I’m in Barney’s, waiting on a drug-loving squid. Got my whole life riding on this job. Been killing time on my arm-tablet, programming viruses. Never know when you might need one.
Barney’s is a neat joint. Mugs crawling with lichen, pesky sea mice scavenging the dank floors. Nautiluses negotiating grimy tanks. Bums mumbling about the Kings’ game or slumped over, half-dead off that blowtox junk.
Real relaxed, but I keep an arm-tip close to the eelgun. Never know.
I’m sipping a sour mug of beer when my guy slides in, fidgeting. This squid fella, Petey, always has his tentacles in something.
“So pal, I’m looking for an inker woman,” I say. “Tan. Used to waitress at that shrimp bistro in Hell Alley. Pretty.”
Petey scavenges his pocket for prickly flesh and takes to chewing. Probably blowtox from a puffer dealer. Pure tetrodotoxin. Stuff’s gonna kill him one day.
“I know her, sure, but I didn’t know she had a bounty . . .” Petey’s eyes are vacuous and big as snow globes, reflecting the grainy-gray morning, a grim janitor behind me doing scratch-offs with a shell, and a shadow twitching his empty sleeves from phantom limb sensations.
“Well, she does. Where can I find her?”
Petey shakes his head like my words will rattle right out, but I already know he’ll tell. It’s what keeps him protected in the streets. His usefulness.
“Say, how’re you feeling from the surgery? Couldn’t be me. Can’t lose my arms, not even for all that money.” In his eyes, the janitor tears and eats the scratch-off, then looks around severely.
“I still got two. And the surgery was months ago. Come on, Petey.”
“Alright. But Deuce, you trust me. This lady is in a bad way. Real bad.”
I shrug. Bad ways were usually how folks got bounties. That’s the job.
Anyway, he tells me. Petey’s my guy even if he is a squid and addicted to blow. We all bleed the same blood.
Not a bad day for a walk. Warm. Some streets are bustling streams of traffic–self-driving air-taxis, krill drone hordes, buyers and sellers. Others are quieter, places where middle-class six-armers live and walk their giant isopods.
I know I’m in Otterville when the streets become a labyrinth of hologram advertisements and corporation sputum.
I work my way past squids hustling bulletproof gharial coats and a merchant tempting with lubed pneumatic siphons. Bumping my hip when habit calls my missing lower arms to swipe or push.
Then, I’m underground where the fight club is, the one Petey mentioned. A rickety hideout. Tight security. Bar. A metal cage for two pissed off mantis shrimp with exaggerated physiques. Alcohol. Drugs. You name it.
A bit more snooping and there she is, backed into a squalid corner. Crews around here shipping product in and out. They notice the lady and the six-armed gentleman crowding her space, but they mind theirs.
I don’t. The guy’s holding her down and digging his ‘cotylus into her funnel. Scooping out suds of octopus scum. “How you like being undone?”
I alert his attention, then ring his skull with a stray pipe. He stumbles and drops. Sleep it off.
The lady laughs, reaffixes her red siphon-scarf. “It was consensual, hero.”
Oh boy.
She lets me buy her a drink to make up. In the cage, black trunks is troubling gray trunks with jabs. Steel-scaled androids ring the perimeter with bright eyes enhanced by artificial tapeta lucida.
The lady gets a Red Moby, brandy and ambergris stirred with ice. Smells strong, like ocean perfume. And blood.
“You have a bounty on your head, miss. You mind telling me why Ricco wants you so bad?”
“He’s lonely. I’ve just been minding my business and saving up e-pearls to change cities.”
“Uh huh. I got rapport with Ricco. Maybe I can smooth things over.”
She seems to consider this while stirring her drink, making ice-chime music. If she’s lying, I’ll know soon. The mantis shrimp are trading shots back and forth. Won’t last.
She jerks and glances at me. No. Past me.
Two inkers approach us fast, eight-armers dressed in expensive clothes–siphon ties and tailored silk sleeves with cufflinks. They look like valet attendants or butlers from High Side. Type of people too good to call a siphon a funnel.
The lady runs. They run after her. I run after them. Simple.
I catch one and shove him against the nearest android. Its auto-defense activates and serves mech-heavy rib crunchers.
Guy eats a pair and crawls off, deciding against the buffet. Smart.
So it’s a chase. Prey and two predators. Good thing I’m in shape. Minus the gut.
We get lost underground. A filthy plaza births a sauna room. The lady rushes in, her four arms flailing out to activate sliding doors. Half-naked customers mill in a frenzy. A cloudburst of sweat and funk, nasty taste.
The guy chasing her pushes through the chaos. So do I.
Ditching the building, we race the plaza again. There are self-driving taxis within reach. The parked air-scooters are rentable. Both are traceable, but she needs speed. They leave the vehicles behind.
I scan my cup-prints and rent an air-scooter. Used to ride these all the time way back. I situate my feet on deck, burn the engine, and rise like a burst of hot air. View’s much better. If the lady keeps heading north, she’ll run into nothing but abandoned real estate.
I follow, feeling like a kite tethered to them. My funnel blows timely gusts of air for steerage. We come to a jungle of reef and kelp and chaos. Hydrothermal vents gush vertical streams of misty water. The arc-sodium lights from the plaza clip the edge, but that’s all. The rest is darkness.
I have to make my move before I lose them. They plow into that unknown, and I come flying in overhead, funnel puffing me sideways. I clobber the guy, but his chin holds tough.
He’s getting a weapon when the lady surprises him from behind. A shoe of all things puts him out. Go figure. Didn’t even need the eelgun.
We study him like biologists, dissecting his clothes, puzzling over his scars. A tattoo says hello. Eight interlocked rings form a V with old-looking words.
“Blue Rings & Blood Society?” I ask, recognizing the tattoo.
She sighs.
“Ricco paid for me to get a memory implant and sent me to record their private party. He wanted to use what I found to take down Vaillancourt.”
“Octavius Vaillancourt? Shit.” The last guy to piss off is one of the richest. “You’re not gonna live long trying to evade both Ricco and Vaillancourt. We gotta go see your old boss. Now.”
“You trust him?”
“I don’t trust anybody.”
Her nod says me neither.
Another whalelike gush from the hydrothermal vent, and we leave together before the guy wakes up.
Sleep it off.
Ricco hangs out in a different part of town. Businesspeople, lawyers, property managers, important. Everything polished to shine, porcelain idol toilets. But every so often, you catch a used ‘cotylus condom somewhere.
Ricco’s a blimp on the couch, a cuttlefish and former hypnotist that took crime for a spin one day and lucked out. His fins flap out like a vampire’s cloak, and he samples a collection of dust with his tentacles. I’ll settle this quick while the lady waits outside on my scooter.
“Ah, so you got the girl. Excellent, excellent. I’ll drop your e-pearl ASAP.”
“We need to talk first.”
Ricco leans over and vacuums a large sample of dust into his funnel. He coughs like he can smell agony.
“Talk? You? The job is done. You get the e-pearl. Talk is done.”
“Some people came after us with tranq guns.”
“So what, you want bonus? Ack! Fine, you get bonus. Now go.”
I just stare at him and let the scum-sniffer stare back with his W-shaped eyes.
Ricco scoffs and leans back, fins flapping irritably.
“You know, it occurs to me you have a hero complex, Deuce, you know? First, the sacrificing to get your niece into fancy school. Two arms cut. Ouch. Now, you find new damsel, did you?”
Now I’m getting pissed off. Someone must’ve tailed me.
“Why did you send her to spy on Vaillancourt?”
“Eh, why not? He sickens me. One little investment, now he thinks I’m his forever? I belong to nobody. But you brought my secret weapon back, so he won’t be problem for long. Deuce, you won’t be putting the screws to this.”
Ricco flicks his little arms, and the room comes alive with android bodyguards. Unplugging themselves from niches in the walls.
“I already removed the memory chip.”
“You say you what? Where is it?” Ricco is leaning so far that he’d topple if not for being so heavy.
“Stored in an unmarked location,” I bluff. He’s smart, but not that smart.
“Fine, so torture be what you wanting? I’ll have her fileted for the cannibals in Otterville.”
“I want a deal. If I help you take down Vaillancourt, you leave her alone.”
Ricco’s W-shaped eyes curl and flicker, almost seeming Z-shaped in the tricky light.
“You surprise me. You’ll be remembering this when she runs high the bill.”
Then he bloats with disgusting laughter, eight arms streaming.
The lady’s still with me when I park. She told me to call her Red from the Red Moby. Hopefully not a bad omen.
We convene behind Nessie’s Hearts, a nursing home for senescent elders. It’s a quiet building near the edge of town, close enough to spot the transparent barriers holding back the ocean. Beyond them, the mountains of speckled soles with toxins deterring sharks.
“So what’s the plan?” Red.
I use my arm-tablet to scan and access her memory implant. Using her credentials, I download the recording, then send a copy to Vaillancourt directly. Bait.
“I told him to come alone if he wants the file. We’ll chat. Whatever happens to him when he leaves depends on Ricco and his assassins. Nothing to do with you or me.”
“So why did you bring me?” She sparks a cigarette and drags deep.
“Maybe I like having you around,” I say, smirking at Vaillancourt’s hasty agreement. “Or maybe because I don’t trust Ricco.”
“Maybe.” She exhales a cloud like the one hanging over us.
Seems she’s thinking I don’t trust her. That’s true. Bad for conversation, though.
“Come on.” I seal my arm suckers against the door after banging my hip. “Let’s go find me a grandmother.”
Red is across the hall in another room. Safe enough and within reach.
I’m with my new grandmother, a four-armer heavily afflicted with senescence, her skin flaking and her eyes bleary and fading. Neutral territory.
An eight-armed man enters, scowling like a painting of a constipated old king. Vaillancourt.
“A fellow inker.” He snorts and ejects a melanated glob of snot from his siphon. “This stench is unbearable, so let’s be quick. I knew the slut escaped. Not sure how she made that recording, but it’s no consequence. I want the evidence. What do you want?”
“Pie. Crab jelly pie.” Mrs. Graham.
“You willhave whatever trash tax e-pearls permit.” Vaillancourt flicks his sight back to me. “Answer.”
I swallow down a retort. “The lady was forced to record by a guy named Ricco. She doesn’t have anything to do with this anymore.”
Vaillancourt peers at his watch. The display turns blue, and I realize it’s not just a watch. It’s a lie detector.
“You’re not telling the whole truth.” Vaillancourt lunges and catches me in eight arms more powerful than they look. Two snake around my throat, a third pinching my funnel closed, my legs roped up.
He grips the sleeves of my missing arms with unneeded force, then suspiciously investigates inside. Freeing me just enough.
I lash out and swat his gut, loosening his arms like wet noodles.
“It is true. Ricco sent her.”
The watch shines green. Vaillancourt looks and tightens his grip.
“But the girl’s still involved, isn’t she?”
“Lunch is served.” The nurse. Vaillancourt shoves me away, dusts himself off. “Oh dear, is everything okay in here?”
“Yes. Quite,” Vaillancourt addresses her stiffly. “Go on. Feed her.”
The nurse bows her head and supplies Mrs. Graham’s lunch. She’s gone again without another word.
“I’ll leave the girl alone. I only want the original file. And all copies destroyed.” Vaillancourt licks his arm-tip and smooths his eyebrows. “However, you and I have only just begun. If you think I will forget–”
A scream. Commotion.
I take the eelgun in grip. This baby is lightweight aluminum, packed with enough battery power for at least a hundred electric bolts. Triangular mouth looks more squid head than eel, but I ain’t complaining. Electric eels are knifefish anyway.
Vaillancourt springs surprises of his own–a canister of anesthetic gas and a John & Maritime pistol with a laser sight. He flashes me a severe look–he’ll deal with me later–then tosses the gas.
We give it a few. Then we head out the opposite way, covering our faces.
Ricco’s androids come charging after us. I should’ve known it’d be them. The gas is mostly useless. I fling a shot behind us and Vaillancourt feeds them three or four pistol snacks. The androids are outfitted with sea pangolin armor, but they aren’t invulnerable. The eelgun’s electricity should warp their sensors, even as they fire at us with big guns that obliterate the scenery.
Something explodes while we’re taking the stairwell down. Makes us into brief pinballs. Vaillancourt unloads and covers our tracks, but he’s hobbling and I’m not much better. My left arm is numb. And my sweat spills too fast to be sweat.
We get down the stairs and burst free like bats outta hell.
“I’ll remember this.” Vaillancourt gets scarce.
I’m about to do the same. Sirens far off. I know Ricco sent those androids. And he wouldn’t give a shit if I died too.
Warm blood. Don’t know where it’s coming from, but it’s flowing fast.
Red. I wonder if she made it. I hope she got away . . . .
Everything is getting dark.
Pain. Sucking sounds. Sight going in and out. A hydra of surgical lights. Skin burning. Something eating me? Can’t move.
Kissing sounds. A shrimp wearing an apron. Glasses. A tongue laving my wounds. Orally loving them. Alcohol perfume. Tired.
Red? She’s dark. Enshrouded in shadow. Me in light. Like I’m leading her out of darkness. That old story of the singer. Can’t look back.
So much pain. Vicious sucking. Tongue slashing. It’s not love.
So tired.
Gotta sleep.
Red is gone, and I feel like hell.
Funnel stings. Cheap reef bed, but at least the lights are turned down. There are other patients still being serviced or recovering. It’s a cleaning station built on a reef, kelp curtains and rock walls.
I’m checking my sutured wounds when the shrimp cleaner returns.
“It healing good? Sorry, the pain,” she says in Caridean accent. “The miss lady say I should hurry. The hurry hurts.”
There are two separate wounds, chest and gut. They’ve been sealed shut and look glued. Still hurts, but I can manage.
“Where is the lady?”
The shrimp cleaner removes and wipes her glasses. Nervous.
“I was to say you her words. Miss lady sorry but she not stay and die with you.”
Well, I’m alive, so the joke’s on her.
I check my phone, and I’ve missed two messages. The first, a lunch invitation from the Blue Rings & Blood Society. If I accept, they’ll ping my location to send an autocab for pickup. Vaillancourt must be desperate. Crazy if he thinks I’d serve myself plattered.
The second message: my niece is going to a school function. A field trip to meet with the Blue Rings & Blood Society. She wants me there.
Well, shit. Platter it is. I accept.
The cleaner shrimp looks like she’s coming down with something. “I should to ask the miss lady stay for you?” Oh, yeah. Red.
“No . . . I think she was right.” I clamber to my feet, funnel on fire. “Thanks for healing me. You’re an angel.”
Finally, that fright drains out her expression. She even scaffolds a smile.
“Thanks for dinner.”
The autocab dumps me somewhere in the three hearts of High Side. After passing through what, six gates?
I’m caught in a typhoon of traffic, assailed by sound and sight. Cyclists and wind surfers, motorists and wheeled androids. Neat houses and shops, manicured and clean. Towers crying waterfalls. Fountains spraying endlessly. Kids flying water copters. So much fresh water. The place even smells like it.
The clubhouse for the Blue Rings & Blood Society sprawls impossibly far. Acres of land for golf, hydroball, marathons, and anything else. Corpulent buildings mingling with exotic ivy and creepers and ghost flowers that don’t even grow around here.
And a dome and stained-glass windows. Like a church. I guess they expect worship. Android attendant scans my arm-tablet for entry codes. Then, I’m in.
Place is just as obscenely extravagant inside. Floor polished to reflect, rogue platters of appetizers whizzing around under drone power. Grand paintings and eight-armed sculptures of who the hell knows. Freeze-dried mounts of goblin sharks and frilled sharks with barbed wire wheels for teeth.
The kids mill about on tour. My niece practically assaults me when she sees me, her braids swinging like flails.
“You actually came! I hope you didn’t spend too much on a ticket.”
“Nope. Got the devil’s luck.”
“Run along or you’ll miss out. You won’t find knowledge like this in neighborhoods like yours.” Vaillancourt. He struts in a dark blue robe, the ring insignia glistening with a crunch of pearls.
My niece gapes like he’s a god, even obeys like he is. I wait till she’s absorbed by the group and marshaled down a hall.
“Neighborhoods like hers?” I want to shoot him. Or beat his face in. But no. They’ll just nod and get what they want. Another psycho two-armer behaving like a monster.
He curls his beak in mockery, plucking a dripping sample of lobster tail.
“Absolutely. Four-armer neighborhoods simply don’t have the resources. Mere fact.” He gulps in one bite.
“What do you want?”
“What do you think? Oh, right. You have fewer arms and thus fewer brain cells. I want the girl. And that memory implant of hers.” He pokes me in the chest. “I want you to find her and get it.”
Of course. And he’ll have me tailed. He’ll kill her.
“Why is this file so important?”
He studies me a moment, then begins to pace.
“Hypothetically, what would you do if you discovered a person had special blood? Blood that could erase the marks of aging. Blood that could keep a man siphon-searching for hours. Maybe you’d want to extract it. Maybe you’d want to experiment on it. Maybe you’d want to sell it.”
He pauses for smiling. I’m not.
“And what if that blood happens to belong to inkers like you? What if it works best when fresh and extracted in a rather gruesome way?” His eyes are flashing with madness. “But people might be upset if they hear the details of where we get our supply.”
“I get it. So what’s the deal?”
Another poke in the chest.
“It’s important. Now you know how much. You have one day.”
He starts walking again. We reach a ballroom where the kids gather for a musical performance. Solemn eight-armed violinists play a dirge.
“What about Ricco?” I ask, spotting my niece in the crowd twisting her braids.
“I’ll deal with him. Now be a good inker and do your job.” He looks at my niece and back at me, tightening an arm-tip with sadistic relish. “Or else.”
Driving to Petey’s. Sinking in rush hour traffic. Should’ve tried the waterway.
Petey knew where to find Red. Maybe he’ll know again. Sent a message ahead, but no reply. Strange. He’s glued to his phone. Has to be. Never know when a dealer will ring you.
He always replies. Always.
It’s getting dark and my hearts are tricycling as I finally reach the neighborhood. Squat corner east of Otterville where it’s desolate and quiet. Peacefully hellish. Addicts and strays and sometimes a lost pet or two. But right now, nobody. And Petey’s door is open.
Inside. A mess. Orgy of clothes and assorted cheap junk. Stuff even Petey couldn’t pawn off for blow.
I find him in the bathroom, swimming in vomit. Beak slathered in blue blood. Eyes a ripe ocher like roe. Maybe overdosed on blowtox, or maybe somebody wants it to look like it.
Ah, Petey . . .
He doesn’t have any family I know of. But everybody has distant cousins somewhere. I call up an ambulance.
I try not to think of how hard it’ll be finding Red without my buddy. Or what I’ll do when I see that coward Ricco.
But that just makes me think of it more.
Clock’s ticking.
1AM: Home. Recharge eelgun. Leave house. Car.
5AM: Barney’s. No Red. No one knows. Petey last seen days ago. Looked normal. Dead end.
6AM: Otterville. Stingers Gang. They charge for info. I scare a witness for them. They say Red was by. Did a shift in the nightclub.
8AM: Checked. No Red. No one knows. Lies. Stingers Gang has no more info. No more jobs. Petey who?
10AM: Still Otterville. Triton Tetrads: leaders of blow, forked funnel initiations. They know Red; they know pearl even better. No e-pearl and no Red. Possibly some blue. But busy day. Devil’s luck.
11AM: Back to Nessie’s Hearts. Hack traffic cams. Footage of Red dragging me into an autocab. Might’ve come back. Hard to tell. Dead end.
2PM: Hell Alley. Club called Cuppy Legs. Long shot. No Red. Owner’s pissed. Other guys came looking for her. Trashed the place. Leave before trouble.
4PM: Home. Arm-tablet. Backup plans. Fake posts online: Used Memory Implant For Sale. Red and Ricco bait. And a secret creation. Just in case. Never know.
11PM: Vaillancourt message: Day’s just about over. No extra time for lazy inkers. Meeting in the morning. Don’t do anything foolish. Come and say goodbye to her. Shit.
12AM: Still shit.
So, an airship.
An unmarked tower in High Side crests an artificial forest that the autocab had to creep through. Took forever. Lush green hologram scenery, though. Annoying advertising trees–no, I don’t want to drink Life Leaf Cola and “be Leaf in life.” Perched on the tower like a huge sideways squid head is the airship.
I step inside. A luxurious hotel interior. Comfy and neat. Computerized chairs and cyber windows flashing with muted news channels. Virtual helpers frozen in cylindrical chambers. Bedecked with paintings and figurines and the usual fetishes of sophistication.
Vaillancourt appears and takes over for the butler.
“As you can see, it’s fully automated. Recently upgraded from a blimp to this zeppelin beauty. Of course, simple-minded people would just see an airship, but that’s another matter. So you’ve come for your little sweetheart?”
We walk the promenade as the zeppelin (airship for us “simple-minded” people) squashes the city to smidgeons and nonsensical swirls. A slight pressure and a sense of weightlessness washes over me. Then, I’m good. Just the wounds. And this stuck-up siphon-sucker.
“So you’re scum and into little kids?” My arm-tip rests on the eelgun’s rubber grip. Every virtual four-armer we pass is another camera. I can’t be the aggressor. Gotta stay calm.
“You have hearts. I’ll grant you that much. Ah, here we are.”
Vaillancourt’s private chamber. Androids are set in the walls. Spatter of furniture. A glass vivarium drowsy with half-naked inkers. Two-armers, four-armers, six, even eight. Not much else inside but nasty cairns of waste and an odd sculpture flaunting tongues and studded tails. Outside the glass, Red bound to a pole, her siphon-scarf torn off.
“I have found her myself. As for your niece, simply a bluff. She’ll forever be beneath us eight-armers regardless.”
I’m like a boiling pot of piss with a lid. My funnel burns. Can’t shoot him yet. Lid’s bobbling, piss seeping out.
“So what do you need me for?” But now I see the blue bloodstains on Red’s blouse. I trace it to her head. She must’ve cut the memory implant out.
“She wouldn’t tell me where the device is. But she couldn’t hide her feelings for you.”
Vaillancourt gestures at his lie-detecting watch with a grin. Red’s grinning too, but it’s gone before he sees.
I force a laugh.
“Should’ve gone for my niece. The heck I care for some five-pearl funnel now that Ricco’s bounty on her died?”
Vaillancourt can check that watch all he wants. But no lies told. Just bluff and bluster. My usual flavors of bullshit.
“Hmm.” Vaillancourt teases his beak in thought. “Speaking of. Heard he killed your old friend. Petey, was it? And that bounty stings too. Did the job, but he absconded with your money.”
I don’t reply.
“We can work together and scratch each other’s back. After all, I already know where Ricco is. In fact, have yourself a look.”
The windows. Once the voice control deactivates the virtual effects, they show the outside world. Just dots and lines until we descend, building shapes into cityscape. Then it’s water towers and garbage heaps and buildings fighting for space. Hell Alley.
“He’s hiding out there. Thinks I don’t know, the idiotic cuttle-bum. I could let you off right here to settle your business. All you have to do is make her talk.”
“Alright. Red, you heard the man,” I say. “Start talking.”
She doesn’t.
Now, he’s the piss pot. No lid.
“Always you disgusting people with lies and deception. I offer you a genuine partnership and you give me this? Where is the damn chip?”
“We destroyed it. If I send you the copy I have, we go free?”
He only stares, his beak still twisted. On my arm-tablet, I forward him an email with the file attached. He downloads it.
And everything goes nuts. The androids shut down, heads limp. The vivarium door swivels open and closed and open. The windows flash with static, news fighting to break through and losing.
Vaillancourt curls like he’s bracing for something. Red’s electronic manacles come free. Bad news is the airship sinking. Okay, so not my best plan. Dammit.
“It’s impossible.” Muttering to himself. “You only have two arms. I have eight. My intelligence is vastly superior. You’re nothing to me. It shouldn’t be possible.”
He draws and I draw–John & Maritime versus eelgun. Claws of electricity blow him backward. I feel my shoulder scream, and I realize I can’t aim high enough.
He reaches and this time draws a curved blade shimmering clean as pearl. With my other arm-tip, I get my six-inch cutter, jagged steel. Simple.
We mesh. Slicing and hugging and dancing. The airship totters, and we slide with the furniture until it rights itself, the systems fighting back against my virus. At some point I realize the vivarium is empty. Red’s gone too. She must have freed the captives and then run.
Vaillancourt latches my throat and I get his, our blades pinched tight against our bodies and useless. “The only working sample of the drugs we created is onboard. You’ll ruin everything.”
“Good.”
“And for what? A bunch of low-armed inkers?” He spits the words. I crunch my knee into his ribs, and his funnel looses a string of pale shit. Our bond tightens. “Ugh. You saved them, and they left you. Just like you left Petey. He was so easy to kill that I did it myself. Held the gun and watched him blowtox to overdose.”
I headbutt him, and he nails me with an arm, crushing us together against the now empty vivarium. “You let that girl lure you here to die for her because you’re foolish. Out here, it’s every man for himself. Octopus eat octopus.”
And I got nothing to say to him. Because he’s right. And he’s choking me.
Then, a shot fires, he oozes off, and I can breathe again. Arms seize and haul me up. I hear him floundering, succumbing to his wounds. Whimpering. I don’t look back.
I look up, and when I see her, I think she’s probably the best thing I’ve seen in my life.
We climb into the lifeship, and Red flies the thing out. We don’t get far, parked right on the street after a bumpy landing. Good enough.
The airship eventually finds a nice skyscraper to flatten. Catches fire with a crash. Rains wreckage. A real mess, but they probably evacuated when they noticed the airship’s erratic route. I hope so, at least. Gotta have hope.
“So,” I say to Red. I’m hurting all over.
“So.”
“Why’d you split on me before?”
She reaches over and fondles my funnel. Even that hurts. Cleaning shrimp sounds better than sex right now. She reaches inside and digs, and I swear. I’m no masochist.
She’s holding something. A piece of metal rusty with grayish-blue blood. The chip. Son of a . . .
“It’ll go for a lot on the Ink Market.” All I can think to say.
“Split it with you.”
To think I didn’t trust her. But I’m learning. I’m learning.
A crowd’s gathering to watch the fireworks. And among them, who else but that jerk Ricco. He’s dressed in a maroon silk robe, but not so tough without all his android protectors.
I labor out and get to him before he realizes. Eelgun in grip. Red on his other side. She presses Vaillancourt’s John & Maritime gun to his temple.
“Where’s our money?” That would be me. Those W-shaped eyes flip to M-shaped.
“Hey, I been looking all over for you, both of you,” he says. “Money, yes, why don’t you relax a bit and a second? Hey, aren’t we friends? Squids, cuttles, and octopus, we gotta stick together. We all bleed the same blood, no?”
I appraise myself, the bluish splotches on my clothes, the clotting, navy crust on my arms. Can’t tell where mine ends and where Vaillancourt’s begins. “We all bleed the same blood, no?” Ricco repeats, timorous.
Sure, pal. Sure.
J. L. Jones is a hobbyist software developer and gamer. He received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science from Morgan State University. His work has appeared in Fantasy Magazine, Three-Lobed Burning Eye, Strange Horizons, and others. Catch him being a zombie on Twitter/X or Bluesky @Psyscribe.
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