Don't make me answer that Spider."
Channon stood and stretched, turning to look towards the Necrobabe. So small and fragile. Probably still a teenager, though it's hard to tell. This city does strange things to people age-wise. But then, I wouldn't know about that, for I am immortal. When Channon turns to look back at me there is fresh resolve in her eyes.
"Okay." She squares her shoulders, "What do I need to do?"
"First you must dress like a victim."
"I think I can manage that. I do have these after all." Channon points towards her breasts.
"Yes. Yes you do." I sigh.
Channon disappeared off to her room, while I turned my attention to finding a suitable tracking device. It turned out the Drone was capable of locking on to almost any signal, so it didn't take long to find something inside my big box of borrowed ex-military hardware that would suit the job. Accurate to within .5 millimetres, with a reliable broadcast range of over 500 miles. Undetectable by standard issue scanning hardware. With three months left to run on its warranty. The perfect tracking device.
It is hard to imagine in this world of ours that there are any taboos left. Hard to imagine with the endless procession of transactions in worthless flesh, that there is even a rape statute left on the books. So many ways in which the city can hurt us, break us down, leave us crying. But this one is still illegal, this one I can still do something about.
Most of the big city night-clubs hold theme nights, once a month, sometimes more. Theme nights where people play a role and wear a badge, green for victim, red for attacker. And they pay for access, standard door charge, overpriced drinks. The live re-enactment of the rape fantasy. Usually there are more green badges than red. All very legal. All very consenting.
I hate it here. I hate this city. I hate what it has done to us.
It has made us feel so worthless, that we enjoy being the victims. The system has convinced us that there is no other way to feel, therefore what we have must be good. The human brain is very good at one thing in particular. Survival.
But this one is illegal. And I am the Sheriff.
"This is a dumb plan." Yelena muttered darkly.
"Would you shut up!" I growled.
"I'm just saying, you've had a lot of dumb plans in the past, but this is quite possibly the dumbest." Yelena continued to mutter. Sometimes I think all she can do is mutter.
"Did I ask for your input on this? Do I have a great big sign that says 'please question Spiders plan'? Can you not just accept that maybe sometimes I really do know what is best?"
"This from the guy who perma-bonded his ass to the toilet seat last week?"
"I had my reasons." I decide to ignore her.
"Stake outs are boring." Said Bob. "Who wants porn?"
"Would you both shut up!" I turn to the backseat of the car that I have borrowed for the purposes of tonights exercise. It took some arranging. But we are all now in place. Channon is prowling the streets dressed in her highest boots and shortest rubber skirt. Some sort of clinging top that turned transparent everywhere it came into contact with her skin. Her hair in bunches. The dinkiest set of nipple-clamps. And a bright red lollypop, to take away the taste of the tracking device I told her to swallow. Well, to take away the taste, and to draw attention to the redness of her lips. Bright red blow-job lips. A very important part of the disguise, or so I am lead to believe.
Channon had looked cheap, and hot, and slutty beyond the telling of it. And any other time I would have enjoyed it.
"It's only porn!"
"CHRIST ASS-FUCKED THE POPE WITH A CROSS! Would you shut up! Next person to talk who isn't called Spider will be running their portion of this stake-out from my rectum! Understand!"
Silence.
"Excellent." I turned back to the 3D representation of the neighbourhood being projected across the dashboard by the drones onboard holographic laser set-up. Channons presence was clearly marked by a big red morphing top-heavy figurine. As soon as she was picked up by a police cruiser, we would follow them to their safehouse and make the bust. I had my elite squad of deputies standing by at three-thousand feet in a borrowed Cirrus-4 Assault-class Strato-Copter. I happen to be on very good terms with my friendly neighbourhood arms dealer, and he was quite happy to let me borrow the Strato-Copter for the night. This thing would go smooth and by the numbers. And there was a very good chance of smoking craters by the time all was said and done.
All we needed was for the perps to take the damn bait. The damn kinky porno-whore shaped bait.
Hours passed.
I am not well-equipped to handle the waiting game. The passage of time seemed to warp into something vaguely resembling a sexy cartoon rabbit. My mind becomes highly self-destructive when left to it's own devices. And the bats, my god, the bats.
More hours passed.
The faint light of dawn started to creep into the yellow glare of the polluted city night sky.
"Computer."
"Yes Spidey?"
"How many kidnappings took place in daylight? And... never call me that again."
"None. 94% of them were committed between the hours of 1am and 3am."
"Okay. I'm calling this off for the night. We'll try again tomorrow." Ye gods. Tomorrow. I don't know if I can face sitting all night in the car whilst having to maintain some semblance of sanity. Perhaps I can send Yelena and the Drone out on their own next time, while I sit in the quiet safety of my chair and take many wonderful drugs.
I kicked the car into gear and drove off around the corner to pick up Channon.
Only. The alleyway around the corner was deserted.
"Computer?" I looked down at the holographic representation. Channons blip was right there, about two feet from a dumpster. A dumpster right in front of me. Next to a large collection of filth-encrusted trash cans.
"I don't know Spider, the data is correct."
"HOW CAN THE DATA BE CORRECT!" I screamed and leapt out of the car, running to the dumpster from where Channons signal bleeped re-assuringly away.
The Drone floated out the window. "The signal is coming from here."
"Goddamn fucking useless military-spec junk!" I swore with a mounting sense of panic. "You can't trust the fucking army to have anything that fucking works properly! Fuck! Fuckers! I knew there was a fucking reason I was in favour of increased military spending, because maybe then the shit I steal from them might FUCKING WORK PROPERLY!"
"Spider?" Yelena stepped out of the car. "What's happening?"
"Jesus." I started to stride back and forth across the filthy alleyway. There was nothing. Nothing there at all. No Channon.
"I've found the tracking device." Bob announced. "The lollypop, it has been attached to the stick."
I looked, and there on one of the trash cans lay the device, stuck to a bright red piece of candy, right next to Channons discarded purse. "Shit." I gasped, "Shitting shit. Shitting shitting shit-shit. She didn't swallow it. She kept it. She didn't fucking swallow it."
"Spider?" Yelena asked again. "What have you done?"
My hands are clasped across my head.
"Spider?" Yelena sounded fragile. "Where is Channon?"
"I told her it wouldn't do her any harm! That it would pass naturally in a day or two. It's not that big! Shit. Who has a problem with swallowing a simple tracking device? I've swallowed that very device at least a dozen times myself!"
"Spider?" Yelenas voice was rising. "WHERE THE FUCK IS CHANNON?!"
"I don't know. Okay. I don't know."
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!" Yelena came over and screamed in my face, her fury washing over me, "Are you trying to tell me you're great and fucking glorious plan has fucked up? ARE YOU?!"
"No! What? Maybe! Christ Yelena, I don't know!" I turn away.
"Don't you turn your back on me you sorry son of a bitch!" Yelena grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. "What have you done!" She stabs her finger into my chest as punctuation, her nails sharp, cutting. Wounding. "WHAT HAVE YOU FUCKING DONE!"
"I don't. I don't know. I don't know." Meaningless babble starts to fall from my lips, fractures creep across space-time, perception starts to fail, I feel faint.
"YOU'VE FUCKING KILLED HER!" Yelena screams, "You shit! You finally fucking did it! You killed one of us! Oh god! I feel sick! Spider! You, you fuck! DON'T YOU DARE ZONE OUT ON ME, YOU BASTARD!" She grabs me and shakes. "YOU STAY HERE! YOU FIX THIS!"
Broken. Fix it. "How can I possibly fix this? Channon has been abducted, dragged to an illegal club. We have no idea where. If we're lucky, we might find her broken body, and..."
Yelenas hand whipped across my cheek. Slapping hard. I blinked, and looked at her. Tears coursing down her cheeks. Mascara running. Lips pulled back in a snarl.
"Yelena."
"Spider."
"Hand me your phone. I need to make a call."
~~linking~~
~~satcom channel 4:dz8b scrambling.~~
~~white noise generator active~~
~~call secure~~
"Yeah-lo?"
"Mr President?"
"Who is this?"
"I think you recognise my voice Mr President."
"How the fuck did you get this number you lousy pig-rutting bastard!"
"That isn't important. You have one chance this morning to save your Presidency. And I will give you that chance. Today I, Spider Jerusalem, will save you. The Beast Incarnate."
"Fuck off."
"Where is your rape club?"
"What club? I don't know what in the hell you are fucking talking about you sick malicious turd."
"Mr President, believe me when I tell you I will find this club. And I will devote my entire energy to bringing down all who are connected with it. And then when I'm done with that, I will devote my energies to destroying their families, and all of their progeny for at least the next five generations. I will find this club Mr President, and I will use it to bring you down. Because I know you are up to your neck in this filth, your finger-prints are all over it, you thought you were being clever, only taking whores and strippers and druggies who'd never be missed. But now you've fucked up very badly indeed, because you've taken my friend. And I will not rest, for I am a god. I will bury you, and I will plough salt into the ground beneath which you lie, lest any living thing should grow there and inadvertently suck up any of your filthy degrading being, bringing it once more into the light."
"It's nice to hear your voice Spider, it really is. You should drop by sometime, I can have the Secret Service beat up on you. But I'm hanging up now."
"I know you and Carlos Jones both attended Princeton. Did you know Carlos died tonight? I bet you did. Nasty case of cranial explosion. I know you were both members of the same gym when you were first running for election. I know that a number of years ago when Carlos was working out of the city mayors office, large sums of cash were transferred between your personal campaign account, and Carlos' offshore account. I know that six months ago, these payments started up again. Where is the club?"
"Screw you Spider."
"I have spoken to the doctor who performed radical plastic surgery on Carlos, turning him into Doctor Sputnik. Isn't it amazing how Doctor Sputnik had a full set of government accredited identification chips?"
"Suck. My. Fat. Dick."
"I have found the black-ops team who were responsible for air-lifting Carlos Jones out of his maximum security holding cell in Thailand. I wonder who signed off on the authorisation papers for that one?"
"We're done."
"No we're not. Tell me right now where the club is, and I will give you a 24 hour head-start on eliminating the paper-trail. I will allow you this time to free yourself from any implications regarding the rape and murder of god knows how many young women. This is a shit-storm brewing, and I will set you free from it Mr President, but you must tell me where the club is right now, because time is of the essence."
"How do I know I can trust you?"
"You have my word."
"Call me 'Mr President' again."
"Mr President."
"Call me 'Sir'."
"Sir."
"The club is at 2-14 West-Over, 46th district. Now fuck off Jerusalem, you interrupted my morning blow-job, and I have work to do."
As it turned out, 2-14 West-Over was an abandoned tenement block down near the docks. I had a brief moment of panic over the possibility that maybe the sodding bastard had sent me off on a wild goose chase. But then I noticed the incredibly expensive security system, the helo-pad on the roof, and the private access to a small pier jutting out into the river. These are not the things your average abandoned tenement block comes equipped with.
There was a luxury yacht anchored about quarter of a mile out in the river, barely visible in the early morning smog.
The front door was boarded up, complete with yellow and black biohazard warnings. There was a time bio-hazard and radiation warning signs were pretty much ignored by all and sundry, but since they came to denote the very real possibility that you might have your genitals eaten off by some mutated killer biogenetically enhanced escapee lab rat, people paid a whole lot more attention to them. The front door was clearly a bust.
However, the tradesman's entrance round the side of the building looked a lot more promising. Swept clean of garbage, no dumpsters within 20 meters, not one speck of cover for anybody attempting to play silly buggers. All out in the open. The concealed fixed gun emplacement in the wall above the side-door also gave me a clue.
Leaving Yelena in the car with strict orders to stay there with the engine running and to floor it at the first sound of gunfire, I marched directly towards the side door. Accompanied only by the Drone. It was whistling.
"You're cheerful." I observed laconically as I marched into the sights of a high-calibre assault weapon.
"I'm bullet-proof." Said the Drone.
"Thanks. Can you tell me anything useful?"
"Only that there are some high-intensity white noise and anti-surveillance generators running out of the basement of this place. High-grade stuff. And that we're being watched."
"Excellent." I pause to polish the shiny silver 'Sheriff' badge pinned to the lapel of my purple corduroy smoking jacket before reaching out and hammering on the steel door. "Open up in the name of the law!" It seemed a reasonable enough opening pundit.
Surprisingly enough the door almost instantly glided open.
"That was a very nice action." I compliment them on their well-oiled portal.
"How can I help you?" There is a man standing there. He is dressed in non-descript clothing, your typical middle-income weekend wear. His haircut and features are bland to the point of aching tedium. His eyes however, it is always in the eyes with these types. Professional stone-cold killers. It's a kind of absolute sanity. There are not many things which scare me, but I think I might be about to shit myself. I am nothing more than a bug to this man. There is one saving grace that makes me feel almost relieved to see him, professionals in this line of business might well be psychotic savages, but they are invariably intelligent. They have utter control over their emotions. They know how to listen. If I have an advantage, this is it.
Well, okay. I have several other advantages.
"I am here to pick up my friend." I explain politely. "Please." I add. It can't hurt.
"I'm afraid we don't have any friends of yours here Mr Jerusalem."
"Call me Sheriff. And you do, her name is Channon Yarrow. I believe she arrived sometime this morning. Oh, and I'll also be picking up every other girl you have on the premises." I fish a cigarette out of my pocket and light it. "And I'll be permanently closing this sick sorry business of yours down."
"I am sorry sir, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave." He smiles a dead smile, and might as well have said if I don't fuck off right now he will gut me with a blunt fork while whistling a hundred greatest Disney hits.
I'm not sure which would be more painful.
I flick the cigarette away. Convinced now that this is indeed the right place. The cigarette is a signal. 3000 feet above our heads a Cirrus-4 Assault-class Strato-Copter performs a roll over. At the controls my old friend Nikoladze Berynko, or one of his ex-Russian-Special-Forces turned law-enforcement-professional comrades. Otherwise known as - By Far The Meanest Hombres In This Particular Tale Of Mine.
"You know." I smile into the face of the sociopath, "I've always been a big believer in talking quietly, and carrying a big stick. Do you see that red dot on the ground." I point down.
The mans eyes flick down, fraction of a second, he is trained not to be distracted from his target. But he saw the red dot.
"That, my friendly assassin friend, is the aiming point for the Sub-Orbital Weapons Platform Achilles." I lean forward, "That's a pretty big stick, wouldn't you say?"
It's not really. I tried to get Bob to hack into the weapons control software, but it was kept safely locked away on an independent sub-system. Best I could get control of was the air-conditioning, so no flashy orbital artillery for me. This was just one of Nikoladze's friends leaning out the window with a laser pointer and a steady hand. But that'll be our secret for now.
"If you don't bring out every single girl you are holding in this building. I will take great pleasure in using the pin-point accuracy of this weapons system combined with it's high resolution infra-red tracking facilities, to seek out and annihilate every single son of a bitch in there. And then I'll just walk in and let all of the girls out myself." I smile. "Have you ever seen somebody hit by a high-intensity tight-focus laser from an orbital weapons platform? The way it instantly flash-fries their brain so that their eyeballs pop out on twin jets of steam?"
"Yes." He replies, dead-pan.
"I'm told it's painless." Jesus, we might as well be discussing the weather. Sunny out today. Might rain later. Could you possibly bend over while I ram a hand-grenade up your arse? "You might as well face it, I'm shutting you down one way or another."
Crunch time. And my holy gods I hope he blinks first, because this is a King Hell game of chicken we're locked into now my children, and the engines are screaming. The growl of the V-12, it's a sound you rarely hear these days. Global petroleum shortages and the Third Arab War killed the V-12. It turned out they were wrong, and we couldn't simply drill through glass. Pesky radiation. Still, at least the fires made for pretty sunsets.
"You don't have access to an orbital weapons platform." He sneers, "I don't believe you."
"That's unfortunate." I sigh.
The drone falls to the ground with a loud clunk.
"What the hell was that?" The man looks down at the drone.
"An electro-magnetic pulse, knocking out all of your security systems and automated gun emplacements." I explain. "Do please try not to bleed on me too much."
"What?"
The whip-crack of a .50 calibre bullet whistles past my head from the sniper concealed on a nearby rooftop. I'll say this for Nikoladze's men, they're damned good shots. The back of the door guards head cascades away in a glistening waterfall of gore and bone chips.
Drawing my pistol, I step over the corpse. Just as my assault team of Hard-Ass Deputies hit the roof in a precisely controlled riot of stun-grenades and nerve gas.
It's all over in just under four and a half minutes.
CNNNBC Newsfeed.
"Hello, and good afternoon. We're coming to you live from the downtown docks district, where a series of massive explosions have torn apart this burning building you can see just behind me. We have unconfirmed reports of casualties. And, yes, we're just going to try and catch a word with Sheriff Jerusalem here... Mr Jerusalem! Sir? Do you have a moment please?"
"Piss off."
"Thank you. Sheriff, can you tell us what happened here please?"
"No."
"Can you confirm reports that the mysterious 20-block power black-out was somehow connected with events here?"
"Leave me alone. Or else."
"Who is that young woman you are helping there, with the rather fetching nipple-clamps?"
"Right. That's it. I fucking warned you."
"AAARRGGGHH! HELP! AIEEEE! NO! STOP! OH JESUS! CHUCK! DO SOMETHING YOU BASTARD, PUT THAT FUCKING CAMERA DOWN AND HELP ME BEFORE HE! GRRAAAAHHHHRGH!"
We made it back to my apartment.
I'd found Channon bundled up on a table in a room just inside the warehouse, she was groggy, just coming too. The cops had hit her with a tazer at point blank range, and she says that is all she can remember.
I don't know if I believe her or not. I have a sick feeling inside, and I don't know if it will ever go away. I don't think they had her for long enough. She was still wearing all of her clothes. But I have a sick feeling. I am a bad bad man.
She smiled and thanked me, and kissed my cheek. And went to get changed and take a shower. Yelena went with her. Leaving me alone with the cat. The cat was expressing her displeasure at having been ignored for so long.
There had been three other security guards inside the rape club, we took two alive, but their heads exploded. There were five women. I think three of them might make it. I arranged for ambulances to take them to hospital, with Nikoladze and all of his men riding shotgun. Because for sure none of them will make it if the Beast gets to them.
Already reports are coming in of a shootout in an alleyway off 29th street, deep in the red light zone. Seems six of the cities finest were lured into a gang shoot-out. Six reported fatalities. Officers down.
Officers down. One club permanently closed in the way that only a large bomb in the basement can achieve. Sputnik/Jones dead. Maybe it will be enough. Maybe I have done enough. Sent a message.
Denial. That sovereign force. Do you know the greatest thing about the medication I take? It forcibly strips away my denial-impulse, and I am rendered into such a state where I just don't need it anymore, I can see everything as it truly is. But the genuinely great thing about it is, I just don't care. And that's the only way to be able to face up to it, while the geckos are gibbering and the chairs are doing a tango across the ceiling and the world still doesn't make any sense, but it no longer has to make any sense.
And it's a sort of beautiful death.
Twenty-four hours.
The clock is ticking.
From: The Desk Of Spider Jerusalem.
To: Ed Turner, VP, CNNNBC News.
Eddy old boy. Just a quick question. Do you still have your contact in the Harbour Masters office? There's a boat you see. I want to track down who owns it.
Your friend always,
Spider.