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1. RapeMuffin / Submission / Audio Recording
2. Earfetish / Submission
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MWC January: Newgrounds Fan Fiction Competition / Submissions / Talk / Results
1. RapeMuffin / Submission / Audio Recording Parts 1 / 2 / 3
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1. [tie] Figmentum / Submission / Audio Recording Parts 1 / 2
1. [tie] Boloneyman / Submission
3. RapeMuffin / Submission
4. [tie] Scribbler / Submission
4. [tie] Sonik-Team / Submission
MWC June: Island Escape Competition / Submissions / Talk / Results
1. RapeMuffin / Submission
2. Coop83 / Submission
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MWC July: Scintillating Sounds Competition / Submissions / Talk / Results
1. SonicLe / Submission
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MWC August: Culture Shock Competition / Submissions / Talk / Results
1. GumOnShoe / Submission
2. EternitySpent / Submission
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5. Boloneyman / Submission
MWC September: Poetry Competition / Submissions / Talk / Results
1. MerlinsBeard / Submission
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MWC October: Punkoween Competition / Submissions / Talk / Results
1. SonicLe / Submission
2. Pocru / Submission
3. RapeMuffin / Submission
4. WritersBlock / Submission
5. BankingOnTheEnemy / Submission
Note: I have tried to copy submissions into this account exactly as they appear in the original Contest Thread (same spacing, italics, etc). If an author wishes to make a change to their piece, please PM this account. If an author does not wish for their work to be displayed on this account, please PM this account. Thank you.
Word Count: 3,916
Genre: Garbage Punk
Title: A Ravenous Mind
Eric pulled off his gas mask and looked at the progress he and his team had made. Not too bad, he thought to himself as he scanned the garbage lines. This year's Stash the Trash Day was bound to at least get some garbage off the streets. But even then, it wouldn't be enough. Eric and his team of five workers had managed to clear a pathway one fourth of the way down the town's main road. With piles of garbage lining the street, this was no easy feat. Eric looked out behind him at the work they had accomplished in the last six hours. He raised his eyes to the horizon line in the distance. For miles on end, all that could be seen were mountainous piles of trash. How long had it been since Eric had seen a green hill covered with flowers? It had certainly been much too long. Eric shook his head and brought himself back to reality. The hill right in front of him was piled high with broken glass bottles, torn papers from books, candy wrappers, moldy pieces of bread, a dark plastic bottle with a Gatorade label partly torn off, and rotten apple cores with tiny worms crawling through what was once a crisp and sweet fruit. As he scanned the pile higher, he almost retreated from the overwhelming task that loomed before him. Eric took a deep breath, gagged, and put his gas mask back on. It wasn't safe to keep it off for long. Not here, not now.
Amy Hanover stepped out from the tunnel onto the newly cleared pathway on Main St. It was so wonderful to see the blackened concrete even though the pathway was barely wide enough to hold two people across. "Amy," called Eric. "Off to see Zach in the hospital?"
"Hello Eric! Great job clearing the path. It is so nice to see the street again." Eric stood a little straighter, his eyes swelling with pride. He had always had a bit of a crush on Amy. Her dark brown shoulder length hair was always neat and shiny, yet never seeming to fall quite into place. It amazed Eric that even in this disgusting world, she remained beautiful and untouched by its horrors. Most of all, he loved the sparkle of her olive eyes when she smiled. Amy walked closer to Eric and for a moment he believed he could smell her cherry vanilla perfume. But the reality of the gas mask hit him first. "Yeah, Zach is not doing any better so I am off to see him in the hospital today." Eric had always been a little jealous of Amy's relationship with her husband. Even years ago when he was much younger, she wouldn't have gone for his rugged look. Now, he was an ungainly shell of the man he once was. Love it seemed had passed him by. Still, in his mind, he imagined that Amy and Zach shared food, talked about books, and tasted rare vintages of wine together--all the things he dreamed of doing with Amy himself. Amy walked along the stretch of clear path and climbed the makeshift stairs made of plastic bottles bonded together with wads of used gum. She turned back one last time to look at Eric and smiled. Eric could see the sparkle he loved through the clear plastic of the gas mask.. He watched as Amy turned around and crawled away through the tunnels. Not far beneath where they had been standing, a steady drip from a corroded pipe was increasing in frequency.
Zach's hospital room was as clean as could be conceived of in a world where garbage fueled day-to-day living. A generator outside the building converted some of the trash into fuel which powered the breathing machines, allowed oxygen to be pumped into the building, and provided light and electricity to flow into the patient rooms. The hospital was the only place in the area with its own generator. All the other houses and buildings had to share the city's common generator. Workers were always being sent out to collect the trash and bring it back to the main generator so that the city could have power. Amy brushed off the top of a partially broken plastic cart and turned it over so she could sit on top of it. Zach's breathing was slow and steady and Amy wondered how it had gotten this bad. Zach was part of a water conservation volunteer team that was working to clean up the town's water supply. They had successfully cleaned and blocked off Water Way 1. The water in that part of town was now deemed drinkable. Two weeks later, Zach started complaining of an upset stomach and extreme exhaustion. Amy, desperate to help her husband in any way she could, had taken him to the doctor to see what they could do.
Doctor Gordon stepped into the room and placed his tablet on the patient's bed. "Dr. Gordon, how is he doing?" Amy asked impatiently. "Do we know what it is yet?"
"Amy, I am afraid that I don't know what it is. The truth of the matter is that the hospital can no longer afford to hold him here and we need the beds for others. There is nothing we can do."
"But Doctor, he is dying. You have to do something." Amy was pleading with the doctor. She did not want to see her husband, her love taken from her.
"My suggestion Amy is to take him home and spend whatever time he has left in your presence. Let him know the comforts of your own home." With that, Doctor Gordon picked up his tablet and left the room. Amy stood by Zach's bed still in shock from what she had just heard. She collapsed back onto the crate and buried her head in her hands. She finally wept the tears she had long held back. Outside in the hallway, a voice called out to Dr. Gordon about a patient that had begun to eat his own fingers. There was a sound of scurrying as nurses and doctors ran to the patient's room to determine what was occurring. Amy perked up when she heard the phrase Water Way 1. Maybe it was another member of the volunteer water team. Amy turned her attention back to Zach upon hearing him call her name.
"Amy?" Zach's meek voice called to her from the bed. "Amy, take me home. A man should die in his own bed." Amy nodded and called for the orderly to help her husband into the rolling chair so that she could take him home.
Home for Zach and Amy was located in the housing part of town. Here, shacks made out of cardboard, wood, and scraps of metal, were piled on top of one another in an overlapping style. Thus, one had to crawl over other's houses in order to get to his own house. Even if his house was at the bottom of the stack, he still had to travel up a small portion of the garbage mount on top of which was his house. Amy brought the rolling chair to the bottom of the mountain and located their shack midway up the hill. It was quite a climb and Amy sensed that Zach would be relying on her even more than he already was. Amy seeing no other way of getting her husband up the hill, took him out and supported him all the way up. Zach was able to put weight on his feet and seemed to gain some strength back. Amy wrote it off as merely being excited that he was coming home. By the time they had reached the top of the hill, it was past dinnertime. Amy pulled off their gas masks, set them on the hook near the door, and then flipped the switch so that the filter system would kick in. Outside gas masks were needed but inside, they would be okay thanks to the town's shared generator. Amy sat Zach down on the old garbage can they now used as a chair and pulled over the table made of wooden crates glued together. She lit the fire in the orange basin that she and Zach used for cooking and she pulled the rat out of the food box. She picked up the spike from the corner of the room and struck the pointed end in between the rat's eyes. The rat squealed as the spike drove through its body and out its back side. Blood dripped to the floor creating a small pool of red liquid. Amy ignored the blood and placed the rat over the fire turning the spike so that the rat would cook evenly. When the rat was done cooking, she placed it on the boxes and turned to get their supply of salt from the food box. By the time Amy turned to sit down at the table, Zach had already eaten two thirds of the rat. He smiled shyly. "Sorry Amy. I was hungry. Maybe next time we can make it a little more rare though." Amy's eyes widened and her mouth slowly opened as she struggled to find the words to describe her shock.
"That's fine dear. I am glad you are feeling better. I guess I'm just surprised that you are feeling better so suddenly." Zach pondered his wife's last comment. He did feel a lot better but there was still something that had yet to be satiated. There was some desire, some hunger that did not feel like himself. He looked down at the rat's blood on the floor. For a moment, Zach wanted to lick up the blood. But then he shuddered and turned back towards his wife.
"It must just be being at home that made me feel better." He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. She looked so beautiful. Even when she was confused or shocked, she exuded radiance. Amy sat down at the table next to her husband and picked up the last part of the rat that he had not eaten. The blood had dried now but there was still a line of red between the eyes on its head where she had originally driven in the spike. "Can I cut your rat for you?" Zach asked. Amy smiled and nodded glad that she had her husband back by her side. He picked up the rat and began to carefully carve its head into slivers so that Amy could eat. As he was cutting the last sliver, the knife slipped and cut a portion of his thumb. Zach put his thumb in his mouth to stop the bleeding just as Amy got up to get a bandage for Zach's thumb. While Amy was searching for the bandage, Zach discovered that a portion of the flesh had come off on the knife. He picked up the knife and sniffed his dying skin. Amy's back was still turned so he lifted the knife to his mouth and licked the piece of thumb. Satisfied with the taste, he drew the knife temporarily away but then brought it back up to his mouth and ate the piece of flesh that had been stuck on the knife. A grin grew on his face. Zach looked down and saw that his thumb was still bleeding and since he had needed to take it out to eat the piece on the knife, it had become red with blood. He put his thumb back into his mouth and savored the taste of his own blood. Wanting more, Zach bit down on his own finger and let out a moan in pain. Amy came back with the towel to stop the blood. Zach pulled the thumb out of his mouth and placed his hand in his wife's so that she could administer the bandage. Amy nearly retched. A rat's blood did not bother her, but to see her husbands cut thumb with a portion of the bone protruding out of the leftover skin, which was still spouting blood, was almost too much for her. Still, right now she had to be here for her husband. She had to help him. Amy placed the bandage on his thumb and then went back in the tiny back room to throw away the scraps. This usually meant throwing them out the window and landing them on someone else's house. Then it was someone else's problem.
Zach sat on the floor next to the table and wondered what was going on. It seemed odd to him that he should want to bite his own thumb. Yet, the taste and the desire to eat raw flesh could not be denied. He looked down at a piece of dried skin on the bottom of his foot and wondered if he would like that too. Zach peeled a piece of dried foot skin off of his heel and took a small piece of it in his mouth. He decided that it tasted alright but raw flesh was much tastier. Zach looked at his own body and felt a surge of energy rush through him. He wanted skin and blood and bones. He wanted to taste everything. Mostly, he wanted to taste her. In his mind he had this idea that she would taste even better than he did. Amy came back into the room and saw her husband now standing next to the table. He had a wild look about him that she had not seen since they had been married six years ago. She flashed him a sly smile and walked over to his side. Zach looked at his wife wondering if she could guess what was actually going through his head. Whether she knew what he wanted. He pulled her by the wrist and ran with her down the hill to the side of Water Way 1.
Zach pushed Amy down onto the pile of dirty newspapers on the side of the garbage mountain. "Won't we need our gas mask?" she breathlessly asked. Zach just shook his head. He wanted her and this was not a time to worry about the toxins in the air. This was the last time he would ever take her. His ravenous eyes scanned her delectable body up and down. He pulled at her shirt and tore the buttons exposing her black lacy bra beneath. Zach's hands hungrily grabbed at her breasts and her naked skin beneath him. He could almost taste the joy and anticipation. He took her ring finger in his mouth and sucked on the skin. He watched as she shivered pulling him closer to her. Amy moaned as she felt his mouth moving along her fingers and up her arm. It seemed like Zach wanted to taste every part of her body. His mouth moved over her body like it was the last time he would ever have her. Zach pulled up her denim skirt and removed the black lacy underwear she had been wearing. He groaned as he placed himself inside her. Their motions together were perfect and Zach couldn't help but think that this was how he wanted it to end. Zach placed his lips near her neck and licked the skin just below her ear. Amy shivered in anticipation and pulled him closer to her. His mouth moved up to her ear and he put the lobe of her ear in his mouth and nibbled at the skin. Her nervous laughter fueled his sex drive even more. Zach's smile was villainous. This time he bit down harder and tore a bloody piece of her ear entirely off. Thick, red, velvet blood flowed from the side of her head. Amy's screams and hysterical crying annoyed him. He remembered hearing about an artery in the neck that when severed caused the person to lose consciousness. Although Zach did not know exactly where this artery was located, he decided it would be better than hearing her screams. He leaned down and bit at Amy's silken white neck and watched as her head fell back to her shoulder. Now, Zach could enjoy his food in peace and quiet. He picked up the piece of ear cartilage from the ground eyed his treat. He chewed that portion of her ear and then went back for the piece that was still hanging from the side of her head. Zach was so turned on by the site of her skin falling off her body, that he reached his orgasm even before he took the second bite of Amy's skin. Zach pulled himself off of his wife and eyed her delicious and smooth looking skin. It was so white and pure against the contrasting piles of trash beneath her body. He lifted up the arm that was still holding onto the ear and again sucked on her finger. When he bit down this time, he did not taste the chewy sensation of the cartilage but rather the crunchy taste of bones. It was like each part of her had a different taste and a different consistency. Zach glanced down at her half naked body. Amy's bra had been thrown away and was now lying on top of a half eaten bag of moldy pretzels and next to a wrapped twinkie. Zach looked hungrily at her breasts and brought his mouth down upon her luscious flesh. The fatty consistency was undoubtedly his favorite. Blood covered the ground around him and stained his lips bright red. Her chest was now a flat wasteland of blood and bone. The more Zach tasted of her, the more he needed, the more he craved.
Eric was just about to call it a night and send his team home, when he heard a distant scream. He recognized Amy's voice and went running to help her. Eric desperately looked around trying to locate where her voice was coming from. He heard another scream and then silence. Eric feared he was already too late. He continued to run as he followed where the voice had been coming from. As Eric ran, his foot stepped on something squishy. Eric convinced it was a piece of garbage, continued on without much notice. It was not until he realized that the squishy object was attached to his shoe that he stopped and lifted his foot. It appeared to be a round slimy ball. In his quick look, Eric noticed a familiar glint of green. He walked over to it and picked up the ball. Immediately he realized how he knew the glint of green. He pictured her smile and the sparkle of her olive eyes. By the time Eric arrived on the scene, his eyes grew in shock and terror. What had once been a beautiful human being was now a sight that made him want to throw up. Amy's body was in three distinct locations with various parts scattered in between. It seemed the main part of her body was against the mountain of newspapers on the far side of the water way. Her arm and part of her leg were about one hundred feet away down the hill. The rest of her parts were half bitten and had chew marks in them to the other side of her body. Zach was crouched over what might have been a leg and was ripping chunks of flesh off of it before going back for more. Eric walked towards Zach with a thunderous rage building up inside him. His steps were slow but purposeful as he approached the savage being. Disgusted, he threw the eyeball at Zach who was still munching away at the leg. "Was this not good enough for you? Did you not like her eyeball? Why didn't you eat it you sick fuck?" Zach slowly raised his eyes to the man who was standing before him. His smile spread side to side revealing a grin tinted with red splotches of blood.
"Come join me friend and feast!" Zach gestured to the body parts that were strewn all around him. "It is far too good a body to waste on one man alone."
"I will cut you down and feed you to the crows. You don't deserve to even touch her. Get the fuck away from her body!"
"My friend, why the hostility? There is plenty for all. We should share in what we could all have. After all," before Zach could finish, a fist landed on the side of his face knocking him to the ground. Zach smiled and wiped his own blood from the side of his face with the back of his hand. He licked his own hand and watched as his adversary cringed. "It's really not so bad. You should try it. In some ways, it tastes just like chicken but so much better." With that, Zach picked up a bone from Amy's arm and smacked Eric on the side of the head. Eric stumbled and fell back towards the water way. Amy's blood from the arm soaked into his hair and dried in chunks giving him a crazed look. Eric mustered up his rage and threw his entire body at Zach. As Eric's body came at him, Zach opened up his arms and grabbed a hold of him. Zach was in reach of Eric's neck and located the same spot that had caused Amy to lose consciousness. He moved his mouth towards Eric's neck but Eric moved his head just in time and Zach's bite did not severe the artery. The blood that came from Eric's neck was now staining his shirt and hand. He fell back onto the trash pile and tried to catch his breath. Before he could gather his strength again, Zach ran at him swinging Amy's arm over his head. Blood was splattering out of the arm as he threw it about and brought it down hard on Eric's head. Eric reached out to grab at Zach but only manage to grab hold of his shirt before he was hit. The impact of the hit caused both men to be pulled into Water Way 1. Eric started sinking as soon as he hit the water but the cold and new sensation brought him back to his senses. Eric was enraged and he grabbed at Zach's head and shoved it under water. The area around the two was turning a murky red. Bright red ripples were flowing out into other parts of the water way. Zach was struggling to come up for air as Eric continued to hold him under water. Zach's body began to spasm as he lost oxygen and finally went still. Eric pulled himself out of the water way and crawled on the side. He coughed up water and blood and then collapsed. He was sickened by everything that had happened. His body had ingested the water and he was exhausted. He slowly stood up and made his way to the hospital so that he could clean up his wounds. Eric placed his hand up to the side of his neck where he had been bitten by Zach. His hand came away stained with red. Eric looked at his hand and licked the thumb in order to clear away the blood. Not too bad he thought to himself. Sucking the fingers of his hand so that he could taste the blood, Eric continued on to the hospital a maddened look in his eyes.
Author's Note: This is a dieselpunk horror story with a splash of experimental fan-fction. The sort of fan-fiction I could see myself writing and be proud of. I'm proud of this. Also, to the casual readers who may read through my story, I finished this late, too tired to double check. Please forgive me my mistakes.
Flonkerton
I
He was laughing. He was fucking laughing when he squeezed the trigger that sent the bullet whizzing into my shoulderblade. I fell to the floor in the workshop and I could smell my own blood seeping over the grease stained floor, conjuring something entirely more pungent than the sum of the parts. I could hear my former boss walk towards the warehouse door, and I heard him slide the massive corrugated iron door open a crack. And I heard him drag it shut behind him. And the gentle click of the padlock snapping shut. And then I remembered that it was a Friday night. The factory is closed over the weekend, and in three nights I'd probably be dead. Shortly after the boss left I blacked out from the bloody, greasy fumes. This is a story of revenge.
II
When I came to I was not, as I expected, sprawled still over the factory floor, soaked in my own fermenting blood. And I was not, as I had hoped, dead. When I came to, my head was pounding and swimming and churning violently and I could still smell the terrible fumes wafting through the air around me. I tried to cradle my head in my hands, but as I yanked them from my sides I felt the leather straps pull tight. And I felt a strap around my neck too. And around my waist and feet. From what I could notice, I was fastened face-down onto an old iron table with many acid-burns rusted to its surface. I could feel a slow burning rash itching across my stomach and crotch, and I could only grind my teeth so hard and groan and pretend that the pain didn't exist.
And then I jolted at the sound of a loud hacking cough.
"Well shit," the voice said, "none of us expected you to wake up, you were gone so long".
I noticed that his voice didn't sound like my boss's at all. This didn't comfort me one bit. I tried to breathe slowly and breathe deeply. The last thing I wanted to do here was crumble to pieces. So I focused on breathing. And each time I took in a lungful of toxic air my rash rubbed harder against the table and it spread wider and it burned stronger and it yelled for me to respond with agonising screams. And I clenched my teeth and breathed. In. Out. In. Out. And the man was still there, standing silently across the room.
I decided to say something. It was better than knowing he was there waiting for me to break. "Do you... work for... the boss?" I said, timing my words with my breaths.
"What?" he said, taking several paces towards me.
"I said..." I paused, and gasped as I could feel a warm, wet puddle slapping against my heaving stomach, and the pain intensified as I could visualise my own red-raw underbelly writhing and dripping in its own blood. I clenched my teeth harder and groaned. "I said... do you... work for... the boss?"
He cracked a hacking cough into a rusty laugh and took a few more steps closer. I wasn't sure how to interpret the laugh, so I just spat onto the floor. And then he slammed a meaty fist upon my back, which sent a coiling pain piercing through my spine and down over my rash. I screamed and I writhed, but he remained the pressure on my back. And I cried and I could feel the rusted jagged barbs infinitely small cutting, sinking into my skin. And then I heard a loud mechanical whine ringing round the room and the smell of diesel and grease so thick in the air it made me want to puke.
The sound ceased as the stranger redoubled the weight upon my back. Pinned to the table, I could be rid of these leather straps and still be utterly useless. I felt a cold metal cylinder slide smoothly into a point in my upper back. The bullet-hole. The cold spiral rod of a stainless steel drill bit. The hand upon my back was nothing. It was less than nothing; it was a million times further from this room than the sun. The drill, however; it was right inside my brain. It was under my skin, it was anything and everything around me. It slid into my bullet wound like they were made for each other. Fuck. I spat on the floor. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Drills drill things. And I spat again, I felt like I was sweating from the mouth, I felt like I was inhaling many lifetimes of air in each and every breath. I felt like dying, yet I felt so alive, so aware. I couldn't move. I couldn't swallow. I spat on the floor. Drills drill things, and it wound itself around and around and I could feel it reverberating through my whole body and I could feel it digging, digging, deeper, deeper, and the blood welled up in the neat hole and small flakes of my flesh worked their way up the spiral and I couldn't put it from my mind. No amount of clenched teeth or groans or screams could lessen the agony. And my stomach sent its contents streaming up my throat, warm digestive acids burned inside my neck before hitting the floor. When the drill broke through my skin just below my collar bone, that's when I passed out for a second time.
III
When I came to, well, the first thing that I realised was that I was not dead. Again. Fucked my plans up. Then I thought that I was not in the same room that I was when I passed out. But that thought was just an initial reaction. I was facing up now, and I could feel the familiar rust and acid worn iron of the table from earlier. I was facing up; that was probably what threw me off balance. I leaned up and looked around the room. I was no longer tied down. No windows, one door. A few cupboards and shelves. One feeble light. I focussed my energies on the door. I stood up and walked towards it. The door was probably locked. Or I could meet my death on the other side, which I have expressed prior to this as not a negative outcome at all. Or I could find some answers. I would even have some answers if the door was locked. Like I'd know that I was trapped. And that I was a prisoner. And that I would probably die in here. But the door wasn't locked. I walked up to it and grabbed the handle in my palm and pushed. It buckled and bent, and with some bumping and shoving, the jammed door busted out into a hallway. Okay, it might have been locked, but it wasn't now.
I walked out of the room and down the hallway, checking the doors that I passed by as I passed by. Locked, locked, locked, locked. I didn't dare test my luck on a busted door here because I didn't want to tempt death over my newly acquired freedom. Locked, locked, locked. My head was pulsing slightly with a slowly ebbing migraine. The light burned my eyes after those hours of deep dark sleep. My arms and legs felt lead-heavy and my chest felt so stiff from resting on the table so long. Locked. I rubbed my fingers along my chest to feel how bad the rash and cuts were but I was numb and it felt like there was a thick wall of metal or meta-plastic keeping me from feeling anything at all. Unlocked, this one door stood ajar. I tentatively pushed it into the room, which I gathered to be some sort of kitchen/laboratory. On the back of the door were hung a few white coats. I grabbed one and slid it over myself, and buttoned it up mostly around my waist. I walked further into the room, tables and chairs and benches and bottles and jars and liquids and metals and acrid smelling fuels were splayed about the room. I picked up one bottle, a black sludge compound, and that's when I heard a scream ring out from elsewhere in the building.
I paused, bottle in hand, ears tuning to the motion and sounds from outside the room. Footsteps, footsteps, footsteps. I dropped the bottle, which smashed upon the floor, and I made for the nearest door. Get out of the room and away from the hallway. But don't stop listening. I opened the door which exposed a small storage cupboard. With the footsteps drawing closer closer I didn't hesitate to throw myself in there and slide shut the door behind me. I rested on the shelving and saw myself in the reflective surface of the closed door. And I think I am going to be sick.
IV
It could have been the smell of formaldehyde, combined with the small, unventilated space, but I'm quite sure it was the image that evoked the emotional response. That was not me. The sunken cheeks and pasty skin, the glass goggles strapped to my head with black leather, glasses that I'd never worn before. My neck was braced by a series of interconnected brass plate-rings, like an exoskeleton or an armour or a robot machine. I remembered my shoulder and belly and I unbuttoned my coat. More- larger- plates had been strapped to my chest, back and stomach. From what I could see and feel, I had been wrapped mostly in iron plates, with the exception of a brass plug at my collar and a small brass door in my chest. At the sound of the footsteps growing closer, I could only assume whomever was out there had heard the bottle smash. But that was only a distant buzzing in my mind.
As I came confronted with this twisted, inhuman creature before my eyes I staggered back hard against the shelf. The corners would have undoubtedly dug themselves into my ribs but now I was not so sure I had any. I stepped back onto some glass bottles, but instead of the white hot agony of a sliced foot, there was just the grainy crunch of glass underneath a lump of lead.
The formaldehyde, I could smell it off the walls, off the door, ceiling and shelves, writhing its way into my nostrils and settling within a deep discomfort. With the breaking of the glass came an intensifying of the smell. Burning, churning, my head began turning, the migraine resurged and I began to spin with an induced motion sickness. Lurch, heave. Nothing. Throat dry like a rusted skeleton of a ship in the Sahara. God only knows how it could have got there. And God only knows how I came to be here, wherever here was. The lights went out.
The lights went out and for a moment the intense blackness consumed me. The footsteps had stopped and I heard something within the room. An ever so gentle tick, tick, tick of I don't know what. And then a light flared up and I could see two glassy blue irises in the reflection of the door, and my eyes seemed to illuminate of their own accord. And the ticking grew louder and I felt a soft hammering in my chest and I raised a finger (of which my hand was covered over with a leather glove) and gently prised at the little latch on the brass plate on my chest. I got another finger underneath the plate and I was able to pry it open on its spring-held hinges. And there, much like a clock, was a maze of cogs and hammers keeping rhythm to a small motor-engine, which pumped dozens of artery and vein tubes which sent oil coursing throughout my body. Throughout my shell.
Frozen from the shock of what I had become, frozen from the stringy flesh that hung inside me like some useless decoration, to grow dusted and old. Frozen emotionless, my face was just a mask preserved for old time's sake. Formaldehyde, the smell never left me. Formaldehyde and ethanol, amongst other things. A lifetime of stench to keep my face from rotting. Frozen from fear of revulsion, frozen stiff as my face. The door was opened, but not by me.
V
"Why can't you just stay in the one fucking place?" he said.
I recognised the voice as the drill guy.
"What have you done to me?" I asked.
He held out a hand to pull me from the cupboard and back out into the lab.
"What have you done to me?" I repeated.
He turned and walked towards the hallway. I followed. And then I saw his other hand. Or what was meant to be his other hand, except it was lopped off at the wrist, and had since been replaced with a cordless drill mechanism, which I assumed was connected to his nervous system.
"What have you done to me?" I asked again, as I followed close behind.
He paused, then glanced back at me as if telling me not to press the question further. His drill revolved briefly with a low whine, as a warning. I refrained from asking again.
He walked out into the hallway and then further down, away from the room in which I awoke.
"At least talk to me" I said.
"What do you want me to say?" he asked.
"Who are you?" I asked "and where are we going?"
"The less you know, the better, kiddo. You can remember me as the guy who gave you your life back."
He led me into some sort of control room filled with levers and knobs and wheels and buttons. There were numerous control panels spread across the room, and along the walls, as well as a few small mechanic controls on the lowered ceiling. He sat me down in a chair in the centre of the room, and swung the chair facing around towards the windows that stretched across the width of the room, all wide and tall as the control panels would allow. The windows looked out upon the city, at a distance, and I could see through a thinly veiled cloud-mist the acrid black smoke wafting from the factories and sweatshops and polluting out into the air.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"We're flying" he responded. "We're inside the Nocturne VII airship, circling the city."
And indeed, he was correct, as I noticed we were moving around over the city. I leaned forward slightly, to enhance my view, but my head began to spin and I was overwhelmed by this simple fear of heights.
"How long have we been up here?" I asked nervously.
"This is the thirteenth day." He said. "We rescued you from the factory on the Friday night after the cat man left."
"Thirteen days... the cat man... what are you on about?"
He laughed wryly. "So you haven't heard about the corruption of the Magna Carta?"
"Last I heard was that you couldn't trust anybody any more. I heard that some strange evils were about. And I found myself in the boss's office waiting for him to finish his meetings. I wanted to talk about working conditions. I was waiting quite a while, and when he came in, he just watched me all quiet like. He filed away a few papers that were lying on his desk and he asked if I've been sticking my nose in places where it ought not be stuck. And I said "no, sir." And he asked me to stay late, and I said "yes, sir." And then he shot me."
"He's not just a factory manager any more. He organised the suspension of the Magna Carta, and has since corrupted the city of its politics. He's got the whole fuckin' city sliding in his palm. They call him the Cheshire Cat now."
VI
The Magna Carta. In this city, in this world, it is the law. Without it we are lawless. This is a story of revenge. I knew what must be done before the words left his mouth. Kill the Cheshire Cat. Kill the Cheshire Cat and restore lawfulness to the city, restore the Magna Carta to its rightful place in our society. I need not sleep, nor so much as rest until the deed is done. All that is required is the diesel fuel to the reservoir in my shoulder. I sat in the control room as the drill guy told me all I needed to know. And then he flicked a lever which opened a hatch beneath my chair. I found myself upturned and soaring down several thousand metres of cold, polluted air, the city looming ever closer with no signs of slowing.
A heavy sickening crunch. I slammed into the road, hard. My face landed several metres away and I lay twisted and scratched and covered in the cracked and broken asphalt of the road. The words reverberated in my head, the last thing drill guy said before he flicked the lever.
"This, my friend, is to show you that you can not die."
I clicked my wrists the right way around and pushed myself up off the ground. I snapped my kneecaps back into place. I slipped my face back on and pulled the hairline back over my fibreglass skull. One hell of a migraine.
I took one step. Two step. Three steps to shake off the disorientation. And then I saw the people in their homes all peering out their windows at me, some of which were probably on their phones to the police. It didn't take long at all before the sirens were within earshot. I transformed my staggered walk into a fuel-pumping sprint and left with little more than a whiff of burned fuel and scattered asphalt trailing into anywhere.
I made my way back to the factory, my run, run, running making more noise than I'd have liked. Clank, creak, squeak, rattle. So I slowed to a soft jog when I felt I had distanced myself enough. In the quiet of the night it did not take long at all to cross the city to the factory. No moon tonight, that made my going easier, with only the weak gas burning street lamps lighting my path down the roads and streets and avenues. I slipped into the factory through the back, after cutting a hole in the fence between it and the automotive shop. I went in through the fire escape, in through the long hallway that was seldom used. It was darkness and cold grey walls and clammy stale humidity in the air from the cooling of the factory machines in the night time. It was complete quiet and stillness. It was the weak red glow of the lights that ran along the hallway, the phantom power that kicked in after hours. I walked down the hallway hearing little more than the squeak of a wayward mouse outside my own rattling, echoing motions.
VII
I came out of the hallway onto the factory floor and I could smell it across the room. The blood and grease from a few weeks passed. The vile, churning smell that tastes so terrible I have nightmares. The formaldehyde on my face and the diesel pumping through my veins is nothing. A distant irritation compared to the immediate repulsion towards my abhorrent past still festering on the floor. I fell to my knees, the dizzy sickness consuming me. Lurch, heave. Nothing. I gurgled machine lubricant in my mouth and swallowed. And then I heard a soft clicking as that of a lock opening. The dragging of the large corrugated iron door pulled open a sliver. I got to my feet as the door was pulled shut by none other than the Cheshire Cat himself, my old boss, my old friend. He turned around and saw me, unsure of who me was. So he raised his pistol. Probably the same one he shot me with.
And he said "You have no business here. Leave."
And I stepped forward and threw a knife at him. Missed.
"Fuck off back home, asshole" he said, and fired his gun.
It pinged off my chest harmlessly. I laughed and stepped closer still. I was going to scare him shitless, then take off his head. But then he pulled from his jacket a second pistol, which I now know to be loaded with the impact explosive bullets. He fired again, the bullet propelled into the diesel tank behind me. In the mass of flames and smoke I took my eyes off the Cheshire Cat for one moment. And then he was nowhere to be seen.
Rumble. Hiss. Clog, clog, clog, clog, whine. That's the sound of the machines starting up. Next thing I know there's nothing but the flames and crunching metal and the pump pump pumping of machines like a regular freak show. And then I find my arms locked behind my back. I didn't see, nor hear the others arrive, only the wretched grinding and whirring of the machines. The one named Mince with his red-streaked mohawk and vice grip hand-claws held me in my place. The Cheshire Cat's laughter echoed throughout the room. And that's the difference between him and me: fear. I gurgled motor fluids in my mouth and breathed deeply through my nose. In. Out. In. Out. I spat on the floor. The Cheshire Cat clamoured back from the darkness suited up in a three metre tall brass armour machine. He must have acquaintances in the army.
At this sight I wrenched my fists around to loosen them. He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me if I don't run now. I ripped my arms free and pushed mohawk guy to the ground. I stepped on his chest as I made haste distancing myself from the Cheshire Cat. I heard a sickening crunch but I held no notice nor sympathy for him. And then, as I stood on the far side of the factory floor, the Cheshire Cat ambling along quite slowly, his robot's foot came down square upon Mr. Mohawk on the floor. Crushed flat beneath 10 tonnes of hardened steel. And then I felt a bludgeoning fist rammed into my face.
VIII
I stumbled backwards and tripped to the ground, my face skewed and slightly obscuring my vision. The thug-hire of the Cheshire Cat here held me to the floor with his heavy foot. I could barely see how big he was, but he was too weighted to simply throw or writhe free, yet I tried regardless. All the while the slow stomping and loud hissing of the Cheshire Cat's mech-suit trudged closer. Step. Step. Step. I reached into my pocket and withdrew a small grinding saw. Its motor fit neatly in my palm as the blade whirred viciously underhand. The heat and the smell, and the pressure on my cogs and chambers under the beefy foot was overwhelming me. I held the blade to his ankle and cut into the flesh with ease. He groaned and hollered and in my extreme discomfort I heard a gurgling what the fuck, man! and I pushed the grinder deeper. Bone, chop chop chop. What the fuck. Little blades taking away slivers of bone until he was left with a stump. What the fuck, whirring machines, releasing the pressure on my chest. I wore his blood and I threw his foot to the ground and I turned off the grinder and I smiled.
Step. Step. Step. The Cheshire Cat's giant iron claw picked me up with ease. I spat on the floor and took deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out. He squeezed. I turned the grinder back on. He squeezed harder. He was laughing. He was fucking laughing and my insides were bending and twisting, and I cut into his machine's wiring upon the wrist, killing his claw. He flung me several meters across the room. Into the fire. I rolled my battered body away from the flames. Step. Step. Step. Slow and heavy, he turned around. I rifled through my pockets, emptying everything on the floor. Grenades, knives, bullets and the sort. Through the formaldehyde and smoke burning acrid fumes, I could smell something else, like a putrid plastic burn and choke. I spat on the floor and clutched the item I feared could explode from the heat of the fire, the gyroscopic bomb, a little wheel machine with a motor on one side and a small explosive on the other. As the cat drew closer I aligned the wheel with the machine. The melted plastic of the outer casing was of little concern to the bomb. I just knelt on the factory floor, willing the wheel to roll fast and straight. Step. Step. Step.
IX
I coughed at more gurgling oil in my throat. I spat on the floor and breathed deeply. Step step step, closer closer closer, one clutching claw longing my neck in its grip. One deadly claw at the guise of the bastard cat. What the fuck, another thug-hire of Mr. Cheshire shot me across the room with a ping ping ping oh so harmless. I pulled the start-cord that roared the gyro-motor to life. I held the motor in my left hand, the explosive in my right. Step. Step. Step. Release. It ran smoothly across the factory floor and skimmed the foot of the mech-suit. No dice. The wheel skivvied off to the side and smacked into an engine machine, close enough to push the machine armour to the floor with the force of the explosion. Singed hair and crumpled suit, the Cheshire Cat pulled himself from the machine and raised his gun. Shoot to kill. And the roaring of the machines and crackling of the fire seemed like a muted nothing in the distance. There was just the tick tick ticking of my inner self and the thump thump thumping of my pumping motor-heart, and the click cocking of the Cheshire Cat's gun so loud and distinct as if he were right in my ear. I could hear my uneven breaths and I could smell the formaldehyde of my face, and I could hear the hammering metals as he pulled the trigger. And again. And again. And again. I spat on the floor and ran. The bullets hit the wall behind me and burst into fire and rubble.
Click. Click click click. I ran at the Cheshire Cat. He with the overconfidence and blinding arrogance. He with the sneering lip and wrinkled brow. He with the empty gun. I spat in his face. And I punched hard in the guts. And with the harmless ping ping pinging of his hired goons on my bulletproof back I wrenched the gun from his hand. And I took the extra bullets from his pockets and I inserted them into the gun, click click click, and I kicked his sorry self to his knees. And I shot him in the fucking face. I left the headless Cheshire Cat to his business and I never set foot in that factory again.
Outside, in the cool night breeze, I breathed deep. In. Out. In. Out. This is a story of revenge. And they thanked me for my deeds, a thanks I needed not nor wanted not. They said "Thank you for your sins, Alice" to which I said no more.
Night of the Revolution
New York City, 1971
The city has become completely reliant on steam for all of its power.
The water lapped gently against the docks, adding to the tranquility of the evening. Jessica leaned on the old wooden railing, staring out at the Gear Wall and, beyond that, the ocean. It was late and she could barely discern the horizon, where the inky blackness of the sea met the dark heavens. With one final glance towards the bay, Jessica turned and walked back into The Alley and her own private hell.
The Alley, or "Whores' Alley" to some, usually contained a few dozen prostitutes and johns wandering the darkness, beckoning one another into the shadows. Recently, however, Jessica was one of only two or three women still patrolling the street. The jovial shouts and laughter which had once filled the night were now replaced by a quiet cautiousness. Everyone looked over their shoulders these days, unnerved by the gruesome murders which had gripped the city in recent weeks. While most of her co-workers could lay low right now, Jessica had a daughter to feed. Her Amber was worth the risk.
Jessica paused on the corner, looking hopefully towards an approaching car puffing down the street. Sure enough, the driver slowed down beside her, leaning over to unroll the passenger-side window.
"Hey honey," Jessica purred, adopting the sultry demeanor she had honed from her years on the street. "Are you looking for some company..?"
The driver peered outside his car nervously before answering. First-timer? Or was he simply rattled by the murders as well?
"Ye-Yeah. Wanna go for a ride?"
"35 for a BJ, 120 for a half-hour, 200 for the full hour. You have that kind of money, sugar?"
"Uh huh...hop in," the driver said, popping open the door, "I know that-" A sudden crash from the darkness behind Jessica startled them both, making them jump. It sounded like a trashcan had tipped over.
"Oh fuck this!" The driver's countenance had morphed into a look of sheer horror, suddenly certain of his impending demise. He yanked the door out of Jessica's grasp and jammed the accelerator, his tires screaming as he lurched down the street. His taillights fled into the darkness as Jessica stood there, cursing her luck. "Now people are being scared by the goddamned raccoons. Christ."
Still, she paused and cautiously listened for any further movement in the darkness. The only sound she heard was the steady hum of the steam-filled neon lights lining the girders above her. The super-heated steam moved through the neon glass tubes at tremendous speeds, causing the steady drone which filled the night. Apparently Steam Enterprises (the major producer of steam and steam-products in the city) had updated their design to create a silent Light Tube, however The Alley wasn't very high on the list for such public renovations. After a moment of listening for anything amiss, Jessica walked back over to the docks to gaze out at the ocean once more.
She leaned against the railing, gazing through the hazy fog towards the bright lights of the Gear Wall. She remembered taking Amber here when her daughter was much younger. Amber had never seen the humongous structure before and was enthralled by the sheer size of the seven gears. And who could blame her? Each gear rose roughly five stories out of the water, with most of the disc hidden underneath the waves, propelled by the murky depths.
It was a perfect summer afternoon. The ocean breeze brought with it a coolness rare for that time of year. Jessica held Amber against the wooden railing, her tiny form stretching above the barrier, yearning to examine the strange contraption laid out across the mouth of the bay. Each gleaming gear spun effortlessly it seemed, pulled by the underwater currents that streamed into the harbor.
"You see those big gears, honey?" Amber nodded, enthralled by the monstrous wheels. "Those wheels push water down underground to Steam Enterprises' Core Center - underneath us, right now, are a bunch of huge furnaces that heat the water and create steam. Then these gears pump that steam all throughout the city, really fast, to give everyone heat and light and power. The steam can be cleaned and cooled to give us water, or funneled into smaller devices, like our phonograph and clocks, to move the tiny pieces inside and make them work!"
Another crash from the darkness jarred Jessica out of her memories. She glanced into the shadows, straining her eyes in a vain attempt to detect any movement. Another raccoon?
A louder noise, almost an explosion, caused her to jump back against the railing, her eyes wide with fright. The light tube which lined the girders above the street slowly grew dimmer. In its fading light, Jessica discovered the reason for this disruption - a section of tubing had come crashing to the ground. Super-heated steam spewed out over the ground, the pool of boiling-hot gas inching over the street now.
Amidst the hiss of escaping steam, Jessica heard another sound:
*Vrrrrrrrrrrr* Thud
*Vrrrrrrrrrrr* Thud
*Vrrrrrrrrrrr* Thud
The bizarre noises became more pronounced and she saw a shadow moving across the street, its progress slow and deliberate.
"H-hello?? Who's there?!"
No answer came from the figure.
"You b-better stay back - I have a gun," she lied.
Still no response. The light tube, now cool, cast no illumination whatsoever. Jessica found herself completely in the dark.
*Vrrrrrrrrr* Thud
*Vrrrrrrrrr* Thud
The noises were moving closer. Jessica imagined the shadowy form crawling ever nearer. In the dark, the sounds seem to come from every direction. She pressed herself against the railing, desperate for escape but too frightened to move. She searched the darkness desperately, looking for any sign of help. Nothing.
*Vrrrrrrrr* Thud
*Vrr-* Thud
The sounds stopped. Jessica whimpered in the darkness, anticipating the stranger's attack at any moment. A strange glow suddenly lit the night around her, emanating from two glowing orbs hovering right beside her face, almost grazing her cheek. Bursts of light, green and blue, arced from side-to-side within the two milky spheres.
It was only when Jessica noticed the grinning mouth situated below the two orbs that she realized she was staring into the eyes of a monster. Out of the darkness, a hidden force plunged itself into her stomach, causing her to stagger against the railing. Fire erupted in her stomach and chest as she felt liquid gushing down her legs. She fell to the ground, clutching at the warm innards spilling from her abdomen. Still, she could not break away from the glowing eyes, now hovering above her. Watching her die.
****
By the time Detective Frank McCarthy arrived at the docks, the street was packed with cruisers and news vans. Their lights illuminated The Alley and the small crowd of onlookers that had gathered to watch the circus. Fifteen minutes ago, McCarthy had been awoken by a call from his captain - another murder, this time down by the docks. Knowing what awaited him beyond the fluttering police tape, the detective hesitated a moment before getting out of his cruiser.
Pushing his way through the crowd, McCarthy spotted his partner chatting with a female Medical Examiner. Thirty-five years on the job and Frasier was still chasing the young crime-scene girls around like a goddamned teenager. Seeing his partner had arrived, Frasier cut his flirting short and sauntered over to McCarthy.
"What do we have here, Jimmy?" McCarthy still asked, even though he knew exactly what they were dealing with.
"Same M.O. - 30-something female, prostitute judging from the neighborhood, sliced open just like the rest of them. Same surgical precision, same burn marks on the body. Bastard took the liver and kidneys this time." Frasier spat on the ground in disgust. He'd worked some of the worst districts in the city for longer than any other cop in the division, but he had never seen murders like this. And the prostitute was this murderer's seventh victim in the past year! "Some of the girls on The Alley mentioned the victim had a daughter, so we sent a patrol over to pick her up. Maybe we'll get some acquaintances that seem suspicious - some nutjob in common with all of our victims."
"We haven't uncovered a link yet, but sure - why not," McCarthy had already begun reconstructing the crime in his mind. It was the same as the others: The perpetrator always attacked at night, on the streets. The victim was always alone. He broke the light tubes, cornered the victim. The coroner still had no clue what weapon he used: the accuracy of the cuts suggested a blade, the charred flesh beside the wounds implied a searing-hot iron. The murder scene was always contaminated by the thousands of people who wandered the street in the daytime, so they had yet to find any leads from the forensic crew.
The most obvious connection between these murders were the missing organs. Thus far, this guy had killed five women and two men. From that group, two hearts, three sets of lungs, six kidneys, one liver and even portions of the lower intestine were unaccounted for. McCarthy had contacted the FBI to check on any organ-harvesting connections but had gotten nowhere.
"Listen, Frank," Frasier said, glancing back towards the cute Medical Examiner, "There's nothing new to see here. Go back home and get some rest. I'll see you in the office tomorrow and we can tackle this after a night's sleep."
Taking one last glance at the sheet-covered body lying beside him, McCarthy begrudgingly agreed.
***
The next morning, McCarthy plopped a cup of coffee down on Frasier's cluttered desk - and thank you for his partner's kindness the previous evening - and sat down at his own desk. The file from last night's murder was already there, waiting to frustrate McCarthy's tired mind with its lack of evidence and nonexistent leads. He took a sip of coffee and paged through the M.E. reports, the evidence list, the witness list. It would still be a couple days before the coroner and forensics got their reports filed, but he doubted they would reveal anything promising.
McCarthy glanced up to discover a frazzled-looking man standing sheepishly at the entrance. He looked to be in his late-thirties, early-forties, with sandy, disheveled hair and a nervous demeanor. His eyes darted to the detective sitting immediately in front of him and McCarthy heard his name mentioned. The detective pointed in his direction and the strange fellow quickly weaved his way towards Frank through the desks. Christ, what now?
"Are you the detective assigned to the organ-thief murders?" the man asked, his eyes avoiding McCarthy's scrutinizing gaze.
Frank's interest was piqued. "We haven't released information regarding the missing organs to the media yet. How do you know about that?"
"Because...because I know who is killing these people..." the man stammered, clearly frightened now - but why?
McCarthy's gut told him that this guy wasn't just another fake-tip nut. "Please, sit down, Mr...?"
"Edison. R-Robert Edison."
"And Mr. Edison, who is the person you believe is responsible for these murders?"
"It's-" A hand came down upon Edison's thin shoulder, causing him to jump in his chair. McCarthy hadn't noticed his captain's appearance.
"Ah, Captain Spaulding - I'm glad you're here. Mr..ah...Edison here has stopped by to offer some information about the murders Frasier and I are working. Please go on, Mr. Edison," McCarthy turned expectantly towards Robert once more.
"Actually, McCarthy, I know Mr. Edison here. Let me handle this for you," Captain Spaulding said, practically ripping the poor man up from his chair. Spaulding guided Edison by the arm across the floor and into his office, slamming the door shut before McCarthy could object.
At that moment, Frasier walked onto the floor looking like he hadn't slept a wink all night - maybe that Medical Examiner girl had a thing for aging detectives...? Despite his haggard appearance, McCarthy strode over to his desk and quickly recounted the strange arrival of Robert Edison and their captain's odd behavior.
"Has the name 'Edison' shown up in any of these cases, Jimmy?" Frank asked, knowing he could rely upon his partner's almost-perfect memorization of case files.
"Not that I recall," Jimmy replied, rubbing his beard stubble thoughtfully. "The only Edison I've come across in my time was years ago, when I was still a rookie."
"A suspect?"
"Nah - victim. Pretty good story, though. A guy by the name of Tom Edison - some sort of crazy-scientist nut. I was dispatched to a routine 9-0-4 - building on fire - in the Warehouse District. Half of the warehouse was just a smoldering wreck - just Edison's body and some charred machinery. But in the unburned section - I'll tell you, Frank - this Edison guy had every sort of weird gadget and gizmo you can imagine. Machines as big as this room. Not knowing any better, I flipped a switch and suddenly bolts of lightning filled the goddamned place from floor to ceiling. Weirdest thing I've ever seen."
"It was an open-and-shut case," Frasier continued. "Edison's lightning machine started the blaze which burned down half the building, killing him in the process. It's got nothing to do with our case." He motioned towards his coffee, "I'm going to go warm this up in the steamer for a minute - I'll be right back and we'll go over the case."
As Frasier disappeared into the kitchen, Robert Edison emerged from the Captain's office. He was clearly shaken and hurried out of the office without a glance towards the detective. Curious, McCarthy walked over and knocked on Spaulding's office door.
"Hey Captain - what was that all about?"
"Oh, you mean Edison?" Spaulding replied, filling his briefcase with files, "He's just a nut. Always coming in here with 'important information' and then leads us on a wild goose chase. I told him to get lost. Now I have to get to a meeting..."
McCarthy dodged out of his captain's path as Spaulding struggled into his suit coat and made his way towards the door, "But Sir - he seemed like he actually knew something. Do we have any contact information on file? Maybe-"
"McCarthy - Enough! I told you, this Edison guy is a dead-end. Get back out there and do some fucking police work - that's how we're going to catch this guy." Spaulding rudely brushed by McCarthy and disappeared through the exit.
***
The day crawled along, filled with long conversations that went nowhere and reading through reports that lent nothing to their investigation. Frasier finally called it quits at 7p, but McCarthy's frustration wouldn't let him stop. Not until something fell into place.
Finally, sometime after 10p, McCarthy realized he was alone in the office and finally gave in. Turning off his desk light tube, he grabbed a part of the case file and headed for the exit. Envisioning a fun evening of leftover Chinese food and crime scene photos, McCarthy didn't even notice the shadow following him through the parking lot. Frank juggled the file folder as he searched for his car keys, finally feeling a presence lurking directly behind him. He spun to face his attacker, reaching for his sidearm.
"W-woah woah woah!! Detective McCarthy! It's me - Robert! Robert Edison!" Robert had retreated into a crouch, practically melting onto the asphalt.
"Jesus Christ, Robert, you scared the shit out of me," Frank said, holstering his gun. "How long have you been waiting for me??"
"Well, your captain wouldn't want me speaking with you, so I had to wait to speak with you alone. I still need your help..."
McCarthy looked around the parking lot, wondering how Edison had gotten past the guard. Who was this guy? "Alright, Edison, I'm listening."
"I told you that I know who the murderer is. It's my grandfather - Thomas Edison. He needs-"
"Oh goddamnit," Frank sighed, knowing that his captain had been right - this guy was a nutjob. McCarthy pushed past Edison, moving towards his car once more, "Robert, I know all about Tom Edison. He died thirty-five years ago in a warehouse fire. Now get out of my face before I-"
"Detective! You need to listen to me, and listen closely," Edison suddenly grew focused, "My grandfather is still alive and he is killing these people. And he won't stop by himself - he needs to be stopped. By you!"
McCarthy decided to see where Robert was going with this, "Ok, Edison. Assuming your grandfather is still alive at the ripe old age of....what? One hundred and five??"
"One hundred and twenty-four..."
"Fine! One hundred and twenty-four! Then why? Why is he killing people?"
"You answered your own question, Detective - he needs to stay alive! Where do you think the organs have been going??"
McCarthy inhaled deeply, trying to wrap his mind around the maniac standing before him. "Alright, Edison - start from the beginning."
"Thank you," Robert took a breath, gathering himself before continuing, "My grandfather, Thomas Edison, was a brilliant scientist. He invented a multitude of machines and contraptions that should have made the world a better place. However, one of his experiments was his downfall - his work with the energy known as Electricity."
"Electricity?" McCarthy thought back to his ninth grade science class, trying to recall what he had learned about electricity.
"Lightning, Detective. But my grandfather had discovered a means to harness the power of lightning and use it to run machinery. Lights, engines, heating - all of our current technology could be switched over to electric power and run on a third of the cost! But this discovery doomed Thomas Edison, I'm afraid."
"It was too volatile - too dangerous, right? It killed him in the end." I thought back to Frasier's story of Edison's death.
"You're wrong on both counts, Detective. The body found in my grandfather's lab was not Thomas Edison. It was his assistant, William Kennedy Dickson. And he wasn't killed by an accident with electricity - he was murdered by those who would be harmed by the electric revolution."
"Murdered? But who-"
"Steam Enterprises, Detective. They killed Dickson, set the fire and forced my grandfather into hiding. Let me explain: the Steam Enterprises Corporation has a monopoly on steam production, steam technology and steam-run devices. They would have been completely destroyed if Edison had unveiled his electric-harnessing inventions and the city switched to electricity! That is why Dickson was killed and the lab destroyed, that is why my grandfather's reputation was destroyed, and that it is why your captain doesn't want me speaking with you!"
"...Steam Enterprises?" McCarthy's head was spinning. This couldn't be possible. "Wait - Captain Spaulding?? What does he have to do with anything?"
"Let's just say Steam Enterprises' pockets run deep. They had to recruit members from all levels of government to cover up my grandfather's work: the police, the local government, the mayor's office. I didn't think the conspiracy went as far as your captain, but now we know he's on the pay as well."
"What proof do you have of this, Edison? You can't expect me to believe all-"
"I don't care if you believe everything!" Edison was growing frustrated now, "I just need you to stop my grandfather - he came to me one night, just over a year ago. He had...changed. Using his knowledge of machinery and electricity, he has built himself some sort of...exoskeleton. Internal devices supply a constant stream of electric current to his organs, keeping them functioning long after their expectancy. However, he came to me because the organs aren't permanent, and need to be replaced every few months. He had an assistant who worked in Mercy General Hospital - the assistant would steal organs from the recently deceased and place them into my grandfather's body."
"He did this for years, keeping my grandfather alive through organ transplants every few months. But then the assistant died, and my grandfather needed my help. I'm a surgeon, you see, and he wanted me to help keep him alive until his 'work' was completed."
McCarthy struggled to keep up with the story he was hearing, "Work? What work?"
"My grandfather wants to destroy the city's reliance on steam. He wants his electricity - his inventions - to replace steam power as the main source of energy for the city. Simply put, Detective, he wants the legacy which was robbed from him."
"When Thomas Edison approached me, I refused," Robert continued, "He had organs with him, and I had heard about a murder from a friend on the force - I knew where these spare organs had come from."
"Dorothy Howard - the first murder," for McCarthy, the pieces were slowly falling into place.
"Exactly," nodded Robert, "As far as I can tell, he has either found another doctor to perform the transplants or - judging by his frequent need for fresh organs - more likely, he is doing the transplants himself."
"...how?"
"Detective - you must understand that one hundred and twenty-four years is a long time for the human body. By now, he is more machine than man! He can survive for short periods of time without crucial organs at this point, but for the long-term he will need fresh organs on a weekly basis. And that is why these murders are going to continue unless you do something to prevent it..."
"How do I stop him, then? He chooses his victims purely haphazardly, he leaves no visible trace evidence, he chooses the location of his attacks randomly - how are we supposed to find him?!"
"His attacks aren't random, Detective. Where was the first attack?"
"In Glendale. The body was found floating in a Highland Park creek."
"And the rest?"
"The second was in an alley in Crown Heights. The third in Park Slope, over in the Prospect Park area. Then the Flatlands, then the Midwood area, and the sixth was in Mapleton. This last one, victim number seven, was right on the bay, by the parkway in The Alley."
"There's a pattern there, Detective. Picture the map."
McCarthy pictured the location of the murders, one-by-one, "He's...he's moving from inland towards the ocean?"
"And what is right on the ocean? What drives him towards the sea? What is his obsession, other than the need for living organs?"
For McCarthy, the final piece of the puzzle fell into place: "Jesus...he's going after the Gear Wall..."
***
Jerry hated the night shift on the Gear Wall, but hell - he needed the money. He grabbed his portable light tube, his hard hat and his gloves, then shut his locker. He only had a few minutes to clock-in, or else he was going to be docked pay again.
"Cutting it close again, eh Jerry?" His supervisor, Cliff, waited for him in the Gear Wall's maintenance office.
"Yeah - sorry, Cliff. I got off at the restaurant later than usual. I'll hustle out to number seven and get started on that stripped bearing."
Cliff didn't even look up from the paperwork scattered on his desk, "Just let me know if you need help - I'll send Pete out."
Jerry grabbed his toolkit and headed for the door, the cold wind already whipping through his clothing. Great, Jerry thought bitterly, Pete would be a big help. Pete had the technical know-how of a gerbil, and everyone knew it. However, Pete was also Cliff's cousin so everyone was stuck with the little twerp.
Trying to focus on getting through his shift, Jerry headed out onto the walkway that stretched between the seven large gears. Heading towards the last one, number seven, Jerry looked out towards the city's bright skyline - a multitude of buildings all lit up thanks to this colossal machine. The gears creaked and groaned, pushed by the dark currents rushing underneath the walkway. Jerry tried not to think of how high he was above the freezing water as he climbed the long ladder towards the gear shaft area.
As Jerry neared the top, he felt the ladder tremble in his grasp. Glancing down, he saw a figure begin to make his way up the ladder as well. Damnit, Jerry thought, here comes Pete. He reached the gear shaft landing and made his way into the small shed, setting his tools down on the metal table inside. He fumbled along the wall for the steam nozzle outlet and hooked his portable light tube's hose to the output. Hot steam slowly filled the light tube's neon chamber, lighting the small shack and the grinding gears that surrounded him. He already counted three...no, four bearings which were completely stripped that he would have to replace.
This is the dangerous part of the job - Jerry couldn't stop any of the large gears, since the underwater currents would rip the large wheels right off their shafts. Rather, he would have to work quickly and carefully to replace the bearings while all of the small parts were still in motion. If you get sloppy, you can lose a finger, a hand, or even your life. I'll let Pete handle this, Jerry thought with a grin.
Jerry finally heard Pete nearing the top of the ladder and turned around, opening the shack's door for him. However, the creature he saw standing atop the landing outside was not Pete.
"Jesus...Jesus Christ..." Jerry mumbled, backing up against the shed wall. The glow from Jerry's portable light crawled across the creature's body as the monster stepped into the shack. The creature's arms and legs were covered in some type of metallic cover, making them longer and thicker than any normal human appendage. The creature's one arm ended in a huge hand, the other ended in a bizarre-looking blade - one which expelled bursts of sparks from its tip. Jerry heard the whirling of a motor actually coming from inside the creature as it moved further into the shack with two great strides:
*Vrrrrrrrrrr* Thud
*Vrrrrrrrrrr* Thud
The metallic arms and legs were attached to the monster's torso haphazardly - bones and metal pins jutted through the creature's skin at odd angles, the muscles straining to hold the metal appendages in place. Scars and open gashes crisscrossed the monster's chest and face, the skin barely held together by amateur stitch-work and surgical tape. Most horrifying were the creature's eyes, which glowed brighter than even the portable light hanging at Jerry's side. Blue and green sparks flew behind the creature's iris, giving the fiend's decaying face a hellish glow.
The creature stared at Jerry, seeming to look through the horrified man cowering inside the shack. The monster opened its mouth and a low, wet gurgling broke the silence,
"Get out...."
Jerry gingerly crawled past the creature's huge legs towards the exit and descended the ladder, too scared to even breathe. As he reached the walkway, a hand clamped down on his shoulder causing him to scream.
"Relax! I'm a police officer - is he up there?!" McCarthy turned the maintenance worker around, only to find a man clearly in shock.
"Wha..?I don't...." Jerry felt himself sliding down to his knees, too shaken to respond.
"Focus! A man with scars - is he up there?!"
"Ye..."
McCarthy left the worker lying on the walkway and began climbing the ladder towards the gear shaft area. Cresting the landing, the detective drew his sidearm and approached the creature from behind.
"Edison! Thomas Edison! Turn around and let me see your hands!!" As Edison stepped from the shadows, McCarthy couldn't help but to grimace. There was not much humanity remaining in the creature which stood before him.
"Welcome, Detective," Edison said, his words nothing more than a wet murmur. "I've been following your work on my case, but I never expected to encounter you here. Very impressive...but I'm afraid you need to leave."
"It's over, Edison. Let me bring you in and we'll get you the medical help you need." McCarthy knew this was a lie, but tried not to let it show. A man in Edison's unique condition would die before he ever saw the inside of a courtroom.
Edison seemed to be choking - it took McCarthy a moment to realize he was laughing, "Very amusing, Detective. But I'm not leaving here until my life's work is completed and this Gear Wall lies in ruin."
"This is insane! What do you think that will accomplish, Edison?!"
"Insane? Hardly. I have mailed my work to dozens of media outlets, scientists and councilmen throughout the city. From the ashes of Steam technology, the phoenix of Electric power shall rise! And with it, my guaranteed place in the history books - Thomas Edison, the brilliant scientist, the capturer of raw natural power, the savior of a city in the midst of an energy catastrophe!!" Edison pressed a small lever jutting from his metallic arm, "You have 2 minutes to make it back to the shoreline, Detective. I suggest you hurry..." A beeping had filled the shack, an evident countdown to disaster.
McCarthy knew his options had run out. The man in front of him was a walking bomb - even killing him now wouldn't stop the inevitable explosion. Without saying another word, McCarthy ran for the ladder. A minute later, McCarthy was sprinting past the maintenance office towards the shoreline. An alarm sounded, a warning to evacuate all personnel from the Gear Wall.
Arriving on the beach, McCarthy turned to look back at the large line of gears, turning tirelessly in the darkness. Suddenly the sky was ablaze above the seventh gear as fire engulfed the upper half of the spinning wheel. With a groan, the gear began to tilt on its axis, tipping into the gear to its immediate right. Like dominoes, the gears began to collapse into one another all along the line. Within a matter of minutes, the entire construct - gears, walkways, buildings - all of it had disappeared underneath the murky waters of the bay.
McCarthy heard sirens wailing in the distance, rushing towards the catastrophic wreckage which was once the Gear Wall. A loud cry went up from the onlookers surrounding McCarthy - the lights, all the lights, began to dim at once. In a few moments, the city was engulfed in complete darkness as the steam dissipated from the light tubes.
Edison has gotten his wish for a city without steam power. The Revolution had begun.
Well, this is my entry. Its Biopunk. It took me days to think of it, even longer to write it, and almost double that time revising it... I probably should have gone with Steampunk, seeing as I love that genre, but hell, If I cant experiment what can I do?
enjoy!
-----
Perpetuity²
Thirty years ago, I remember the stars in the sky, shining through the dirty window, illuminating with a brilliant glow the old bed I was resting on. I remember the silver-cream moon, forever hanging in the inky air, looking down on us as if giving us its blessing. I remember my sister laying next to me on the musty mattress, staring up out the window, the smile on her face outshining any star. But more than that, more than any of those things, I remember the question she asked me. In this question, in asking this question, her eyes sparkled, and her voice wavered with excitement and a childlike glee that still gives me a gentle thrill of pleasure to think back on. She asked me a very simple question:
"Do you want to stay with me? Forever?"
We were young. Children. Living the illusion given to us by worried parents and a society fearful of corruption in youth. We didn't know better.
"Yes, forever!"
We turned back to look at the radiant stars and the peaceful moon, enjoying the night in a way I never thought was possible before.
The years passed, and my sister and I grew. She became a fine, beautiful woman and I became a strong, intelligent man. Yet our childlike affection for each other never wavered. It seemed no matter what we did, we insisted we did it together. We both went to the same medical school. We shared the same apartment. It was as if my life was an idealistic dream, one that I shared with my sister in every aspect. Nothing was forbidden between us. Nothing.
The years went by, and thanks to our study efforts and emotional support we soared to the top of our classes. Her field of specialization was medicine, and mine was in anatomy... we both minored in energy, and we soon graduated at the top of our class, both eagerly looking to the future: what we could accomplish working together was limited only by our own ambition, which was practically boundless.
We became bioengineers, as was the fashion of the time. Bioengineers were arguably the most successful people in the world. We could use living matter to cure diseases, to operate machinery, even to energize the world. Flesh was the greatest of machines, and it seemed people devoted to the art of using this machine were granted funds and a level of tolerance of the law unseen by any other profession in society. It was a renaissance, and a beautiful thing to be part of, at that. My sister and I started our own lab in the suburbs, and thanks to the help of funding from both government and independent firms, we began study on the medical applications of bioengineering, a vast field that granted us many opportunities.
It was hard work, however, despite the prestige and riches that came with it. Not only did we have to advance our field of study to meet government standards each month in order to receive continued funding, but we also had to continue to study the advances made in other fields, in order to keep current. Our days were spent, from dawn to dusk, working, with little to no time to rest or spend with each other. And as much as we enjoyed the work, I felt the stress start to weigh on my mind, as it weighed on her. Each day seemed to blend in with the next and our personalities slowly drained from our bodies as we lost ourselves in the monotonous research and testing of medicines.
I almost felt as if my sanity was being drained alongside my energy and personality, although I knew better. My sister, however, wasn't so lucky, and it's only in retrospect that I recognize her slow descent into the abyss of madness.
It seemed an average day, the exact date lost after months of perpetual work. My sister's long hair was falling in her face, haphazardly thrown aside in an effort to get it out of the way. My own hair was long as well, a beard growing on what used to be a very clean-shaven face: shaving was a luxury of time that I did not partake in anymore. As I studied bacteria under a microscope, my sister's beautiful voice reached my ear: Instantly I perked up, for the tone she used was one I had nearly forgotten she had, a tone of inspired excitement.
"Brother... we promised to be together... didn't we?"
I pulled myself away from the microscope and turned to face her: this was the longest break I had taken in what seemed like weeks.
"We did..."
"Wouldn't it be grand if we didn't have to worry about these mortal bodies? Right now, we're wasting our precious time with this meticulous study. Do you want to live and die in the lab?"
"No, but what choice do we have? Even with assistants we'd still need to do all the heavy work, and we desperately need the funding. Not to mention that we need to keep ahead of the competition."
"What if we could find some vaccine for death? Some way to give us all the time we needed... no, some way to NEGLECT time entirely, remove it as a factor... then we could do this and not worry about running out of such a normally precious resource."
I was weary and half-drunk with exhaustion. I couldn't fully comprehend what it was she was suggesting at the time.
"That sounds lovely, but dangerous... not to mention nigh impossible."
"Impossible for normal people, yes... but we can do it. We're brilliant, especially as a team...and our combined expertise is the perfect formula for success."
"What did you have in mind?"
"A perpetual energy machine..."
She detailed her idea to me in full, and even in that tired state I knew, in the back of my mind, how brilliantly insane it was. At first, I politely nodded while being silently doubtful: I merely took her ideas as speculation and decided to take advantage of them to use as an excuse for a much needed fifteen-minute break. However, as she got more excited, and more detailed, it dawned on me that she was more than just serious: she was downright correct. As the pieces fell together in my head, it dawned on me that this was not only conceivable, but completely possible with our resources and combined intellect.
We could create the elixir of immortality... all humans had the necessary components, they just had to be... augmented.
As she made her conclusion, a part of me, a small part, wanted to call off her idea as crazy, and impractical for humans or any creature. But the larger part of me, remembering back to that beautiful night on the dirty bed, promising her my eternal company, wanted to do this. For the fame. For the money. But more than anything, for her, so I could deliver on the promises given hastily in my youth.
I signed off on the idea. We sent out for government support of funding and test subjects. Hearing our plan in vague terms, we got exactly what we needed: two willing human test subjects and over a million dollars in research grants. We were going to beat time.
Our first test subjects were a lovely, recently married couple. They were lower class bakers, who met when they opened stores next to each other. And as the newlyweds they were still doting on each other as they walked in, both anxious and comforting the other. Apparently, they disliked the concept of bioengineering, but the money they gained from volunteering their bodies was undeniably attractive, and they needed it to pay off their wedding debt. We met. Talked. They were charmed by our lab, as we were charmed by their togetherness. We were glad that they would be the first people to gain the blessing of immortality: clearly, they would love each other forever.
Given the nature of our experiments, they would have no other choice.
First, we had to make their digestive tracts more efficient. All of the beneficiary nutrients would have to be sucked from the food they ate. The first few operations to do this went without a hitch, and they were happy with the results: more energy, better digestion, and easier to get the healthy, beneficial parts of the substances into their system. Secondly, we made the amount energy the body could derive from the nutrients longer lasting: that way, if the food should prematurely leave the body, the energy derived for basic body functions would last regardless. Finally, we secretly developed and injected them with a potent new, experimental drug: one that would allow them to derive nutrients from waste products. This took 3 long months of study and medical operations... painful operations... but in the end we were successful.
However, we found that in these early tests, the body had too many things taking up the energy, like the arms and legs. So we cut them off.
To stop their whining, we locked them in separate, soundproof rooms. We force-fed them nutritional gruel until we were ready for the next steps of the operation: using the energy to produce stem-cells that could rejuvenate dead cells. Thanks to the fact that both male sperm and female eggs were needed to produce stem cells naturally, we decided the best step to take would be to link the stomach to the ovaries and testes through artificial intestine. Since the sperm cells would have to travel through the stomach, we fortified them to resist the acid in the belly. This, again, was a painful operation, but thankfully they didn't have any limbs to resist us with.
When this operation was complete, we felt ready. This lucky couple would soon be spending an eternity together. Reassured by my sister's smile, we took them into the operating room and completed one last operation. we inserted a large, artificial intestine into the man's mouth, fused it to his throat, and inserted the other end in the woman's, fusing it as well into her mouth. Then we injected a bacteria, formulated with similar properties of the hydra, that would stimulate the urge to vomit.
With this, they were immortal. The waste product of the man, in the form of vomit, would enter the woman and supply her with energy, which would be used to support her basic functions and simulate the production of stem cells to repair any problems the body might have acquired with age, and, if a fertilized egg was allowed to develop long enough, a new set of eggs would be provided for stem cell production. From there, she too would vomit, and the nutrients would go to the man, providing HIM with energy... thanks to their effective digestive system, all the nutrients absorbed into the body would leave at some point. but the energy still remained, allowing one partner to stay alive while the other was receiving the nutrients of the vomit once more.
We had done it. We were gods.
As I stared at our creation, though, a tinge of regret went through my heart... they would live forever, but what did they have to live FOR? As my sister noticed my saddened stare, she placed a hand on my shoulder and gave me a comforting smile.
"They'll be fine. We just need to refine the process."
I nodded with determination, and we tossed the two lovers into our storage cells and forgot about them: they were just the prototypes. We needed to improve the process. We ordered two more test subjects, and we got them: two men who didn't know each other. One was a convict who chose testing over jail time, and the other was a man who was too lazy to get a real job. We talked. Explained (in vague terms) what it was we planned to do. Both were fond of the idea of eternal life... though, I imagine if they knew what my sister had planned next, they wouldn't be.
As we sat at the lab, away from our new test subjects, my sister sighed.
"Brother... we can't do what we did last time. The process needs to be refined if we want to live forever comfortably"
From our lab, we could hear the muffled cries of our previous victims as they continued to exchange fluids.
"I noticed. What do you have in mind?"
"Our first test subjects... we had to cut off their arms and legs because we couldn't supply them with enough energy... what we need is a more... solid... way to exchange energy. A way the body's more used to doing..."
I looked at her. Part of me was in disbelief at what she was suggesting. The other was eager: eager to see if her idea worked so we could label this as a success already. Ignoring the doubt my mind once held, I nodded in agreement as we prepared our lab for the next tests.
We did the same energy-efficiency and digestive surgeries on the two men that we did on our first subjects (Although we did not add the agent to increase regurgitation urges)... and naturally, by the end they were still imperfect: their bodies were using too much energy. However, my sister thought of a rather ingenious way to fix this.
"Electric energy is produced when copper goes past a magnetic field. We could have them produce their own electric energy by implanting magnets in the inside of their throats, and then sprinkle the food with copper. A little rewiring, and that energy can be used by the body."
So we cut open the men's throats and carefully implanted biomagnets (another advancement in the field, fleshy magnets that could easily be wired into the human body) inside their mouths, and connected it to the spinal nerves. With a few adaptive body organs added to convert the electric energy into useable life-energy, we were set on that front. Now they could keep their arms and legs. We also used the electric shocks to encourage the growth of the artificial stem cells, which would replace the cells that died over time in their bodies, and, with that surplus, provide additional, necessary energy. This was important: normal stem cells growth couldn't be fueled with electric energy, but these artificial stem cells could. They were a key component in the projects success.
We prepared them for their final surgery by rewiring them to naturally release all the nutrients they had in the form of waste, but this time, instead of using vomit, we found urine and feces could hold more raw nutrition per liter. So we worked with that, and soon the day for the final surgery arrived. We knocked the men out, fused their mouths over each other's assholes, and had the penis inserted into the throat via an incision on the front and fused the incision shut. Finally, using a similar hydra-based bacteria to encourage the release of feces, we were done.
The men would feed each other every day, the nutritional value being swapped between them much like the first couple. However, in this case, since more nutrition could be exchanged faster, and the electric energy was being used as additional fuel (since the feces had chunks of copper in them), they could actually move and function... as best they could in such awkward positions, anyway. However, the downside of this was the necessary electric components needed had to travel through the spine, which would release a not very pleasant shock each time they swallowed.
We looked with pride on our new, better creation. When the men awakened, they flailed, they cried, and they tried desperately to get at us: clearly, they didn't realize the benefits they had now: they would live forever, free of the burden of time. However, for our own safety, we locked them in a padded cell and focused our attention on refining the process even further.
"We're close, brother." my sister said excitedly as she prepared for our next subjects, "We're almost there. The men were close, but we need to make it less awkward... less painful..."
We applied for new test subjects, but were denied: the government wanted to see how we were doing. WHAT we were doing. Naturally, we could reveal the unperfected specimens we had now... but when we tried to explain that to the government representative, they would not hear of it: they needed physical results, not our continued assurance of progress. Frustrated at how tantalizingly close we were, my sister thought of a daring plan: we would have to get our own subjects.
It wasn't hard. We were both good looking people. A few drinks at a few bars. We found two women who were looking for a good time... but they would be getting much more than that, when we were finished with them. I took them home. Gave them more drinks, and eventually they both feel asleep on the couch, their lust unsatisfied.
But mine, mine wouldn't be denied, although it was a lust of a different kind.
My sister walked in with the tools needed for the conversion from mortal to timeless being.
"It's easy. It's so simple. I can't believe I never thought of it in the first place. Why waste our time with the mouths? Let's link them at the SOURCE..."
We did all the same bacterial injections that we had done on our first test subjects, and placed the electrical components from the second tests in their bodies, but not in the throat: this time we interlaced the biomagnets directly into the small intestines. By now, these procedures were second nature and the materials needed were right at our fingertips, so we could complete the operations before the women even had to awaken from their drunken stupor.
They were on the verge of waking, but we used chloroform to put them right back to sleep: we weren't done yet.
Like the men, we needed artificial stem cells to keep the body regenerating itself, but not only did we use the electricity to encourage their growth, we implanted a pocket in their lower abdomen full of the stuff: it would serve as a quick repair in the event a sudden trauma: the other four test subjects had to wait while the body repaired from sudden wounds, but these two would get an instant repair, assuming the pocket was sufficiently full of unused stem cells to fix the problem in question, and an extra boost of nutrition should the electric flow somehow be compromised momentarily.
With that, we only had one step left to complete: the linking.
Instead of wasting time using the mouth, we decided to link them where the action takes place: after force-feeding them highly nutritious gruel laced with copper for electrical production, we linked their stomachs and intestines together in an intricate, almost beautiful web of organs. They would be able to walk, to talk, to do everything a normal human could: the only accommodation they would have to make to their normal lives would be lugging around their linked intestines, which were now hanging a few feet outside their linked bodies.
As they awoke and screeched in terror, we nodded approvingly to ourselves. As they begged to be fixed, we were patting each other on the back: we had done it. This was as close to perfect as the biological perpetual energy machine could be. But it was odd, that as soon as we granted them freedom from their chained lives, they were begging for death, so much so we had to lock them up to prevent themselves from hurting us, or themselves.
...much like the other four test subjects...
"Don't worry yourself about it, brother. They simply do not understand the gift given to them."
She tenderly kissed me to relax my anxious mind. It was time.
Time to keep the thoughtless promises made by my younger self.
Time to defeat death a fourth time and be free of the things that plagued man.
Time to link with my sister.
As we were the ones performing, and receiving, the operation, we did not allow ourselves access to pain medications, lest they impair our judgment or coordination: we would have to do the two operations one after the other, so we couldn't afford to wait for the painkillers to get out of our system between operations. She slowly made an incision, and I felt the sharp blade rip through my skin and flesh: the feeling was agonizing, but I comforted myself with the knowledge the pain was only momentary, and the results of the pain would literally last an eternity. We had already peppered our bodies up with the necessary bacteria for the energy needs: all that was left was the surgeries. My body trembled with anticipation as much as it did the pain.
My sister carefully inserted the biomagnets, and linked the electric flow to my nerves: the pain I felt in those hours was indescribable. I screamed more than any of my other patients had, as I did not have the benefit of painkillers. However, I endured, as the sweet voice of my sister assured me the whole time that it was okay. Once the electric needs were fulfilled, we linked my testicles to my intestines, and fortified my sperm, as we had done with our first subjects: artificial stem cells were not necessary to implant in this case, as we had all the components nature intended inside us already, albeit they would need slight modifications. As she finished up, she gave me a gentle smile, handed me the tools, and said in the calmest way imaginable:
"My turn."
The pain I felt doing this was far greater than the pain I felt when I was on the receiving end of the surgeries. The whimpers and cries of my sister as I tore through her flesh and connected the biomagnet to her nervous system were agonizing for my ears. Each cry tore through my soul like a thousand burning daggers, and each whimper was a shotgun blast. However, each time I hesitated, even for a moment, to try to ease her suffering, she insisted in a pathetic voice that she was fine, and reluctantly I continued. What made it worse was the lengthy surgery needed to transform her eggs into eggs that could create electrically-energized stem cells when provided with sperm. This was a new surgery we created just for this occasion, and I was wary using it. After what seemed like years, I finished, and a tear-filled sigh of relief exited her weary mouth.
We were almost done.
We each made an incision. We each pulled out the needed parts of our intestines. We slowly linked each and every component to eternal life, fingers hesitating and shaking from the fear, keenness, and sharp pains. But as we linked that final tube, it sunk in what we had done. We were immortal.
We could be shot, and simply heal.
We could be torn apart, and our body parts would find each other and regenerate... an effect of the biomaget.
We were eternity.
We relished this fact. We sold our equipment in back-alley shops, and burned the money as a symbol of our freedom from society. We forfeited our licenses and our old lives. They were things we no longer needed. We were free of society and time and tribulation. We could do what we wished with our lives, and we both agreed we wanted nothing more than an eternity with each other.
As we cleared out the building, we decided it'd be best to let the first six test subjects go. However, as we opened the door to the first test subjects' cell, we were shocked.
There was a miscalculation.
...a miscalculation...
The creature was no longer human. The stem cells used to regenerate were fulfilling a different purpose. Tiny arms and legs were spawning from the artificial intestine linking the mouths of the subjects together. Their cheeks, from the acid in their stomachs, had melted off and regenerated seemingly millions of times, and each regeneration was less human than the last. Half-rotten teeth, blood red from growing out of flesh, grew outside on their faces, covering their noses, rendering them barely able to breathe. Their eyelids were fused to their eyes, rotting, the dead skin sinking into their red, twitching eyes, only to come back and rot once more. The stumps where their arms and legs had been cut off were now growing into large, useless flaps of skin that oozed puss. And all the while, they continued to vomit, exchanging the cells and energy one after the other: and they were very much alive... as they heard us enter the room they let out an inhuman screech, begging for death: a death we could not provide.
We closed the door on them quickly, out of fear. We looked through our notes for the miscalculation: and we found it.
We forgot to rewire the brain. It had no idea what to DO with the stem cells: they were just as likely to create freakish mutations as they were to regenerate the body.
We looked desperately for the tools to fix this, but we froze in terror: we had already sold all our equipment. We had no money. No equipment. We could not combat this.
I was petrified with terror, but my sister comforted me.
"Perhaps it was just them," she tried to reason out of desperation. "Let us check on the other two."
The second cell door was opened.
Inside, waiting for us, was the two men, their spines twisted several times over: the electric current causing them pain was too much for their bodies to deal with, so in desperation it twisted itself to try to shake loose the electric demon: but it was all in vain. The men's arms were fused to each other's sides, the stem cells creating large flaps of tight, scratchy skin full of useless nerves. Their legs were twisted and misshapen, full of boils and drooling puss-stained blood. Their eyelids had melted entirely off their faces, and the body replaced them with another pair of eyes, which grew, like buds, off the first.
Their bodies were still forced to swallow each other's waste. And we had no way to ease the cried pains begging for mercy from god.
...the gods we became.
We closed the door again: we were gods, but we did not know what to do about the abominations we had created... and the abominations we had become. Together, we realized that there was no escaping this fate, and that the electric flow that tortured and twisted the mind only made the disfigurations worse... and already I could feel my body start to rebel against itself out of confusion.
My sister suggested we look into the third cell to get a glance at what we would become. To ease our curiosity. Perhaps if we knew what to expect we could find another biologist to fix this. I eagerly agreed.
We unlocked the door to the third cell.
We opened the door.
...And from there?
The demon that became of our third test subjects?
I cannot tell you. When we opened the door, we each felt a large, blunt object on the back of our heads, and we fell to the ground.
And when we awoke, we were here.
In this room.
The door locked.
The lights out.
If you read this, if you find us, you should know it is the last sane log you will read from this monster you now see before you: how ironic it should be scribbled on the wall in our own blood.
The pain I feel cannot tell me what I have become. Only where I have transformed.
The once beautiful voice of my sister, now warped and disoriented, cannot change what I have become.
But know, that although in our battle against time we may have lost ourselves...
...we still won.
~End~
Genre: Biopunk
Not in Seven Years
She had not seen the sun in seven years. It was there, she knew, but she no longer believed. And if sometimes her days were punctured by memories of bright sand and a warmth on her cheek, they were scarce and hurt less as the years rolled on.
Beside her in the dark, Dog slept. He slept truly, the sleep of the conscienceless. She woke many times in the night alone, unable to dream any longer, sitting in the shadow rooms, drawing her knees up to her breast and reaching out a hand to touch Dog's chest, feeling the heavy rise and fall of his breath, feeling the feeble, steady thump of his heart. Though her touch was not gentle, never once had Dog woken. She drew comfort from his presence, but no peace. Because she had a knowledge in her bones that whoever was beside her could not stop whatever was outside.
Once upon a time this thought would have sent a cramp to her tender belly and raised nervous goosepimples. The truth of it was instinct now, and kept her alive longer than she would have guessed. A person or a thing can be taken from you, and ripped out of you, no matter how surely the threads of relationship are sewn into your being. But when yourself was taken, nothing would remain to mourn. Her tongue swept over her molars as she thought on this. The burden was heaviest on those who survived, needing to carry memories of eyeball splattered deaths and mewling, sickling pleas for a bullet through the skull.
Dog stirred. He must be waking, because he never moved in sleep. She pressed her tongue against her eyeteeth and felt a dull ache. New cavities. How long since she had tasted toothpaste? A few months ago, but maybe only a few days?
"Hey." He said, the dark skin wrinkled sadly beneath his eyes. She carefully stretched out a leg and turned towards the boarded windows.
"Probably it's time for us to go." She jerked her chin towards the window. They stood and stared out the tiny spaces between the wooden slates, peering intently out the frosted glass, though neither one could make out a goddamn thing.
Their motto was to follow the smoke, follow the smog. Dog would chant "Follow the smoke" like a mystic prayer. She preferred 'smog' because everything was green-grey and thick, toxic tasting and toxic smelling; an industrial fart. She did not pray or wish to find it. A residue of the procedures, it obliterated the sun, anchored down the dark, stretching so far overhead it became sky.
Where smog was, sometimes people were. Or anyway, the in-between things like them. But she and Dog were specific in their searches. They did not want people - they wanted THE SCIENTISTS. The DOCTORS. She rolled the names in her head - PatriciaOtocosJohnFlemingYvanPioleBill Ho ldertheThird. To amuse herself, she aristocratically rolled the 'r's' of Dr. Holder's name as she recited silently.
She and Dog walked the sullen streets with a torch in their hands, shoulder-to-shoulder close, the dirt exchanged on their clothing. If they were outnumbered, the fires would do no good. But the fire could be used on themselves because in a bad situation, the best choice was always to burn.
Today, they picked their way to an old hospital belching chemicals into the grey dome of the sky. It was twenty blocks north and there were many sewers and dark businesses and apartments standing sentinel in between. She smiled when she thought of the Scientists in the hospital, any hospital. Dog glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and frowned at the deadened curl of her lips, but knew better than to ask about it.
A creak made them both freeze and without moving her torso, she stiffly turned her neck left. Dog did the same, a puff of breath escaping his nostrils. Her eyes scanned the thing quickly. A head, no arms, eyes and nose and ears, no mouth. Gotta get that mouth, she thought fiercely. But it also had those stiff legs, which had given her the warning. She carefully bent her knees, the torch in one hand and a shitty, rusting pipe in the other.
Its legs scissored forward in epileptic twitches and she almost took a hit by keeping her eyes focused on those veined limbs. She swung the pipe in a smooth arc and knocked the head off, sending it flying. As it fell through the air, the mouth squared open to emit a warbling, high pitched wail, crackling, unbearable.
"Fucking shit - " Dog leaped forward and stomped it in, difficult to do, its mouth snapping like a fish, keening and keening and keening until he had finally smashed its entire cheek and teeth and mouth in. Even then, the head twitched relentlessly - finally it fell silent. Dog's sneakers were covered in blood and grey pieces of skin, mixed like congealed head cheese. In the poor light, the thick blood looked like cherry pie filling; bright and mucosal.
"Hurry, c'mon, we can't stick around." She was already moving; it was all right - Dog had much longer legs and would easily catch up. And already, her sharp ears could make out the stumbling creaks, the same keening pitch, a blasphemy to human ears. Boxes spilled over in alleys as they shuffled out, and thumpings, from those coming around garbage cans, around unseen corners.
She sucked in mouthfuls of the smog and ran unthinkingly. It was only a few blocks more to the hospital. A stitch started in her side, but she forged ahead, used to physical ache and to pain and to desperate runs.
"Wait." Dog panted. "Wait." She turned to him in surprise and slowed, but did not stop. He stumbled and bent over, breathing harshly. Her arteries were churning and she couldn't hear anything over her own breathing.
She walked over and looked at his face. Beneath his almost black skin, he was turning a faint purple. This had never happened before. She gulped down air and her hand shook from lack of oxygen as she placed it on his back, feeling his body tremble.
"You 'kay?" He shook his head.
"Hard - to - " He gestured jerkily to his chest. "Sorry - "
"We have to get to the hospital." Her voice softened. "If something's wrong, we'll find something at the hospital." These were stupid, meaningless words because she was no doctor and knew nothing about medicine. He knew that too, but smiled at her clumsy attempts to help, a warm look which made her turn away. She wished he wouldn't do that; even after three years, she never knew how to respond.
Four blocks to go and they made it okay.
Dark and gray inside the hospital. It smelled familiarly like piss and bleach. Broken lamps, broken beds, and a few broken corpses with their cleanly stripped bones lined the halls. Thank God no flesh was left or the smell would have made her vomit. There were seven floors and they were going to explore them all.
No one on the first four floors, so Dog began to feel comfortable, chatty. This was a problem he always had, but it hadn't killed them yet; came close a few times, but no dice. She rolled her eyes when he began to ask questions, but answered obligingly, kept her voice nice and low so no echoes sounded in the gloomy halls.
"What do you think the Scientists are gonna do when we find them?" He looked carefully into a black room. She stepped back with the pipe held ready. Nothing.
"I dunno. Maybe they'll try to kill us." She cocked her head, but dismissed a scuttling noise in the pipes as rats. Some motherfucking big rats. Mutants everywhere these days.
"Where do you really think they all are?"
"Hiding. Dead. Drinking appletinis."
"I want an apple. I'm hungry as hell." She could hear the smile in his voice.
"Yeah."
"What...are you gonna say to them?" Why did he always ask the same damn questions? She sighed loudly, no mistaking her exasperation.
"I'm going to say, 'suck it, you motherfuckers'." She snapped. Dog waited patiently, knew how to play the game. They turned a corner in sync and she started in surprise at their images in the round corner mirror. Disturbed by her grungy face and wild eyes, she ducked her head down, a sharp pang in her throat for the girl she used to be.
Silly, how it would come to her like this. She couldn't even remember herself. It was like thinking on a photograph, so familiar, but the details fell away. The old world was comfortable and somehow artificial; pain and danger made this one real. Long ago, she had been young and her black hair shiny and clean and she had gone to a school and had warm showers - long showers. She never knew what monsters were or what a half-devoured person looked like, didn't know they were capable of gagging on their tears and begging and didn't know she had more mercy than fear.
"I'm going to ask them to make everything okay again." She whispered as they came to the stairs. They stood still together a moment. Dog didn't say anything, but nodded. She avoided looking at his eyes and they pushed open heavy double doors and began to climb up.
They found the Scientists on the children's ward. He looked up, eyes wide behind his thick glasses, and stumbled awkwardly to his feet. He was too fat, and Dog landed heavily on him before he could skitter to shut the office door in their faces. While Dog pressed the Scientist against the floor, she hurriedly looked through the room for something to use as a rope. She resorted to tearing the curtains in a loud rush. Together, they tied the struggling, porcine man and she slapped him hard on the side of the head to stop his squealing.
She stared at his face, eyes stinging. There was only the sound of his wheezing to break the silence as she waited for the correct memory to surface.
"Dr. Fleming." The Scientist raised his head.
"Who are you? What do you want?" He whispered in his high, breathy voice. His chin wobbled with fear.
"Do you know a Dr. Pham?" Confusion clouded Fleming's eyes and he shook his head definitively.
She hated to be disappointed and she hid it badly. She didn't really think he would know. Dog tensed up.
"Where are the other scientists?" Very bad - her shaking voice betrayed how much the answer meant.
Fleming stared at her, his rosebud mouth opened in shock. Then his doughy face scrunched up as he giggled. "Hee hee! Hee hee! Hee hee!" He exhaled heavily and his eyes almost disappeared as he smiled widely at her.
"Here? Here? It's only me - there's no one else left!" She jerked her head back in shock.
"No!" Snarling, she grabbed the front of his shirt and shook him violently. "NO. Where are they?" Dog touched her shoulder, but she shook his hand off impatiently.
"And why should I tell you anything, my sweet, my pretty? Hmmmm?" Fleming's eyes twinkled behind his glasses.
"I know where Patricia Otocos is." She watched in fascination as he swallowed convulsively, jaw slack. It wasn't entirely a lie. She knew exactly where the proud doctor was - bloody and dead on her desk. She and Dog had come upon the head Scientist at The University one hundred twenty one miles away from here. They helped her, but she had lost too many limbs and her organs failed her. They took her papers and keys, then lay her out on the mahogany desk with one arm crossed over her torn chest, draped in her lab coat. Her last words had been: "Oh, bad children..."
Fleming recovered soon enough.
"You know? But...I need her! She should be here! If I had her ..." His voice went up and down an octave as he gibbered to himself. "Show me, sweetness. Show me proof that you've seen Dr. Otocos." If she didn't know better, she thought Fleming was going to orgasm from the hearing this bit of news. Dog jerked Fleming's head back.
"When you speak to her," Dog thrust his chin in her general direction, "Be polite." Fleming bobbed his head obsequiously.
"Of course, young sir. Of course. I quite understand how it is between you two." An unsettling grin showing large teeth bloomed on his face. Dog clenched his jaw but refrained from knocking Fleming out, knowing (and hating) just how much they needed the prick.
Wordlessly, she pulled out the pendant. Everyone knew the pendant. Platinum, with the serpent of the Rod of Asclepius twined around the earth. The design became famous after Dr. Otocos had announced the cure and men and women everywhere wanted one, although the genuine article had "PatriciaOMdPhD" etched onto Antarctica. Before, when she saw it on TV, it looked like the serpent was guarding the planet. Having had it these last four months, she thought the snake looked like it was devouring humankind whole. She watched as Fleming sussed out the proof.
After he found it, his eyes flickered briefly in fear, then that scrunched smile again. "Oh, dearie. Oh, dear me. Well. Well - I supposeI could take you to see them. Take my keys. Oh, my dear, here, second breast pocket. Yes - right. Use the brassy triangular one....Mmm...no....That one. Room 6-302. They're all in there. They're every one of them in there." Because his face and voice annoyed her, she kicked him in the arm as she walked by. Dog looked at her sternly, then coughed. They had tacitly agreed he would stay to guard Fleming.
It was down the hall, left, and the first door on the right. Room 6-302. She couldn't see inside the room. Uneasiness gripped her chest. Clutching the key in bloodless fingers, she shook her head in amazement. How had she gotten here? How had this happened to her?
In October, the 11 o'clock news anchor's voice trembled with excitement as he announced the discovery. She had been lying on the carpet while her parents watched the news raptly, her mother explaining the procedure to her father. An essay in AP US History was due the next day and so she hadn't paid much (any) attention.
"Dr. Otocos has literally changed the thread of life." Her mother marveled, sheepishly admitting that she was envious. "Patricia has it made now. She will go down in history as a hero, a genius - the Nobel Prize, MacArthur grants - all hers."
A frenzy had gripped the nation - a cure for that stealthy bastard, that traitor of the body - cancer. It was an oncologist's wet dream - gene therapy tailored for each type of cancer and no fatalities in any clinical trials. There were no balding women, no vomiting, no pain. No pain at all. People cried on the news every night, miraculous recoveries flourished, and joyfully numbed parents prostrated themselves to praise Dr. Otocos and her team.
As with all things, there was a price to pay. But it was such a small thing - a limit on sun exposure. The new DNA was fragile - the vicious sunlight broke the tender hydrogen bonds. An hour or two at most; beyond that, there was no telling. Eagerly, patients nodded their agreement and eagerly, parents promised they would keep Susie Q or Johnny S inside. They promised. And life went on, the smog pumping quietly into the sky, cancer a pitiful foe, a joke.
But nothing will satisfy man. Rogue scientists and doctors, pharmaceutical companies and astute CEOs, all asked themselves: Well, why stop at cancer? They dreamed big things, their ambitions knew no limits, and not even two years after the discovery, a new breed of human stalked the planet.
Better, faster, stronger - the newly modified emerged from discreet clinics, their old selves rearranged and mutated and sloughed away. Smog continued to sigh out from smokestacks; people coveted the darkness, saved their lives for evenings when that big bad sun had set. Businesses began opening at five in the evening...then six...then nine. The school bell clanged right on time at eight pm.
It was difficult to know who had chosen to change. That beautiful woman on the barstool - had she gone from a "Y" to an "X"? That new husband - white as pearls, now.
It all went wrong so quickly, no one had time to understand. It began on just another Saturday in April. Strange deaths and businesses closing forever. People refusing to leave their homes because of unsightly changes; hushed rumors rose. She read some things on the internet she understood and didn't want to believe. Too much therapy. Too many changes, too many desires. And the flesh is weak. All the while, that smog slowly usurped the sun so that all those things which had been forced inside could now come out to play and to eat.
Remembering, it amazed her now how quickly humanity had fallen. A few pathetic bonfires, a riot here or there, and fear, concocted a very nice epidemic of violence and panic. She didn't know how the rest of the world had got on because the television stations went empty after a week of the riots. Telephones had fallen silent two days before; land lines gone, cell towers quiet.
One morning, her mother, an unaffectionate woman, had kissed her soundly on the forehead and asked her to lock the door tightly. Her father squeezed her to his chest, patted her cheeks awkwardly and lovingly with his chubby fingers.
"The government needs all the scientists now." Her father had told her the evening before.
"You don't even do biology! You don't do medicine!" She cried out, fearful tears leaking out.
"...They need all sorts now. All the help they can get. Dr. Piole knows what he's doing. Maybe we can find a cure for this thing, be famous. Wouldn't you like to be famous?" His eyes crinkled as he smiled. She would have smiled back, if she had not been so aware of her mother sitting tensely on the couch.
The next morning, they left and she thought they were probably dead by now. That hadn't stopped her seven-year search.
And here she was, in front of 6-302. If Yvan Piole was in there, she would beg him. She had nothing left, no pride, no fear, and she would drop to her knees and beg to know what had happened to her family.
The door was heavy, a thick metallic thing, and the quiet room smelled acutely of formaldehyde. It was the smell of her mother's lab, a carcinogenic smell. There was a humming in the background, like an A/C unit running. She fumbled clumsily for the light switch and the ceiling lights sizzled and spit before they flickered on. The fluorescent glare was difficult for her eyes to take. The room was inordinately cold, her breath faintly visible.
Immediately, her gaze was drawn to the man on a chair, sitting with his back to her. Even at this distance, she recognized Dr. Piole's dark head. Her heart tightened in gladness and she broke into a run, turning with joy to face him.
When she saw what was left of him in the chair, her smile faltered and she quickly turned to the side and retched, acid burning her throat as her stomach heaved. She stumbled away and bumped against the metal cabinets, which sprung open. Inside the cabinet was the rest of him, neatly stacked and going bad, but overall, very clean. Very tidy. Jostled by the collision, a hand tumbled down and cupped her feet. Her throat muscles worked spasmodically, but the scream refused to come. She didn't remember how she left the room. She fainted in the hallway, an ungraceful heap in front of 6-302, like the slain guardian of some mythic gate.
Dog found her there, disoriented and broken, and pulled her into his arms. She turned into his warmth, the tears dripping silently down her cheeks. He held her tightly, close, and she was so damn grateful for his touch. Her arms were like a vise around his back and her fingernails dug painfully into his skin.
"What happened?" His voice was low, slightly raspy. She was quiet a few moments, wanting to compose herself.
"Yvan's in there. He's dead. He's cut up." A pause as she clenched her teeth. "Fuck!" A frustrated sob escaped her throat. "God fucking fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" It went on like this for a bit, a steady stream of cusswords and blasphemous swears against God. Dog rocked her back and forth and she cried. He knew the tears were not from sadness or even from horror, but for herself, and for her search. Her long, pointless, dead-end search. A long time ago, he had emptied himself of tears. Finally, she stopped, though her eyes were glassy.
"That fucker Fleming. He knew exactly what I would see in there." She muttered. "He knew. That fucker."
"Only Piole? He said they were all in there." Dog reminded gently.
"I didn't look. Maybe they are all in there." Her heart beat slowly in her chest. "Let's go check it out." Dog stood and extended a hand. She ignored it and pushed the heavy door open.
Together they walked to the couch where Yvan slumped. There was a torso, some thigh left, and his head, with chunks of muscle carefully, lovingly, sliced away from his cheek. Part of an eyelid had been taken, so that his left eye appeared to be open, watching them. His lab coat had been left on, but no clothes. They looked at him a good long while, then opened the eight cabinets lining the periphery of the room. She realized the formaldehyde stench came from the cabinets and they were all very full.
"Well. They're all accounted for." She said quietly after they had firmly closed the cabinets.
"I wonder what for." Dog said, holding her arm and leading them out. She walked numbly alongside him.
"What?"
"I wonder what they're going to be used for. What they've been used for."
"How do you know for anything? Maybe Fleming's just a psycho bastard." She muttered bitterly. A corner of Dog's mouth lifted.
"Yeah, well, he's both, but he's real logical. While you were gone, he babbled. He's a serial talker; I get the feeling he's very into being orderly and having a reason for everything."
"How do we even know he did this? Maybe there's another psycho motherfucker in this hospital and Fleming's just his bitch." She retorted.
"They were...like a meat market. Like a butcher's shop. For eating. Maybe he's eating it." Dog pondered aloud. They'd almost reached Fleming's office. It was a disgusting thought, but not surprising. No fresh beef in the supermarkets and pockets of the hungry all around. But then she thought of the formaldehyde and shook her head.
"No... But maybe something else is." She and Dog stared at each other.
"Let's go ask Fleming."
The piggish Scientist was struggling in his bonds when they came through the door. He froze and Dog pulled him up, coughing a little at the effort.
"We found them." She said coldly. "What are you using them for?"
Fleming's eyes wrinkled as he smiled. He didn't bother to lie. "To eat." He gestured to his fat belly. "I need good meat. I get so hungry." He whimpered pathetically. A corner of her lip lifted in disgust.
"You may be a fatass cannibal, but you wouldn't be stupid enough to eat formaldehyde. What are you feeding? What are you - " She broke off, thinking of the scuttling rats she had heard when they first came into the hospital. Her eyes met Fleming's. Dark beads of sweat rolled down his pudgy face. She thought of Patricia Otocos. Her mind was stalled on the tracks, struggling to right itself, but she felt the truth before she knew it.
"Dog." She said hoarsely. "I don't think we searched the whole building."
"We searched every floor." He protested, clearing his throat roughly. Fleming watched them curiously, his shiny eyes going back and forth like a badminton birdie.
"Yes - every floor. But not the basement." Dog's eyes gleamed in realization and he untied Flemings legs, then pushed him towards the door.
"C'mon, lardass, we're going on a -" Before he could finish, a coughing fit stopped him. Dog let go of the Scientist, who flopped on the ground.
"Dog - " She stepped forward, biting her lip nervously.
"S'okay - that formaldehyde - " Another fit. "I think it's just working my lungs."
"Okay - okay. Do you want...some water? I'll go find some water -" They both knew the best she would probably come up with was scummy toilet water. Dog shook his head vigorously, eyes running.
"Why don't you just stay here? I'll go check it out. I promise I'll come right back if something happens. I'll take Fleming. Just stay here." She said. Please stay here and be okay when I come back. He smiled at her.
"Take this." He tossed her pipe to her. "Be careful." The words would have sounded ominous, but he ruined the effect by coughing again.
"Your young sir is quite sick, you know." Fleming said with a nervous smile.
"Shut up." She prodded him hard with her pipe. "Move faster."
"It probably is - "
"I said shut the fuck up!" She kicked his back furiously and he rolled down the last few steps, crying out like an old woman. He lay moaning at the bottom.
"Get up, you bitch. I want to see exactly what it is you've got hanging around this freak sty." He shuffled to his feet and sent her a glare, which she ignored.
The basement was quiet. There was that sound she heard before. She thought it had come from the pipes, but now realized it sounded like it was actually coming through the pipes, from somewhere else. What had sounded like muted scuttling was now loud and grating.
"Why don't you just tell me what you've got down here? Or I could beat it out of you." She threatened wearily. Fleming beamed at her.
"Oh, I think it will be much more exciting for you to see for yourself. That one." He jerked his chin at rusty double doors. There was a padlock around its handles and the room was dark. The clanging was coming from inside. Fleming had to back up to unlock the door because she had refused to untie him.
"You first." She said, shoving him inside. There was a faint glow around the edges of the large basement, but the room was otherwise dark. The clanging was unbearable in here, an off-beat pounding like the percussive announcement of a headhunter.
"Turn the lights on." Her hands were full - one holding the pipe and one around his tied arms.
"But I - "
A thin smile edged her lips. "Be creative. Use your mouth, your face, I don't care." He fumed, but within a few moments, the entire basement was flooded with light. When they came on, Fleming took advantage of her horror and hopped to the middle of room.
He stood there, beaming, gesturing broadly with his jiggly arms. "Look at them - my children. What do you think Patricia would have said tothat? Hee hee! Hee hee!"
Coffin-sized glass tubes, the monstrous children, their mouths opened, but silenced by the fluid they were bathed in. They were hideous. They were awake. They were hungry. Seeing her, they pressed themselves against the glass, bleating so horribly for her flesh, she could see their throats undulate, but heard nothing. Her guts were churning, the memories of these past years festering, an abscess of long, bad nights, painful days of living. Out of control, she grabbed her head and a blistering, primitive howl of loss erupted. She wanted them to know her suffering, she wanted Fleming, and all those arrogant, messiahs, the Scientists, to know of her loss, her many years of hunger and sadness, her tears and of the blood and especially the pain.
Without thinking, she smashed into the tubes, causing the creature inside to ecstatically scramble and scratch at the glass for freedom.
"Stop! STOP!" Fleming screamed. "They're hungry! They need your flesh, your DNA!"
"LET THEM EAT!" She shrieked. The glass broke loose and it leapt for her, but a brutal hit with the pipe set it straight. Deciding to go for easier prey, it leapt with a screech of joy onto Fleming, who fell backwards in a spray of blood. She freed five more and beat two to death before her rage cooled enough for self-preservation. She ran from the room, padlocking it, and made it up those seven flights of stairs in less than 5 minutes.
She blacked out in Dog's arms, but no tears came this time.
She woke. A cool hand touched her forehead. "You're all bloody." She turned away from his face, into his lap.
"Where's Fleming?" She didn't respond. Dog stayed quiet a moment. She could hear him trying to say something. He knew she wanted to forget. To move on. No questions. Finally: "While you were down there, I went up to the roof. Let me show you something. Come on." He tugged her out the room, up the stairs, to the roof.
"See? Over there? That light? Looks like God's own sun, huh?" She looked. Even at this distance, she could tell it was a streetlight.
"That's stupid." But she smiled. Dog hugged her close, pressing her ear against his heart.
He thought: It's better that I don't tell her about the cancer.
She thought: Yeah, if I squint hard, it does sorta look like the sun.
ONETWO THREE EL FIN!
A Shakespearean sonnet about Muse and in particular their front man Matthew Bellamy.
Knights of Cydonia [EON Remix] by EON
I sit transfixed in a haze of gloomy definite sound pollution,
Listen to you strum out riffs plucked straight from time and space,
Feeling forlorn as I beg for absolution,
I am like depraved Politician receiving a warranted coup de grace.
You utter words of frenzied men, who have lost love,
As we all take note of the gentle serenade were we all blackout.
Giving the opinion that there is no god above,
While we watch the most breathtaking show as you trash about.
I eavesdrop in on your sharp piercing tone,
Hearing songs which lighten hearts and sink ships.
Your past is atypical rising from the ashes of a broken home and
Watch the one you kiss get cobalt tinted lips.
Your mantra reverberates in the universe with timeless existence,
As you really us all and call for resistance.
Matthew Bellamy
It's a free verse. I usually write on Russian, but a decided to try out my skills on English. It's about 2 Pac. I hope the poem is okay. Also the "simple black male" part, I didn't want to be racist or anything. Good luck to the other contestants.
A simple black male from a ghetto,
Who wanted to choose better ways in his life,
Sadly the situation around, didn't let him,
Find the best way to survive.
Deaths around, people violently representing their sides,
After doing evil, he didn't want to live, but rather die.
After killing, crack dealing, he was still praying for a better way,
Which he hoped, would come some day.
Supporting his side at hard times,
Talking about the truth, speaking about it in rhymes.
Later was sent to jail. Got blamed a lot,
"Another one of those, who will die there"-many thought.
But he managed to survive, the cursed nightmare,
And seriously thought, of changing his ways,
Being serious in albums, telling truth here and there.
Sadly, the clock was ticking away the days
Of life which he had left. It is a shame that death came unexpected,
Which he treated with disrespect.
It is sad, that he left. Letting the memories stay,
But he couldn't choose a better way.
And now, the price is paid...
Rest In Peace, dear poet,
In your rhymes we keep fate.
So this is my entry, a free verse about Freddie Mercury. The line that I italicized is a lyric from a Queen song so I didn't want it to get lost in my own words.
Charismatic Phoenix
The moment he stepped on
stage every soul stared in
awe. A screaming ocean that
swayed and sung to his whim.
Cameras flash, Wembley filled with starlight.
Stars that flare into existence and
wither to darkness. Satisfied
their moment of life was to
record him.
Every motion, every word
subtle, large, is full
of purpose.
He makes the stage his abode, with
the precision of his presence.
He stands tall with
his sword and head held high
Triumphant.
Like the intense inferno of
the Phoenix, all eyes transfixed on his
blaze, beauty, grace.
An invisible chill snuffed out
his flame. Silently stealing the
energy but never the passion.
A dark day of woe, and
bitter winds.
His fire lives on. Reigniting when
the sea of fans spread his voice into
the breeze, lifting it to
the cold and slighted. Giving them
warmth and will to stay alive.
New life springing from the ashes.
I was inspired by the statue of Freddie at Montreaux. It does an amazing job of capturing the essence of his spirit.
This is my poetic tribute in Sestina form to Jeff Mangum, lead singer and songwriter for the unapproachably moving and amazing band "Neutral Milk Hotel." It's obviously in sestina form, but the guidelines for sestinas in the rules are slightly wrong. I have fixed them here, and I've chosen to go with a haiku for my envoi which is among the many arguable choices for an envoi. Also, this is basically a pastiche of poetic influence, so each segment is using the style of a different poet (Whitman, Williams, Cummings, Dickinson, Li-Po etc.). (If my Williams/Cummings stuff doesn't work then oh well.)
***
Where ya' been Jeff the singer?
Jeff the troubadour? Jeff the lover?
You dropped off and left us with our hearts
beating in the air on upraised palms.
Cause that's how it was with you,
our hearts tore free when your throat trembled.
I trembled
before you, singer;
I cried before you,
when you claimed to be her lover--
sweet Anne of soft palms
who has touched a thousand hearts.
And all the numerous, throbbing, heaving hearts
which you yourself have altered in the spinning of a voice that trembled
and then cracked, under the pressure of a note soaked in distant melancholy, written beneath the palms
of your seminal city; city of you, the haunted singer.
And I was awed by the separation of you and your lover;
a separation of time; a void, where you instead found a bridge, in dreams, spanning two eras, traversed by only you.
I still remember when I first heard you--
we're coming down from Maine with holy hearts
upraised, and there I'm thinking, 'I love her.'
Her, yes her, girl before whom I have trembled.
On radio you came, and I desired to sing HER
with you, as you sang HER, about a girl with soft, sweet palms.
-----Those palms
------------raised for you,
------------for a singer
------------------who makes hearts
-------------------------that trembled
--------------------------------now quake and bleed for a lover.
-------It's Like I've been left withOut my loVEr
--------------------------------------
-----and these LOVEly white palms
-------------------- no LOnger haVE another, to grasp them, because they trembled
--------------or sHook. I think I undERstand you
-------though, prEssured by All those worshipping, CHest-ripped hearts,
----------It was too much expectation. But come back soon, we want you, maybe neeD you in a wAY, you solemn sweet singer.
-------------------------------- {Parting Image of Jeff Magum {Envoi}}------------------------------
Beneath tall, dry palms
you lay with red, shining hearts
beating around you.