PHOBIOPOLIS: Killing Machines
a flashback
by Alex Reynard
\tYeah, you're a natural
\tA bleeding heart of stone
\tYou gotta be so cold
\tTo make it in this world
\t\t\t-Imagine Dragons, "Natural"
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
If you search deep enough into any big city, even one as pretty as Coryza, you will always find spots as rotten and seedy as a wormy apple.
Into one such disreputable zone, Junella Brox was aimed.
The street was cracked. Her footfalls were soundless. The city's walls were an hour from closing. The eternal night of the region was darkening perceptibly as the moon withered and died yet again. Shadows grew bolder; an inkwash over the sketchy tight alleyways the skunkess padded catlike through.
Within the shadows, she was camouflaged. Nothing of her visible but a ghostlike white scarf and two unblinking orange eyes. They saw everything. Everything the city wished it could disbelieve.
Lousy music played over card games destined for violence. Unseen diaperrats rustled, feasting. Locked windows. Boarded windows. Broken bottles. Stained and pitted concrete. Derelicts huddled against walls with hollow gazes, so drained of will they had become inanimate objects. A bloodstain in the shape of a child. A lumpen, snoring, naked woman dreaming in a pile of uncollected garbage bags. Junella passed them all without looking back.
The lithe black skunk wasn't on the clock. Nor was she looking to get drunk (although that was always an option).What she wanted down here was a fight. Two days back, she'd bitten off a mouthful of shit sandwich she could neither swallow or spit out. She'd let herself be trapped between two forces too powerful to oppose. Rather than face her mistake with maturity, she was looking to redirect the red cloud of wrath around her thoughts onto someone else.
Junella stepped from the shadowed concrete cleft onto the openness of Galloway Street. The streetlights craned their necks over potholed pavement, stripped cars, wet cardboard boxes, and jimmied-open newspaper kiosks. Her weapons were out of sight. She wanted to appear alone and vulnerable. She pulsed with inner fire. Casting her keen-edged gaze around, she wished for some lecherous slug to make a grab at her. Even a stumblebum flopping his ragdoll self against her by accident would do. Any excuse to flash her teeth and scream into the night as she drew blade and drew blood. Any excuse to make someone else's night worse than hers.
But the street was empty. At least, of anything that might be coaxed to pose a threat. A couple of indistinct face-suckers were pawing each other under an awning. Some sad sack in a raincoat was propped up against a brick wall with one arm, looking like he was about to- Yep. There came the puke. Right on schedule.
Everyone else was inside, casting shadows on their window shades. A rare calm night in this part of town.
"For fuck's sake. Do I have to do everything myself?"
If she couldn't draw a scuffle out, then she'd go to the source. Junella beelined towards the neighborhood's epicenter of ugliness. A three-story liquor wonderland with a sign above the door that read simply, 'TAVERN'. Presumably, most of its patrons wouldn't have bothered shaking off Phobiopolis' auto-onset illiteracy. (Though with this caliber of clientele, who knew if they'd been able to read back when they were alive?)
The noise pounded her ears from a block away. An ailing piano conducted a battered-sounding band, amplified just barely above the rolling ocean of sudsy shouting. Once she was in sight of the place, Junella saw they were having a profitable night. Drunks were practically falling out the windows. Patrons wandered in and out like sacks of oily seawater poured into clothing.
And to her great annoyance, not a single one of them molested her as she made her way up the deathtrap stairs to Tavern's main doors. Maybe her vinyl skin matched the night too much. Maybe she was too short to be noticed. Phobiopolis reduced all souls to childhood upon entry, and she'd only chosen to let herself advance to her teens. Most of the people here looked middle-aged. Wasted wrecks who'd probably been in the afterlife longer than their real ones. All their original memories forgotten. Nothing left to do but drink and drink to try to forget that this place was forever.
She stepped through the battered doors into chaos. Chaos that stank. She felt like she was already getting drunk just smelling the air here. 'Might as well make it official.' She threaded past reeking, stained bellies towards the bar. The crew behind the counter looked like combat-hardened war medics. 'Things could be worse. I could be them,' she thought. She glanced around. Every seat was filled. Cavemen roaring laughter into their companions' faces. Sullen heaps brooding in candlelight. Catatonics sleeping under tables. The only unusual thing she noted: the far corner was even louder than normal. 'Something going on back there.'
When one of the bartenders caught her eye, she pointed at the bottles behind him and didn't care which one he grabbed. He poured. The shot went down like thumbtacks in vinegar. Appropriate to her mood. A mere glance at the barman's willwell paid her tab. He returned a weary nod of gratitude to her for an easy, no problems transaction.
Now with a bit of mean gasoline in her stomach, she hopped off the stool and navigated across the room, dodging vomit, to whatever event was transpiring in the back. She elbowed past jiggling, drippy idiots, all of them talking at great volume in fluent drunkenese. A tight ring of patrons were smashed in together, spectating. Junella melted herself through.
Stepping into the searing yellow light of a bare hanging bulb, Junella saw a table streaked with fresh hot blood, and a stranger in town.
Maybe they just ran in different circles, but she was pretty damn sure she would've remembered seeing a guy with wrenches for arms and no top to his skull.
He was draped over his chair like a thrift store overcoat. A sleepy, smug grin curled from a canine jaw. Blue jeans and leather jacket; sleeveless, obviously. One ungodly-enormous claw-jaw wrench dragged on the floor beside him, connected to his shoulder. The other was propped up on the table. Open, inviting its next challenge.
Junella had only seconds to observe these details before a steaming water buffalo shoved his way past her, holding his own mangled arm in his opposite hand. He rounded and brandished it towards the mutt at the table. An arc of crimson splashed the crowd. "YOU SON OF A BITCH! IT'S A DAMN GOOD THING I'M TOO FULLA VODKA TO FEEL THIS! NOW I GOTTA WALK ALL THE WAY ACROSS TOWN TO THE GODDAM HOSPITAL! YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!"
The mutt's nonchalant expression didn't even twitch. No wry comeback. Just a shrug of his shoulders: 'You pays your money and you takes your chance.'
The crush of onlookers swung open long enough to let the bloodsoaked grumbler pass, then clapped themselves shut again. Within seconds they were roaring encouragement for someone else to take the vacant chair.
Someone with very poor taste in friends got pushed forward, his buddies all patting his back. "You can do it! You can beat him! Get it on!!" The newcomer was a lion in a hardhat and a kilt. He looked like he worked at a junkyard, compacting cars with his bare hands. He struggled his shirt over his head, tossed it to the floor, then slid into the chair across from the mutt.
Junella had already guessed the game. It suited this unknown Frankenstein perfectly.
The lion slammed his elbow onto the wooden table, grinding it into the dent that had developed over the past few hours. The red puddle left by previous competitors soaked his sandy fur. He flexed his fingers, making ropy veins twist inside his forearm. He growled like a churning incinerator.
The mutt, meanwhile, looked like he couldn't muster the enthusiasm to even sit up straight. His raised wrench looked immobile, except for the sloppily-welded hinge of an elbow down the middle of its length.
"COME ON, FUCKER!" the lion blared.
The mutt simply pointed with his eyes to a paper bag stapled to the table's edge. "First, you pay. If you win, the whole kitty's yours. If not, it's mine. Them's the stakes." His voice was soaked with alcohol, but perfectly intelligible.
The lion grunted acceptance of the rules, dug in his pockets, came up empty, then winced and picked his shirt up off the floor. In the breast pocket he found a pebble of imaginite.
The canine nodded, and into the bag it went. He pulled his chair a little closer.
The lion eyed the serrated edges of the wrench's jaws. A bit of worry snuck into his expression, but he quickly stuffed it down with a snarl of confidence. He slotted his fingers into a good grip on the steel and skootched his elbow around until it felt right on the table. "You ready to do this, you grinning, cheating puppy punk!?"
"Any time you are, Cochise. On three?"
A grunt.
"Then a-one. A-two... A-three."
Both combatants slammed the pedal to the metal and surged power into their arms. Junella had expected an instant win, but either the lion was as strong as he looked, or the mutt was starting off toying with him. The big cat's tail lashed furiously as he pushed against steel. Junella saw his shoulder throb like a hot water bottle.
The canine did not show strain, but determination. "Beer!" he barked, and someone from the crowd held out a longneck bottle. With surprising delicacy, he took it in his other wrench and didn't spill a drop as he brought it to his mouth. Junella took note of the agility this required, since his elbows could only swing laterally. The mutt sucked the bottle dry in a single long, steady gulp, all while maintaining an eye-lock with his opponent. He finished and handed the empty to the crowd. "Thanks," he said as it vanished.
Noises like bad constipation were coming out of the lion. The veins on the back of his hand were fat as sausages. The chair he was sitting on creaked from shaking. His free hand clawed ruts in the table. His exhales sounded like steam overflow.
The canine decided to stop jerking off and start playing for real. He bared his fangs and bore down hard. He'd merely been keeping the lion's arm in place so far. Now he drove it towards the table with the relentless strength of a steamhammer pounding railroad spikes.
The lion screamed. No growl of bravado: a reflexive yelp of fear and pain.
"You can say uncle," the canine offered graciously.
"EAT SHIT!" the lion counter-offered.
"Allright then. I tried to be nice." With a small shrug at how rude some people could be, the canine suddenly spiked his opponent's arm against the table with a gunshot-loud CRACK of tendons snapping.
This time the lion's scream was much louder. He became a shrieking teakettle as he stared at the remains of his bicep. It looked like a lightning-struck tree stump.
The mutt exhaled and slumped back in his chair. His wrench-jaws parted to let his opponent retrieve his now-useless hand.
The lion scrambled backwards out of the chair, right arm dangling like a stocking full of lard. "FUCK YOU! FUCK YOUR MOTHER AND YOUR WHOLE FAMILY!!"
The canine didn't dignify him with a glance. "Next."
When the lion made a fist with his remaining functional fingers, the crowd surged like a sea wave and pushed him back. Sore losers could nurse their wounds at the bar or get the fuck out. They wanted to see more action.
Junella stood quietly and watched two more chumps get their limbs demolished before deciding to give it a try herself.
She let the latest loser drag himself past her. He at least had enough dignity to merely grumble, not make a scene of useless machismo. Junella stepped towards the chair and slid herself into it in one lyrical motion.
The crowd became quiet in befuddlement.
And the canine expressed the first real interest she'd seen on his face so far. Confusion at the size difference between her and his previous challengers. Mild discombobulation at the presence of a shapely dame. And then a wary, intrigued, approving grin at the rocksteady confidence in her eyes.
This close, she could finally get a good look at the shipwreck this guy called a head. The whole upper deck had been cleared away, capped off with a metal disk. His ears and eyeballs were held in place by wires. He even had teensy metal eyelids.
"You can stare," he said mellowly. "It's not every day you meet a fella this handsome."
Junella snorted a chuckle. Her needle-tipped fingers found the grooves on her body to reply, "Ha. You're about as ugly as my temper tonight."
This made his faux-fur eyebrows raise. "Well ain't that something! You don't just look like a record album, you are one! Plus you're in a place like this without bein' falling-down shitfaced. The eighth wonder of the world, right in frunna me!"
"You can stare," she sang back, then put her other arm on the table. "But I ain't got all night. We gonna get this clownshow over with or what?"
He glanced at the paper sack. "Pay first."
She nodded. "I didn't forget. Though I don't usually carry rocks on me. Do you take collateral?"
An eyebrow twitch asked for clarification.
Junella reached beneath the table briefly, and when her hand reemerged it was holding a six-shot revolver. She placed it on the table with just enough sound to convey its heft. Real metal. No prop.
The mutt licked his lips at it. "Not somethin' I can use. But it's pretty. One of Red Velvet's jobs?"
She shrugged. "It's from whoever-it-was I killed and took it off of."
An 'Oooooooh' from the crowd.
"Fair nuff. And yeah, that pea-shooter's got resale value. We're on." He unclenched his wrench-jaw to let her slip her hand inside. "Careful you don't scratch my finish with those needles of yours," he kidded.
She gave him no reaction. "Just to be sure now, the rules are, whoever's hand touches the table first, they keep the bag?"
"Bullseye, sister."
"Then let's do this, trashface." Junella wrapped her comparatively-tiny vinyl paw around the stranger's pockmarked steel.
The crowd was muttering. Placing bets and expressing overconfident opinions. A few of them had heard tales about a black plastic skunk with orange eyes, and knew they were about to see something they'd be teling their friends about tomorrow. This one had a reputation of rattlesnake venom in her veins.
The canine sat forward in his seat, getting serious again. He scanned Junella top to bottom. The only part of her that seemed any threat was that tail of hers. Skunks sprayed, he knew. Plus he could see record shards embedded in its underside like porcupine quills. Her arm was a dainty, feminine thing. If it wasn't for the swagger in her posture, he'd have been sure he was about to launch her straight through the westward wall.
Junella simply kept her eyes on his. Perfect poker face.
"On three," the canine said.
The skunk acknowledged.
"One."
His wrenches were not inanimate prosthetics. He could feel her skin and the record grooves that covered her every surface like a full-body fingerprint.
"Two."
Junella adjusted her posture, bracing her legs. She felt the weathered, battered metal of the stranger's strange hand. She kept her other paw on the table.
"Three."
He didn't want to disrespect her by fucking around. Or to be caught off-guard by some hidden inner power she possessed. He surged a volcano's worth of power through his bolted-in shoulder mount, down the precision-channeled blood conduits in his wrenches.
But he was too slow by half. Junella's hand sprung up from the table like a jack-in-the box. Like pure magic, the revolver vanished from the table and appeared in it.
He had only time to see a flash.
Her trigger finger sent a bullet through the soft meat of his neck and out through his brains. The wall behind him became a crimson masterpiece. His skull's metal cap went flying like a flipped coin.
Before gravity could even stop gawking long enough to start pulling the mutt's body towards the floor, Junella snatched the paper sack of imaginite into her hand. She stood and turned without looking back, and let the assembled mob know it was time to get out of her way.
The onlookers erupted. Some were hooting and clapping, others called her a cheating bitch. Junella did not give even the smallest fuck in the world. She had a hefty little handful of cash and, while that wasn't a solution to her current pickle, money almost never made a bad mood worse.
She walked away slow, but with her ears up. Alert in case some rummy got the idea they could lighten her load.
But as she was halfway back to the bar, she heard an unexpected sound.
The canine was laughing his absolute ass off.
Surprised, she spun back. For starters, he'd resurrected goddamn quick. That took an impressive will, and a substantial level of familiarity with dying. But also, the laughter wasn't mocking or angry. When he finally pulled himself up off the floor with tears in his eyes and an intact head, the mutt's smile was huge and pure.
"Holy hot SHIT, that caught me off guard! Wait! Wait a second! Come on back for a handshake at least!"
Her back arched. This was not normally how people reacted when she murdered them. She stayed fixed to the spot, unsure of an ambush.
The mutt tried to take a step on shaky legs, bracing himself against the table. He ended up knocking it over with a loud clatter, not even noticing. He flailed his woozy body past the crowd (who didn't know how the hell to react anymore) and bumbled over to the skunk, grinning boyishly. "That was kinda great."
"I shot you in the fucking face," she sang flatly.
"Yeah!" he replied, as if this was a prank on par with a joy-buzzer or a tee-peeing. "I didn't expect that! Some damn fine Gordian Knot thinking, I gotta say."
She sized him up. He seemed genuine. "Well... thanks." His wrench-hand was out, so she hesitantly gave it a shake.
His muzzle still smiled, but then a hard glint came to his eyes. "Of course... I'm gonna need that bag back."
He did not clamp his wrench down on her hand, although he somehow conveyed with mere touch that he could. And if he did, he'd crimp it as flat as a potato chip.
Junella turned to iron and drilled her eyes into his. "I won."
"You cheated and you know it," he replied softly. Still the same jaunty tone, but now with a flinty, warning edge. "Without that money, I don't eat tonight."
Junella readied her needles to reply, considering whether to challenge him, insult him, or maybe just rake his face and run. But then she paused.
Something about his eyes...
They were bloodshot and tired. And they looked like this was the most excitement they'd seen in weeks. Maybe months. They were starved for it. Like he wanted to fight her for the money even more than he wanted the money itself. Like he didn't really care whether he lost, just so long as something made his night memorable.
It wasn't like looking into a mirror. But she could understand that look. Flashes of a shared feeling.
And then Junella suddenly realized that this could be her lucky day.
Making an instant decision, she shoved the paper sack into his chest. Not hard enough to spill it, but enough to catch him off guard and make him fumble to hold on.
He stared at it, genuinely surprised it'd been that easy.
She cocked her hip and rested her palm on it. "You got a name?" she demanded.
"Uh." He looked up. "Zinc."
She couldn't immediately find the word 'zinc' on her vocabulary and had to steal from 'kitchen sink'. "Zinc what?"
He shrugged. "That's it. No last. No middle."
"You want a job?"
That made him stand up straight and cock his head at her like she'd lost her mind.
"Do I hear a no?"
He fumbled for words. "No! I mean, yeah! I mean... Shit! I'm not the kinda guy who matches up well with a steady paycheck. But if you can help make sure I'm fed and not sleepin' on asphalt, you gotcherself a deal."
She couldn't help but smirk that he hadn't even asked about the particulars. "The name is Junella Brox. You're gonna wanna remember that for the rest of your life. And I've got a problem you might be a solution to. So let's get the fuck outta here and talk someplace where the air ain't half-poison."
No argument. Zinc simply gestured to the door: 'après vous'. Her new employee's arms turned out to be quite useful for shoveling sloshed carousers out of the way.
Once they were outside, Junella sucked in a welcome lungful of night air. It felt like rinsing her guts. She hurried down the steps to the sidewalk, kicking a green bottle out of her way. A prone boozer lunged for it, in case it had a few drops left inside. "If I ever let myself get that mushy, bury me," she instructed her future self under her breath.
Zinc kept up with her. Following behind like a puppy, appropriately enough.
She sniffed. Twice to be sure. Wrinkling her nose, she whipped around. "I thought I was done smellin' that place! But you brought it out with you! If we're gonna work together, your ass is takin' a bath first thing!"
He hunched his shoulders, embarrassed. "Hey, I take a shower whenever it rains."
She was about to crack wise at that, then hesitated. She noticed for the first time that his clothes looked like he hadn't taken them off in a very long time. "...You homeless?"
Zinc didn't reply for a moment. "I got a car," he said, as if that answered the question.
"Huh," was all she could think of to say.
They walked on without words for a block. Above them, the streetlights made their shadows stretch like rubber bands in all directions. The apartment buildings murmured from goings-on inside.
"So, ah... Where we goin'?"
Junella stopped short. She winced, realizing she probably should have mentioned that earlier. She wasn't used to sharing plans with other people. "The Tatterdemalion," she tossed back to him. "Nothing ritzy, but it's better than Tavern. And they got soap there."
"And food!" he was more concerned with. "I been there a few times. Nice joint."
"Good. I won't have to steer you. And I know it's late, but I got an understanding with the management."
"You know the Xenoikos?" He asked, impressed. They were fairly famous in Coryza.
"Sure, sure. I walked in and stopped a robbery once. Drove my steel right through the guy's head. Mia said, 'I could have handled that.' And I said, 'Yeah, but I felt like killin' somebody.' She laughed and bought me a beer."
The mutt cracked up. "That's great, that's great! So. We gonna fuck?"
Junella spun like an arrow and backhanded him so loud she woke up half the winos on the block. "ExCUSE me!?"
Zinc fully expected the slap and showed no reaction to it, not even when his nose bled. "No offense to yer dignity, lady. I'm just askin' for clarification's sake. Just in case this "job" you mentioned was me bein' your gigolo for the night. Which, hey, no complaints if it is."
She felt her temples throb. She had to admit, given the circumstances, it wasn't an unreasonable assumption. Still, she kept a snarl in her voice."Are you fuckin' deadbrained stupid? LOOK!!" She gestured to her crotch like taxiing in a plane. "Nuttin' but smooth down there, jackass!"
He merely regarded her doll-like body with unfazed curiosity. "Darn."
She turned away and stomped off. She let him keep following, but didn't look back. (And also didn't tell him that she could have had something down there if she felt like it, but NOT fucking tonight, thankyouverygoddamnedmuch.)
Neither said anything for several more blocks.
Then Zinc piped up, as if there had been no break in the conversation, "So didja want me to kill somebody then?"
Junella didn't turn around, but she did stop and blink hard. "...Yes, actually. Potentially. Probably." She was cagey, not sure what his reaction would be to this.
It really shouldn't have surprised her that he took it in stride like everything else. "Oh. Yeah, that's usually the other thing."
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
In the time it took for them to walk to their destination, Coryza raised its walls for the night. Rumbling, crashing clangs rang out across the city like the world's largest churchbells, as eight mammoth panels slotted into place, sealing the citizens in as tight and snug as a dancer in a music box. The nightmares in the desert beyond would find no entrance tonight, no fresh blood to slake their endless thirst. All up and down the tidy, colorful streets, windows opened and lights popped on. Coryza at night was as safe as home.
And the Tatterdemalion itself was cozy as always. Brown brick walls and climbing ivy. Junella was still in a shitty mood, but she had to admit it was nice being able to bed down for the night in a place where you could let your guard down.
They entered. Zinc wiped his bare feet on the doormat and swiveled his head at the whorled wood paneling. He inhaled deeply, a bit stunned. He'd lied about staying here. He'd only passed through long enough to grab a drink. This was well beyond his usual standards.
Lady Mia Xenoiko was at the front desk, even at such a late hour. A living 2D tattoo, she was half housecat, half tiger, and entirely a proper hostess. "Welcome back again, dear Miss Brox. You've been gone all day. Have your efforts borne fruit?"
Junella tilted her hand in a 'kinda sorta' gesture. "They netted me a walking wrung-out fur coat," she sang, hooking her thumb at Zinc. "Gonna need accommodations for this one."
Mia extrapolated that Miss Brox did not intend anything romantic towards her new associate. She also knew of the skunk's financial state, and that a second suite would be an unfeasible suggestion. "I can add a batbed to your current room for a minor handling fee."
A nod. That was fine. Mia never overcharged. "Any mail?" Junella asked, biting her lip and hoping for a 'no'.
Xenoiko checked. "Nothing currently. No updates from Lady Crynight at least."
Junella tried to hide her relief.
The innkeeper clasped her paws. "But you'll have progress to tell her about soon, I'm certain of it. You are exactly the right key to unlock our current entanglement."
A wince. There was a reason Junella didn't usually allow others to have faith in her. Disappointing them felt like swallowing dirt. "We'll see."
Zinc had built up enough courage to approach the large, beautiful, demure, imposing, paradoxical innkeeper. "Hiya."
Her gentle smile did not waver in the slightest as she took in his jumbled appearance. She put out her tiger paw for a shake. "Any companion of Junella Brox is embraced here."
He shook, impressed by her boldness and his new boss' reputation.
"You know about batbeds?" Junella asked him.
"Sure, sure. On the ceiling, right?"
She nodded. At least he wasn't a rube too on top of being a street stray. "I have had a long, ugly day. I am going straight up to bed. Which means you are too. And you're gonna be quiet all night. Understand?" Her iron voice let him know this was not open to negotiation.
He put up his hands in surrender. "No arguments on this end. A cushy mattress? Real blankets and pillows? You couldn't hold me back!"
She poked him in the nose. "Bath first," she growled.
"Ow. Careful with them needles. You could hurt a guy."
"I could," she agreed. She headed for the main staircase and swished her paw through the air, commanding him to follow.
Appreciating every inch of the velvety carpet beneath his tired footpads, Zinc followed.
Lady Xenoiko watched the vinyl skunk and augmented dog wind their way up the stairs and out of sight. She was possessed of many years' experience and insight. She was no detective, but she could follow A to B to C.
If the unfailingly-independent Junella Brox had actually, unbelievably, sought out assistance, then the task she had been recommended for was more dire than appearances already suggested.
All of Coryza might be in danger.
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
The first clang didn't wake Zinc up. But the second one did.
The way batbeds work is, an otherwise-normal bed is placed on the ceiling. The furson desiring to sleep in it jumps up, it pulls them in like a magnet, their gravity is reversed for the night, and they settle in as comfortably and normally as if they were rightside-down. Zinc was currently under the covers (and freshly washed for the first time in recent memory). He and Junella had slept the whole night through. Zinc had even woken up a few times, then snuggled back into the sheets, grinning and relishing the fact that he could stay in here as long as he liked. However, when Coryza's mighty walls were opened in the morning, they crashed to the desert sand with a calamitous clatter. Many Coryzans used this as an alarm clock. Zinc remained in REM sleep and merely rolled over. However, as sometimes happens when a soul's subconscious intersects with Phobiopolis' batshit physics, his connection to his limbs, eyeballs, ears, and skullcap disconnected from his body. All of these things fell to the floor. Where Junella was sleeping.
Zinc heard the sound of a bed being crushed. He reached for his eyes on the bedside table and couldn't find them.
Below, Junella was lying extremely dead under a pair of giant wrenches.
Zinc continued tapping back and forth on the dresser with his toes, searching for his missing sensory apparatus. "Now where the hell... I could've sworn..." He could still hear through his ears, though wherever his eyeballs were, it was too dark to see.
"YOUR DUMBASS GIANT SILVERWARE KILLED ME, MOTHERFUCKER!!!"
Zinc certainly heard that. As did fourteen other guests. He tumbled out from between the covers, somersaulted in midair, and landed on his tush on the carpet. Yelping, he vaulted upright with surprising grace for an armless blind guy.
Pissed-off footsteps stomped towards him. "I wake up a second ago and have about two eyeblinks to appreciate the glorious morning, before a pair of goddamned BOAT ANCHORS turn my INSIDES into my OUTSIDES!!!" She jabbed him in the sternum with a finger-needle. "You got anything to SAY about that, ya smelly bum!?"
"Hey now! I washed last night, just like you said!"
Junella shot him in the foot.
The bullet split his paw down the middle and ricocheted into the bathroom. Zinc yowled and hopped up and down several times. Amazingly, he still kept his balance. Junella noted that with interest, and also snarled at realizing the hole in the carpet would come out of her security deposit.
Zinc hissed at the pain. "JEEZISS, Juney!! Ease up! I need both of these for jitterbuggin'!"
She narrowed her eyes. "You call me that little nickname one more time and I will dropkick you into Dysphoria."
She couldn't possibly mean that, he assumed. "While you're still holdin' that sixgun, d'ya mind having the decency enough to coup de grace me!? I can't keep up this pogo stick shit much longer!"
Shrugging, she obliged. A second bullet went straight through his heart.
He had exactly enough time to say "Thanks," before he collapsed.
A moment later he was back on his feet. And by sheer luck, his resurrected self was fully clothed and had all of his bits reattached. He blinked his eyes and clanked his wrenches. "Huh. Sweet! Thanks, Juney. Saves me some time."
She was about to unleash hell on him for ignoring her warning about the nickname, but stopped herself. 'He's a simpleminded greaser lunkhead. Don't expect too much from him.' She got his attention by flicking the revolver against the tip of his nose. "I still oughtta plug you in the guts and ditch you in the desert."
Zinc patted his pocket, confirming the bag of imaginite nuggets was inside. "How 'bout I buy you breakfast and we call it even?"
She readied her needles to respond, then considered the offer. "Allright. So long as it's in liquid form, we got a deal."
"Aces." He headed for the door. "Let's get revvin'. My engine needs grease."
Junella had to take a moment to stare at the unflappable canine. "Y'know... I just shot you a coupla seconds ago."
He turned back. "Yeah?"
She blinked hard. "You really don't fear death much, do you?"
A shrug. "Not anymore. I mean, I ain't a big fan of pain. But death's just a revolving door here. So why raise a ruckus?" He turned back to the door and stepped into the hallway. "Meetcha downstairs. Don't take too long getting dressed!"
Junella fumed and steamed and directed evil thoughts towards the empty doorframe for a few moments. Then she snatched her white scarf off the endtable and threw it around her neck.
She gave herself a quick check in the bathroom mirror before leaving. To her absolute disgust, she realized she was smiling a little.
"You better cut that right the fuck out immediately," she warned herself.
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
Junella was in no mood for crowds or noise. She ordered black coffee and a screwdriver from the many-limbed greenery behind the hotel bar. Then she carried it out to the lobby, to sit in relative quiet on one of the leather sofas opposite the fireplace. The glow reflected off her vinyl like a jack-o-lantern.
Moments later, Zinc showed up, adroitly carrying a stein of Kahlúa (with a paper umbrella in it) and a heaping platter of bacon and scrambled eggs. Junella's posture and expression reminded him of an iron beartrap, so he took his seat on the opposite couch and ate quietly.
Though she didn't say it, she appreciated that.
Coryza existed in perpetual night, like much of the surrounding lands. So while there was never any actual sunlight, the moon in the daytime was bright enough to read by. The citizenry did their best to aid it. The stores and homes were encrusted with much outdoor lighting. Like perpetual Christmastime.
Junella finished one drink, then the other. The coffee was a warm, purring cat in her belly.
She looked up to see Zinc had bulldozed his meal and was now busy fidgeting. Waiting for her to give him direction.
She also noticed that his jacket and denim were dirty again. Clothes were normally self-cleaning in Phobiopolis. For that to falter, a furson would have to get used to squalor for quite a long time. Until it became an accepted part of their self-image.
"Where you from, mutt?" she asked.
"Oh, everywhere!" he replied. Every part of him perked up at getting to tell a story. "Started in the Blackdamp like most people, I guess. Wandered around till I stumbled on Hypoxia. Wasn't my style. Kept moving. I screwed around in Cryptolysis for a bit. Got kicked out for- What else? -bar fights. I was in Dengue for a while. Met a Doc there who offered me free room and eats if he could tinker with my head. That's where I got these." He twanged the wires holding his eyes in place. "Part of an experiment. Y'know how stuff tends to move around when no one's lookin' at it? Especially in the wilderness? He thought he could nail it in place by making someone who didn't haveta blink. I was... less effective than he'd hoped. But the chicks dig it, so I kept it."
Junella nodded. The story of why she was vinyl instead of fur wasn't dissimilar. She guessed such things happened to a lot of souls here. Transformations were common. If it wasn't a burden to get it reversed, then que sera sera. And for some people, they stumbled onto something that felt more right than their previous body. Junella herself had come to feel that way.
Zinc reclined against the armrest with his feet propped up on the opposite side. "I've touched paw to just about every major population center this world's got," he continued. "Rhinolith, Lalochezia, Anisocoria. I lived in Ectopia Cordis for a stretch." He glanced over, wondering if she'd be impressed.
She was, but hid it behind her poker face. Phobiopolis' biggest city, and she'd never actually visited. "You manage to get thrown out of there for bar fights too?"
He guffawed. "Nah! That's reg'lar Sunday afternoon entertainment there. My kinda joint. You can get into a knife fight on any given streetcorner just by askin' politely for one. But it's not the best town to be in if you're flat broke, dig? You end up sliding down the levels, lower and lower, till all you're doing is sittin' there. Goin' around in circles all day. Watching other folks have fun."
She noticed then, how red his eyes were. How his face sagged even when he was smiling.
He sat back up. "So! I got fed up and walked back here. Took me about a month? Hard to tell out in the sticks. Killed a helluva lotta clowns and constructs. Free meat for a cookout, at least. And now here I am. Was hoping to scout some action. And alakazam: a delicate rose with an itchy trigger finger offers me a job."
Junella snickered.
Zinc leaned his muzzle across one of his wrenches. "You never exactly told me what that job is though."
She had been lulled by the easygoing cadence of his voice. Actually enjoying it. Then he had to ruin the moment by reminding her of reality. Shit. She steeled herself and tried to figure out where to start.
"Pickin' lettuce? Assembly line? If it's fixing up cars, hey hey! I'm your man!"
"No," she sang grimly, then sat up straight. "Listen. Why don't I just... show you? Let you know right up front what you're getting your happy-go-lucky ass into?"
He arched an eyebrow. Her tone made it clear: playing-around time was over. "This is heavy duty, ain't it?"
She simply nodded. "You talked about fights. How good are you?"
He tried to appear modest as he flexed his wrenches like a bicep curl. "I mean, did you see me in action last night?"
"Cut the cute. Arm wrestling's not the same as a real-life, knock-out, down-in-the-mud, bleeding-all-over fight."
The grin left his muzzle. He leaned forward, and that flinty edge came into his expression again. "Yeah. I been in those."
"You win?"
"Killed more than a few sorry pricks who tried to kill me first. That good enough for you?"
"You mentioned that last night. I told you to keep it on pause till the morning. It's morning now. I need to make sure you weren't kidding. On this job, we are probably going to have to start some fights. And commit a handful of heinous, cold-blooded murders."
He nodded, then spoke very softly, slowly, and with clarity. "I ain't no angel. But I'm no snake either. At worst I done a few repossession 'n collection jobs. Y'know; kill a guy a few times till he pays his bill. But that's it. Never anyone who didn't earn it somehow." He glanced up, making sure she understood that his last sentence was the one most important to him. "It's occurring to me all of a sudden that I don't really know anything about you. Or what you want. So, I think you had better clarify, to my complete satisfaction, in the next ten seconds, exactly what you need me for." He glanced across the lobby. "Or else there's a door right over there I can walk out of and vanish."
She nodded back. She was sure now that he'd fill the slot. Willing to cross the grey line, but not sink all the way into the black. "I can forgive you having doubts. I know I don't exactly give off a vibe of sunshine and benevolence. But it's no heist, no hit. Strictly authorized. Take a peep at this." She reached for her side pocket and retrieved a large card. Filigreed and notarized. "Can you read, mutt?"
The color drained out of Zinc's face like someone had pulled a bathtub plug. "Yeh. Not a lot, but..." He exhaled a low whistle. It didn't take a college education to see that it was a Certificate Of Access, signed by Deputy Mayor Crynight herself.
Junella smiled smugly.
Zinc shook his head in disbelief. He'd run contraband, done some bodyguarding, joined various Robin Hood scams, etcetera. Legit work was uncommon. And he'd never been under official jurisdiction before. "So... You a cop?"
Her smile turned into a chuckle. "Not even slightly." She stood up and tucked the letter away, replacing it with her cutlass just long enough for him to get an eyeful of it. "I'm the nightmare you hire when you got a boogeyman too big for the sandman corps. And now you're my gofer. Tough luck, tin man. Get up off your ass 'n lets go look at how deep the hole is you just jumped yourself into."
He popped off the sofa and saluted. "Yes sir."
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
The Tatterdemalion, being primarily a haven for travelers, was located within easy walking distance of the city perimeter. The pair arrived in five minutes, plus a quick stop for Zinc to grab a hotdog to settle his nerves.
Coryza rests upon an enormous circular foundation of reinforced concrete. Its streets are laid out like the lines on a dartboard. Here at the edge, one could find the expected tourist shops, thoughtstaurants, bars, and travel guides. But also guard outposts. At night they retracted to fit beneath the lid of the city's mighty metal ramparts. In the daytime they telescoped many yards higher, to grant a better view of the surrounding wastes. From the towers, one could see clear to Dengue. Or spot the fluttering vertical glow of Ectopia Cordis.
The spotlights were piercing. Junella shielded her eyes as she scanned across the desert. Parched soil and withered plants for miles. The expected beasts were roaming. Green dots meant cactusyotes. Brown meant pigthings. Slim, dark shadows were cattacudas. Nothing out of the ordinary.
She saw one of the closer brown spots suddenly grow an arrow out of its forehead and drop to the dust. A bored guard polishing his aim.
"Awright sarge, what's the sitrep?" Zinc asked.
"Patience," she replied simply. She cast her gaze high, trying to spot a familiar face amongst the identical gold-and-burgundy uniforms leaning out from the tower windows. Not having any success, she decided to inquire politely. She dumbfounded her revolver and pinged a shot clean off the ceiling of the closest guard post.
Amid shouting, a flurry of crossbows and rifles emerged and pointed down at her.
"Cripes!" Zinc shouted, cringing and shielding his head.
Junella waved up at the guards, smiling blithely.
A helmeted head leaned down to shout, "Junella Brox! You have made this officer of the realm spill his morning coffee! That is a capital offense!"
"Shucks," she replied.
Another cried, "We should arrest you purely for being an asshole!"
"I'd be in jail every day of my life," she tossed back.
This got a round of chuckles.
"Any of you gilded pigs seen Eagsyne?"
A murmur amongst them. "He's at Post Six, if I remember right. We'll send him down. Just don't make any more holes in our tower next time you want our attention! I have to fetch a dustpan for the splinters!"
She chuckled. "You guys are princes! Thanks a million!"
Zinc gawked at her. He leaned close and whispered, "You're awful chummy with the fuzz for a freelancer."
A shrug. "You go out drinkin' with these boys in their off duty hours? Kiss a few cheeks? It avoids a hell of a lot of nights spent in a cell."
He nodded. "Dunno if the cheek-kissing thing would work for me, but I see your angle. I just got the feeling you were kind of a lone wolf, y'know?"
She crossed her arms behind her back. "I can fake nice well enough when I need to."
A nod of understanding.
Moments later, a short grey owl hobbled into view. His uniform's leather was cracked and his armor was dented. He had been serving the citizens of Coryza for a very long time. Feathers hung down on either side of his beak, giving the impression of a mustache. "Yah? I hadda hop down all dem stairs there! Din't we already do dis a coupla days ago?"
Junella gave him a respectful bow. "Yes, sir. My apologies. But I'm going to need you to repeat yourself for my newly-appointed associate here. Fill him in on what you saw."
Eagsyne eyed Zinc up and down, assessing him. "Been tellin' it over and over t' everyone else. Why not once more, eh?"
"What, um-" Zinc started.
"Monsters," the old owl said gravely.
Zinc tilted his head. He gestured behind him towards the wasteland of roaming nightmare constructs. "No offense, pops, but we kinda got a surplus of those."
Eagsyne gave the young smartass a sneer. "I wouldn't be wasting my breath telling you 'bout 'em if they was ordinaries."
"We're dealing with something new," Junella intoned.
"Oh yah," Eagsyne agreed. "Big fuckers. Tall!" He measured with his full wingspan. "'Bout four times higher'n any one of us stand. Three of 'em. Covered in warts 'n ugly pimples and all sortsa horrible shit. Came outta the west in a pack. They was banging on the walls all night long, with me lookin' down at 'em and almost pissin' in m'trousers if I'm bein' honest. Nothin' normal 'bout dem fellers, no. Laughing like hyenas, shoutin' insults, and looking right back at me with too many yellow eyes."
Zinc was taken aback. "Wait, they were talking? Constructs don't talk."
"Most don't," Junella corrected. "A handful do. But what they emphatically don't do is coordinate. If any of them were smart enough, they woulda pooled their power years ago. Woulda concentrated on one spot in the wall 'n cracked it wide open. Instead they just claw and howl all night and get nowhere, like the dumb animals they are."
Eagsyne smirked darkly. "I don't t'ink your pal here believes me. Maybe I oughtta show him, eh?"
"I was going to ask, actually. Thank you."
He nodded. "Yah." Then he spun and cupped his beak to holler up at the nearest tower, "LISTEN UP, YOU DEADBEAT DUMBSHITS! GET PANEL SEVEN TO HEAVEN STRAIGHTAWAY!"
Loud groans came from above.
"NONE OF THAT BACKTALK, YOU PENCILPRICKED SLUGFUCKERS! GET IT DONE!!" He considered for a moment. Raising the walls was a genuine pain in the ass. "FINE! SINCE YOU'RE ALL SO DAINTY, HALFWAY'LL DO!"
Murmurs of appreciation.
Eagsyne flicked a wing to the north. "Circle round with me, pup. I'll show ya something you never thought you'd never want to see."
Zinc felt a lump in his throat. The old owl limped off, Junella followed, and Zinc padded behind.
It was only three panels away. The enormous metal plates were splayed open around the city's border like flower petals, each one as big as a soccer field. Even in the desert, the metal was cold to the touch. Zinc's paws shivered.
They arrived at Panel Seven, where a team of two dozen guards were straining and grunting at their pulley stations. Zinc had never actually watched the walls being raised. It was somewhat miraculous that anything this size could move at all. And yet it was a daily event that most of the townspeople came down to participate in. The canine glanced down at his wrenches, idly wondering how much of a challenge it might be.
Eagsyne slapped him on the back. "Use dem eyes a' yours. The boys can't hold it up forever."
"Hwa?" Zinc wasn't sure what the owl was indicating, until he saw Junella's gaze fixed on the far edge of the iron wall. She looked almost in despair.
Then he saw it too. While the guards dug their heels into cobblestones to keep the sight in view, Zinc gave it his full attention.
The foot-thick wall was dented inwards like it had been hit with a nuke. Not a singular impact, but the accumulated damage of hundreds and hundreds of blows, from fists as big as pumpkins. And there were claw marks too. Jagged scrapes across metal that had survived unscathed against centuries of the worst Phobiopolis could dish out. He guessed that a similar sight would be found on the adjoining panel, since whoever had done this was obviously trying to force open the gap between and squeeze through.
Zinc felt his blood turn to ice. He staggered back a step. "...That ain't possible."
"Well it's not a fuckin' art exhibit!" Eagsyne said with a snort. "I watched 'em do it! And you betcher berries they'll be back! If not tonight then maybe the next. None of us knows for certain."
Zinc tugged on his cheekfur, still staring at the damage. The wall had withstood the assault, but would it a second time? What if the creatures brought friends? "Holy dogshit..."
Eagsyne nodded, seeing that the doubting canine was suitably convinced. He spun away to shout, "DROP 'ER, LADIES! SHOW AND TELL'S OVER!"
A grunt of relief rose from the guards as they let gravity snatch the titanic slab from their grip. It pounded the ground, sending up a dust cloud that nearly toppled Zinc. Eagsyne merely closed his eyes to it.
The owl tossed them a backwards glance. "If you two ain't got no more use for me, I'll be heading back up. Got work. Good luck handling this fresh slice a' hell."
"Much appreciated," Junella called out. But he was already shuffling away, herding the guards back to their positions.
The skunk turned around to assess her companion. Zinc was plainly shaken. But he hadn't run off. "So," she sang.
Zinc took a deep breath (then spat out the dust that wafted in). "That's... the job?"
She crossed her arms. "You got it."
"Shiiiiiit," he moaned. He swayed on his feet like he was seasick. "I thought this was just gonna be knockin' bad guys' heads in! Standard action! Now you got me roped into some 'It Conquered The World' crap!"
If he'd still had that easygoing grin slapped on his muzzle, she would have written him off as braindead. But the sight of those claw marks had sobered him up. Just like it had for her. Junella stepped towards him and delicately took hold of his chin in her needled fingers. "This was a test, mutt. Your last chance to back out. Now I ain't gonna call you a chicken if you do. But be straight with me. If you're in, you're in. Till however this ends."
Zinc felt the weight of those orange eyes drilling into his. For the first time, he noticed they were record labels. Li'l spindle-hole in the center 'n everything.
"I require an answer." Her whisper was a rattlesnake's hiss. "You can turn around now and we're still cool. But if you turn around later, when shit gets thick, you won't have to worry about monsters anymore for the rest of your life. Because I'll fill that role."
Junella watched him think. Torn. Half of her wished he'd tuck his tail between his legs and go skittering off. That prideful, I-don't-need-nobody-else part of her heart. But her smarter self hoped he'd stay.
Because this job scared her. It hurt to admit that. But for the first time in her afterlife, it felt like she'd taken on something too big for her to handle. Coryza's walls were the one solidly-dependable thing in this whole godforsaken anarchic hellhole. Whatever had left those dents possessed unspeakable power.
Yet when Xenoiko had vouched for her to Lady Crynight, she'd sung out in foolish confidence that she'd take care of it in a snap. 'You dumbass blabbermouth bitch,' she scolded herself.
Junella Brox liked to win. She liked to walk into every fight knowing her victory was predetermined. Now she was facing a spinning roulette wheel. Alone, the odds were against her.
She needed another pair of eyes to watch her back. And allegedly, this mutt never blinked.
"I'm in," Zinc finally said, with a shake of his head and a note of instant regret.
Junella dug her needles into his fur. "Make me believe you."
He jerked away from her, teeth bared and snarling. "I said I would!! Jeezum crow, lay off me! I ain't happy about this fuckin' decision, ya know?" He tugged at his cheeks again. "But... I mean... Cripes! Somethin' did that to the wall!! How!?"
Her expression let him know they shared exactly the same thoughts on the matter.
Zinc fidgeted back and forth, foot to foot. "Someone's gotta step up for this. I'm normally the kinda guy who just hangs around playin' mumblety-peg, waitin' for excitement to come poke me in the ass. Well, whatever the hell did THAT, I don't want it to come around poking me, y'know?"
Junella felt a cool breeze of relief brush past her. "Good. If that's a confirmed yes, then I'm gonna have to renegotiate the deal with Her Highness."
Zinc turned away. "Ehhhh. All I need's food and auto parts and I'm good."
A feigned chuckle. "More for me then."
He sighed. "I guess... maybe this is even a little bit exciting? I've watched enough monster movies. Now I get to be in one. That's cool, right? Leaping into the unknown, to pursue mysterious horrors 'n all that jazz?"
Junella produced a pen and a pad. She began writing a note to the Deputy Mayor. "Hate to burst your bubble, but our culprit ain't unknown. You ever heard tell of a mug called Sulilong?"
"Doesn't ring a bell."
"You're gonna get real familiar with him soon. That's what I been doin' these past few days. Asking around with the local lowlifes. See if anybody's got gossip I can use." She blushed slightly. "Plus, it's not the most thrilling thing in the world, but I've also been knee-deep in microfiche down at the public library."
He raised an eyebrow at her bashfulness. "What's wrong with that? All's I read is titty mags and repair manuals. If we're gonna team up, one of us gotsta have half a brain."
She was pleased by his acceptance, having worried he might be one of those 'Planning's for pussies! Barge in guns blazing!' type of guys. Still, the phrase 'team up' rankled her. He needed to know right now that this would not be a partnership of equals. "That's right, junkpile. And you better remember it. I'm the one in charge here. You will be beneath me. I will do the talking, I will do the thinking. When I say 'jump', I don't even want you to waste time saying 'how high?' I want your mangy tail up in the air, do you understand me?"
He backed up a step. "Crystal clear. I been in situations like this before. I ain't the troublemakin' type. You point; I pounce."
She sneered, inwardly hoping he'd balk at that. Resist a little. It would have been more satisfying to break him over her knee. "Glad to hear it," she grumbled. She finished up her letter to Lady Crynight, then gave it a shake to alert the Vermillion.
A piebald nonev mouse emerged from a tin of beans lying on the ground beside the closest eatery. It scurried up Junella's leg like a furry bullet, took the letter in its paws, and streaked out of sight just as quickly.
"Now we wait for a response," Junella said. "Hope this doesn't piss her off. She can be kind of fussy." She turned around and Zinc was gone.
For a heartbeat, she was one hundred percent certain he'd broken his word and run off like a fucking coward. She felt her blood turn to steam and her sword appear in her palm. But a quick sweep of the area showed he hadn't defected. He was just standing a few feet away, bent down and gawking at how Panel Seven bulged inward slightly.
She exhaled. Forced herself to calm down. 'You're jumpy. You're off-kilter and you know it.'
Her best triumphs came when she reached a state of perfect confidence. When she believed in her infallibility so cleanly and purely that reality itself leapt the hell out of her way. But that was a high-wire act. She knew that whenever her certainty wavered, one failure would lead to the next, and the next, and the next. Her life was a gamble. She was keenly aware.
Zinc looked up at a skunk's fingers snapping in front of his face. "Yikes! Sorry! Just trying to get my head around it, y'know? Hard to believe what my eyes're telling me."
"I understand."
The canine scratched at the seam between his skin and skullcap. "I can't help but wondering though..." He hesitated, not sure if it was a stupid question. "If they wanted in so bad, why didn't they just show up when the walls were open?"
Junella was about to roll her eyes and lecture him with the obvious answer. Except, when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. She turned around and looked across the desert. Acres of empty space. No invading marauders. "You might've stumbled onto a mighty good question, mutt," she mumbled, fingers barely drifting over the words. "Why didn't they?"
He shrugged. "Maybe they're numbskulls? Two packs short of a carton? Or maybe they were tryna send a message rather than get in? Heh. Maybe they're vampires who can't come out in the daytime?"
"Wait, go back to that second one-"
A commanding, nasal voice suddenly pierced their attention. "Miss Brox? Hello? You requested a meeting?"
Junella whirled around, startled. She lowered her sword when she saw that the voice had come from a wheeled television. A pair of glinting eyeglasses loomed at her from behind a veil of black-and-white static. The set was on a metal stalk, bolted to a 3'x3' platform supported by four plump all-terrain tires.
Zinc leaned in and sniffed it. He'd seen plenty of TVs, but never one that was ambulatory.
"Is this your guy?" the pair of glasses asked.
Junella's needles skipped a few grooves. "Y-yes! My assistant. That I wrote you about. Here he is!" She grinned and gestured to Zinc like a game show hostess displaying the top prize.
"Hmmmmm." The face on the screen seemed unimpressed. "I'm going to have to see him in the fur before I make any decision."
Zinc huffed and hiked up his jeans. "I'd like to know why a talkin' box is grading me like I'm still in high school."
Junella lunged and grabbed the canine's shoulders to stop herself from grabbing his throat. "That's the deputy mayor!!" she hissed.
'Oh,' Zinc replied soundlessly. "Well in that case, I've always wanted to meet a politician."
"You will. The videomnibus will transport you directly to my office. Hop on, both of you."
Chagrined, Zinc stepped aboard the wheeled platform.
"I hope I live up to your fondest expectations," the glasses deadpanned. Then the image winked out, the tires spun, and the whole thing took off so fast that Junella had to sprint to catch up.
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
Downtown Coryza is a garden of colors. Its citizens hold in their hearts a long-standing tradition of passionate aesthetics. A defiant stand against the savage wasteland beyond the walls. The stores and homes pop like a patchwork quilt. Streetlamps, traffic lights, fire hydrants, and even sewer covers are ornately sculpted with proud craftsmanship. Personalized vehicles fill the roads, in all manner of wheeled and hovering configurations. The old met the new and shook hands. A cohesive whole emerging from a sea of uniqueness.
The videomnibus zipped to-and-fro through traffic, dodging cars with ease. It was stomach-churningly nimble. Junella had her tail wrapped around the central pole to keep herself steady.
She simmered. A happy place could remind a furson of how much happiness they lacked.
Or a cheerful mutt who rubbernecked at everything like a gobsmacked tourist. Who let his tongue hang out and whip in the wind like a nonev leaning out a car window.
"Man alive! Feels like I ain't never really SEEN this place! Ain't it great, Juney!?"
"Cram it up yer tailpipe," she groused.
They zigged and zagged for several minutes, passing bistros, theaters, boutiques, bookshops, and museums. There was a statue or a mural on every block. Zinc was delighted with the tour. He soon deduced that they were headed for the center of town. The bullseye. It made sense that's where city hall would be.
That was precisely their destination. A tree-filled park took the place of a moat, with citizens strolling and children flying kites among the cherry blossom petals. At the focus was a stately white edifice. The city's beating heart. Many official buildings featured a rotunda, Coryza's was nothing but. A pyramid-esque tiered dome of perfect radial symmetry. Zinc thought it looked like a great big wedding cake.
Their little platform darted straight across the lawn, scattering some volleyballers. Junella's eyes went wide when it seemed like they were headed on a collision course with the blank alabaster wall, but a hidden seam split open. The gap was so narrow, she and Zinc had to flatten themselves sideways to not lose any extremities. Still at top speed, the videomnibus threaded the needle with robotic precision. Junella felt her toenails scrape the tunnel wall. Then the entrance resealed, leaving them traveling in pitch blackness.
"Hot damn!" Zinc hooted gleefully. "Just like a ride at Luxyland!"
A pity there wasn't room enough to smack him. "If either of us fall off, we're tire grease!!"
She felt him shrug. "Yeah. Just like at Luxyland."
Junella made a mental note to never visit Phobiopolis' lone amusement park.
Suddenly their blind journey was at an end. Another wall opened, letting in blinding light. The platform didn't stop so abruptly as to catapult them off, but they both certainly stumbled on departure. Junella rubbed her eyes to get rid of the sparkles. Zinc was wagging his tail and running a wrench-hand over the wall behind them, trying to figure out where the opening had gone.
When Junella got her sight back, she realized Lady Crynight wasn't exaggerating. The videomnibus had deposited them in the immediate antechamber outside her office. Portraits of illustrious citizens. Leafy potted plants. Waiting chairs. A secretary buzzing away at her typewriter. And a seven-foot slab of bovine menace glaring directly back at her.
"I don't know why Her Honor chose a gutter-sniffer like you for this assignment when I could have had it already marked 'case closed' by now," he rumbled.
Crynight's personal bodyguard was dressed in a razor sharp black suit and tie, with slots in the jacket's back to allow for his seraphic white wings. His horns were filed to dagger-sharpness. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. His gold nametag showed he was a man of directness: Sgt. Angelbull.
Junella smiled at him with barely-concealed venom. In a straight brawl she knew she could have turned this glorified bouncer's teeth into Scrabble tiles. But sometimes keeping a job meant keeping your gun in its holster, even when it itched. "Maybe she needed you here for the all-important job of opening and shutting the door," she sing-songed.
Angelbull smirked mirthlessly. Then glanced past her, saw Zinc, and snorted in disgust. "Usually we hire people to take the garbage out."
The canine's head swiveled around. Grinning, he walked right up and put his paw out for a shake. "Jesus, Uncle, you're a slab and a half! You ever do any wrestling?"
Angelbull's whole face pulled back like he was smelling fresh manure. He nearly tore the door off its hinges. "Get inside, you defects!! She's waiting on you!!"
Junella ducked beneath his tree branch of an arm and scuttled into the inner office.
Zinc pouted at having his handshake rejected, then followed behind. "At ease, Ferdinand."
The sergeant kicked out a hoof to make the mouthy mutt stumble, but Zinc nimbly hopped over it. Glaring pure lava from behind his sunglasses, Angelbull shut the door between them.
Zinc was about to slap Junella's shoulder and share a giggle at getting that uptight G-man so mad, when he got a load of Crynight's office and went dead silent.
The room they stood in was wholly-upholstered in fur. Shimmering silver, silky smooth, and (Zinc could tell right away by the warmth as he stood on it) alive. The office was larger than expected. Well-lit. Tastefully decorated, if a bit spartan. On the lefthand wall, a wide, narrow window allowed a panoramic view of the busy goings-on outside. On the opposite side, dozens of mouseholes allowed the Vermillion to come and go, dropping off mail. Assistants flitted to and fro like worker ants: sorting envelopes, emptying an older filing cabinet into a newer model, and keeping every inch of the fur carpet neatly brushed and vacuumed. In the center of the room, like a spider's web, an incredible configuration of television monitors and telephones produced a constant fuzzy background mumble. Visible through the cracks between them was a vast, austere wooden desk.
Phobiopolis' biggest open secret was that city hall in Coryza was a revolving door of figureheads. Smiling mannequins pecked at their handful of pet issues, while the real power beavered away behind the throne. If Coryza's citizens were its heart, Lady Crynight was its brain. She had been Deputy Mayor for an uncontested one hundred and fourteen terms. While few were fans of her acidic, withering demeanor, no one would dare dispute her effectiveness. As the old joke went, 'How many Coryzans does it take to change a lightbulb? None. Crynight already did it while you were bringing it up.'
Junella reached out to close Zinc's dangling jaw. "Yeah, yeah, we're in the seat of power. Get over it. Straighten up and look like you might be worth somethin'."
The canine forced his eyeballs to stop roaming around and land on his partner. "Aye aye." He brushed off his jacket and checked his fly. Junella walked across the noisy room and navigated around the wall of monitors. Zinc adjusted his posture as best he could and followed.
It was an effort to not gasp. He'd guessed already by the fluffy floor, but the Deputy Mayor was the room. A tangle of long, many-jointed arms grew out of the walls and ceiling, all snaking their way around one another to hold a phone, sign a document, change a channel, adjust a knob, direct an assistant, or squeeze a stress ball. The big desk was pushed up against the wall, where a head emerged from it, dead center. Past her huge round glasses, Zinc could tell by her ears and stubby muzzle that she was a chinchilla. (He'd thought the fur beneath his feet felt extra-fancy.) Some wunderkind tailor had actually manage to clothe her. An ocean of deep blue fabric framed her face and extended across all her dozens of arms. Each sleeve ended in a tasteful cufflink.
Upon the desk were mountainous piles of papers, plus even more telephones. Looking closer, Zinc could see that some of her paws had mouths on the palms, so she could pick up a receiver and answer it with the same hand. There was also a gold nameplate that read:
\t\tHER HONOR LADY TESSERACT MATHILDA CRYNIGHT
\t\t\t\t"Call me Tessie."
The Deputy Mayor finished six calls, signed eight papers, re-checked her afternoon schedule, then finally looked up to acknowledge Junella standing contritely before her.
"Good morning, ma'am," the skunk said quietly.
Behind those all-seeing lenses, the chinchilla's eyes shifted to Zinc. She assessed him in half a heartbeat. "He looks like you went bowling for winos. Tell me again why I'm supposed to pay you more?"
Zinc was too overwhelmed to feel insulted.
Junella stepped forward. She steeled herself. Feeling humiliated already, she spoke. "My apologies, ma'am. I was overconfident when I agreed to this. I wanted you to believe in me. But, as I have been assessing what we're up against, I've come to realize..." Her fingers were quaking on her grooves.
The chinchilla rolled her eyes. "That you're up shit creek with half a paddle," she finished. "This isn't a one-woman job. I could have told you that two days ago. You need an assistant? Fine. You should have budgeted for that when I hired you."
Junella blushed. Her inner dragon leapt into her throat to argue, but she shoved it back down. "You're right. I'm sorry."
"Skip it. Apologies waste time. Just don't tell me you've been wandering the streets having a crisis of confidence on the city's dime."
"No!" Junella insisted. "I've been researching-"
Zinc coughed into his wrench-hand and took a step closer. "I hate to interrupt but, I'm over here doin' nuttin' like a fencepost while you two yak about me. Seems like maybe I oughtta be part of the conversation, y'know?" He nodded to the deputy mayor. "Hiya, Tessie." He reached out for a shake.
Junella went rigid at his lack of protocol, but Crynight actually smiled. So few people read the nameplate. She placed a dainty paw in his and shook. "Hi back. Got a name?"
He smiled too. "Zinc, ma'am."
"Don't call me 'ma'am', Zinc. I'm not that old yet."
"No ma'am," he blurted, then immediately bit his tongue.
She forestalled a bumbling apology. "How much have you been briefed on the situation?"
"Uhhh... Partially?" he guessed. "Juney 'n me met last night. I've got bits and pieces."
"I showed him the wall," Junella interjected, not wanting to come off like she'd let some ignorant slob walk into danger unprepared.
Crynight nodded acknowledgment. "Smart. That's the most important thing; the rest is all details." Three of her hands shuffled papers around on the desk until they uncovered a handwritten letter. She held it up for Zinc to read. "A week ago, we received this. It's from a brass-nut scumbag named Sulilong." She gathered from the mutt's expression that he'd heard the name but nothing else. "I'd never heard of him either. But then I mostly concern myself with city business. Anyway, he demanded six tons of imaginite from the city treasury or else he'd come in and take the whole wad. I wrote back that he could go have intercourse with a mosquito."
Zinc grinned. He liked this gal already.
Crynight shrugged with ten open palms. "After that, four days of fat nothing. We thought he'd come to his senses. Turns out he was just waiting for our guard to be down. Because then, the wall."
Zinc nodded.
"He's sent nothing else, so we have to assume the original demand still stands. Needless to say, I'm not giving him a crumb. Your partner was hired to teach Mr. Sulilong a simple lesson: that Coryza is inviolate. Do you know what that word means, Mr. Zinc?"
He didn't begrudge the question. "It means that you want us to swoop down on this goon like the holy sword of vengeance and fuck his day up so bad his neck won't even turn in this city's direction for the rest of his natural life."
Tessie Crynight actually grinned. She looked back to Junella. "You picked a good one, Miss Brox."
Junella straightened up. "Thank you ...Tessie. So, like I said, I've kept busy."
Crynight nodded. "Report."
"I've been diggin' into this Sulilong cat. He's supposedly got a mechanical frame and a helluva bodyguard for it, but everything I've read says he's a bit player. A nomad. He's got a travelin' castle and he moves around the wastes and the badlands, stealin' anything he pleases. People tend to get vanished around him. That's why there's not much chatter. Most of what I learned comes from people who got rescued from the desert." She grimaced. "He's got a thing for burying people alive who refuse to join up with him."
Crynight steepled four hands and rested her chin on them. "So how did a roaming pirate captain put a dent in my precious wall, Miss Brox?"
"I don't know," Junella admitted, feeling that Tessie was not a woman to be bullshitted. "Nothing I read or heard about him shows any precedent for this. He's mostly like a vacuum cleaner: his outfit rolls by someone crossing the desert and he cleans 'em out."
The chinchilla grumbled in thought.
"But that implies things," Junella quickly continued. "I ain't no Poirot, but it seems to me like, what if I was some low-end crook who wanted more? And what if I stumbled onto some newfangled voodoo? What if I got too eager too fast and I thought I could break open the biggest piggybank in Phobiopolis?"
Tessie's eyebrows went up. "Plausible, Miss Brox. Got anything more?"
"When we toured the damage earlier it occurred to me: If they were strong enough to do what they did, why didn't they take the easy route? Just waltz right in once the walls were down in the morning? Assuming they ain't simply the dumbest bunch of muttonheads on the planet, maybe it was a choice. Maybe they wanted to show off what they could do first. Scare you into paying up. Or maybe-" Here she smiled sharkishly. "-all the power they showed is all the power they got. At night, there's just a few guards sittin' at slits in the walls. In the daytime, the towers are up and pointing all kindsa firepower at the desert. Maybe our villain's just smart enough to know his limitations."
Crynight began to slowly nod. "If we're lucky."
"Yes. If we're very lucky. All I know is, if it were me, and I had what it took to bust in and take what I wanted, I wouldn't bother firing a warning shot. But he did. Hesitation doesn't seem a part of his profile."
"And that's why I believe I picked a good one in you, Miss Brox," Tessie said. "This job needs a devil on the side of the angels. A thought like that wouldn't have occurred to me."
Junella flushed. "Why thank you."
"If he's a petty bully to tourists, he'd do the same to us if he could. So maybe he can't. Though there might still be a 'yet' attached on the end of that sentence."
"Absolutely possible."
"Allright." She steepled three sets of fingertips. "If your target's not all-powerful, sell me on why you need a partner to go flick him off our collective shoulder." Her tone was casual, but her expression was that of a game player.
Junella recoiled at the abruptness of the challenge. Her fingerneedles twitched, searching for a response in her vinyl. "Well... Well... There's still a lot of unknowns about him. And if he's got control of three ugly wall-pounding monsters, they might not be able to take on the whole police force, but they could probly stomp a skunk flat."
"True. And I will absolutely send in the whole police force if need be. But I'd rather not. If all our blueboys scampered off to take down this pitstain, there would be panic in the streets. Entropy bugs me, Miss Brox. My golden outcome here is one where I send off a specialist- or two-" Nod to Zinc. "-they handle the matter with discretion, and my citizens remain in blissful ignorance until they read about the happy ending in the next day's papers. The thought never enters their heads that they might be unsafe behind these walls. Because I've worked my fingers to toothpicks making sure the words 'safe' and 'Coryza' are synonymous." Her eyes were death beams behind her glasses. "Do you know what that word means, Miss Brox?"
It was an extreme effort to take all that without lashing back. But this wasn't a dressing-down. It was a demand for reassurance. A natural thing to want. Junella had asked for one from Zinc earlier. "It means I capital-C Can Not fuck this up."
"Correct," Tessie replied. "My first pick for a superhero said she had a hotel to run, but she knew a frequent guest who could handle the job. Mia's a dear friend of mine. I take her seriously. So I'm willing to trust her judgment on you. But right now it's been two days and all you have to show me is some admittedly-smart insight and a guy with half a hardware store nailed to his carcass."
Junella readied her fingers to reply, when Zinc bashfully eased between the skunk and chinchilla. "I hate to barge in, fair ladies, but maybe a demonstration is in order of what I bring to the table?"
Crynight adjusted her glasses. "I almost forgot you were there while I was squeezing sweat out of your partner, Zinc. What demonstration did you have in mind?" She cast a quick 'no hard feelings?' look at Junella.
The skunk exhaled in relief, and returned it. This was simply business. Lady Crynight had every right to demand the best.
Zinc looked around. "Ermm... weren't your assistants emptying a filing cabinet a moment ago?"
The chinchilla blinked. "Yes. Why?"
"Can I have it?"
She blinked again. "You've got me curious, Mr. Zinc. This had better amuse me." One of her hands poked a button on her desk. "Sarge, did you see a filing cabinet go by?"
The intercom squawked out Angelbull's voice. "Yes, your honor. Just a moment ago."
"Bring it back. I have a feeling I'm about to be treated to a circus act."
Grunts of confusion came from the bull, but he always obeyed the boss. Not a minute later, the office door was opening and in he came, carrying the bulky metal object under his arm. "What is this for?"
She gestured to Zinc. "He asked for it. Give it to him."
Sneering openly, Angelbull shoved the cabinet towards him. "Here."
Zinc accepted it into his wrenches with gentle grace. "Thanks a million. That will be all, Cadbury."
The bull's nose wrinkled, not knowing the reference and thus not knowing to what degree he should feel insulted. He grumbled a bit and left the room.
Tessie was hiding giggles. Besides his ironclad loyalty, part of what made Angelbull valuable was how much fun he was to tease. She looked back to Zinc. "Allright. Stage is yours. Wow me."
Junella looked over to her associate, as out of the loop as everyone else. "Do you need me to...?"
"Just stand back, sister, " he said with a frisky grin. "I used to do this in Rhinolith for beer money." He hefted the filing cabinet up at arms' length, appraising it. "Not with one of these, mind ya, but it's the right kind of metal. I usually do this outside though. So, maybe plug your ears."
Junella and Tessie did.
In a moment, they were both very grateful he'd warned them. All the assistants stopped tending her honor's fur to cringe at the sudden ungodly cacophony. Metal screamed and cried as it was twisted in ways it had never anticipated. Several people on hold thought that something hideous had happened to the phone lines. Junella's fingers hung limp, speechless. Crynight put two fingers to her lips and simply watched in mild concern.
Zinc grunted and strained and dripped sweat down his cheeks. He was a bit out of practice. Still, he was aware he had an audience that mattered a lot more than his usual busking crowd. He let the office fade away and concentrated wholly on the metal. Letting his wrenches caress it, assuage it, find out where it wanted to bend and ease it there. His ears were deaf to the unspeakable screeching. He had done a hell of a lot of things to metal over the years.
Finally, he smiled. Confident that he'd done a good job. With a little more time he could've ironed out some of the details, but in an audition, you don't want to waste the judge's time. He set his result down on Tessie's desk. "There ya go."
Deputy Mayor Crynight actually took her glasses off and craned her neck to get a better look at the impossible object. "Allright, Mister Zinc. I have seen many things in my tenure at this position, but office furniture origami is a new one."
"It's a bunny rabbit!" he said proudly. And sure enough it was. Big feet, big ears, little nose, everything. He'd compressed the four-foot cabinet into a dense sculpture about ten inches tall. "I would've done a crane, but the folds for that are best when starting flat; like sheet metal or diamond plate."
The chinchilla regarded the rabbit a moment longer. "Strength and finesse. Okey-dokey. You're hired."
Zinc's tail wagged. "Really? Just like that?"
"I make decisions quickly, Mister Zinc." She turned to Junella and sighed. "We agreed on two million grit. How much more do you want?"
The skunk's orange eyes lit up. Barely restraining her joyful greed she squeaked out, "D-double?"
A flat look of 'nice try'. "How about three mil?"
"Done!!" Junella burst. She would have been happy with even a handful more than their agreed-upon sum. And, although this still left the overhanging worry of what the hell she was going to do to be worth so much, she was too deliriously giddy in the moment to care.
"Naturally you understand that any expenses you incur can be billed directly to the city, but will be deducted from your final payout?"
"Crystal clear. With a little luck we won't need much more than my blade, my gun, and this guy's wrenches."
"Works for me." Lady Crynight returned to her usual monotone professionalism. "Now get out of my office, you two. If you could mop up this whole mess before we close the walls tonight, that'd be terrific."
Junella had no idea if that was possible. "I'll try my best."
"That's all I ask. Scoot."
Junella turned to maneuver around the cluster of televisions (all of which, she noticed, were tuned to traffic cameras or live news reports.)
Zinc gave the deputy mayor a wink and a wave. "Don't worry about a thing, Tessie. We'll have this Sulilong guy cryin' for his mommy. And you can keep the rabbit."
"Thanks, I'll treasure it." She pressed her intercom. "Sergeant Angelbull, please escort my two guests outside. And I mean the nice way; not frogmarched to the garbage chute."
Palpable disappointment in his reply. "Yes, Your Honor."
Zinc overheard. "You mean we don't get to ride the TV-mobile again? Aw rats."
Tessie looked down at the crumpled metal bunny. It clashed with her usual decor, but would likely make a good paperweight. Or something to throw at reporters.
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
Once the skunk and mutt were back outside (and the glowering Sergeant Angelbull had departed from their presence), Junella finally let her composure slip. A grin of insane glee spread to her face. "Hold me up, Zinc! I think I might pass out!!"
He actually did, rushing in and asking, "You feelin' sick?"
"No, dum-dum, I'm feelin' GREEN! Did you hear her!? An extra million!! Just think of what I can do with all that!!" Her brain blazed with whirling fantasies. "I can finally get my own place instead of dodgin' the rent at Mia's! Dine at ritzy restaurants! Drive a bigass car! Hire some poor sap to clip my toenails!!"
Zinc stepped away. "Well, I got a car. I'll letcha ride in it at least."
Her mania popped like a gum bubble. She blushed. "Oh, right. You mentioned that yesterday. Where is it?"
Zinc scanned around to get his bearings. "Should be... just a few blocks from here. You know Bungalow Doodaddy's?"
She did a double-take. "Sounds like the name of a clown college."
"Nah. Auto body shop. C'mon." He waved a wrench to the East and headed there.
Junella crossed the circular park alongside him. The grass felt nice under her feet. The lights were kept bright around city hall, so it was just about as close as one could get to a sunny afternoon. Junella passed picnickers and families playing with their kids. At the crosswalk, Zinc waited for the light to change. She saw yet another of those "Keep Coryza Beautiful And Safe" signs that were everywhere. She grimaced, but had to admit, somebody was doing something right to keep all these people from going stir crazy in a land where they never saw the sun.
As she followed the mutt across the street towards a coffee shop and a boxing gym, Junella looked around to appreciate just how big Coryza really was. Not just in area but populace. She'd been to some rough areas in Phobiopolis. This much cheerful contentment really shouldn't have been possible.
She thought again about the dents in the walls. She understood why Lady Crynight wanted to keep the public in the dark about them. 'This city is a soap bubble,' she thought. 'There's a hundred kinds of chaos and evil just waiting outside, and this oasis is only here because people believe in it. If they think they ain't safe, the bubble bursts.'
'There's so much more riding on this than just what happens to me,' she realized.
'Or to him,' her mind added, watching a matted brown tail wag back and forth in front of her. The mutt was jabbering cheerfully about something-or-other. Probably his car.
Suddenly another thought struck her. She winced. "Hey, I..."
Zinc's ears perked. He stopped and turned. The boss lady sounded serious. "Something wrong, chief?"
She indicated they should skootch off the sidewalk so other people could pass. "I just realized... I kinda stole your thunder back there. About what you said at the wall, why they didn't just come in during the day."
He waved it off. "Aw. I barely noticed. And you added to it anyway. No skin off my nose."
His response put a snarl on her face. "That's it?"
Zinc cocked his head, perplexed. "Yeah?"
"I mean..." Junella grit her teeth. "I stole your idea. In front of the most important furson in the city! You deserved credit for that. And you're not upset? Not even a little!?"
His ears drooped. "Well, yeah. Sorta. I just didn't think it was worth bringin' up."
She took a deep breath and shook her head. "I don't get you, mutt. Me? I woulda been raising blue hell over it."
"I guess we're just different then," he shrugged. "I'd rather let things slide. Take it easy if I can."
What she sang next was meant as a jab, but came out sounding surprisingly concerned. "Do you know the difference between easy and lazy?"
"I..."
"Maybe you oughtta learn to stand up for yourself a little more."
He looked befuddled. "I thought you told me you're runnin' the show so I should just keep my yap shut?"
The memory slapped her across the face. "I didn't mean for you to..." Junella felt her guts tangle up. She pushed past Zinc and gave him a nudge with her tail. "C'mon, junkpile. Show me these wheels of yours."
Zinc was left flat-footed by the skunk's abrupt shifts.
"Dames," he muttered to himself.
He turned to catch up with the slender stormcloud in a white scarf.
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
The body shop was only a couple of blocks further. Zinc's navigation had been right on the money. Junella expected a junkyard, but the place actually looked pretty respectable. Big glass windows at sidewalk-level showcased gleaming specimens on display podiums. Great big painted letters proclaimed:
\tBUNGALOW DOODADDY'S!
\tDRIVE FAST! LOOK SHARP!
Bells on the door jangled as Zinc walked in. "Heyyy, pops! How's business?"
Behind the desk was a woolly bobcat who seemed mostly beard. He hopped out of his seat and lit up with a smile. "Zinc, my man! How many weeks it's been? I thought you were gonna run off and let me keep her this time!"
"Never in a million. But thanks for babysittin'." The cat and dog met in the middle of the showroom for a friendly hug.
Junella was startled by how much the little guy reminded her of Eagsyne. Though Mr. Doodaddy seemed much less cantankerous. He and Zinc started to rapidly chitchat about cars. She hung back and let her eyes drift around.
'He keeps the shop clean,' she thought with approval. Polished parts hung up in tidy rows. White tile floors you could eat off of. And the show models looked like they'd driven straight off a magazine cover. Junella drifted towards the front window to admire a dark green military motorcycle. All the more regal and beautiful for how rigidly functional it had been designed. Next to it was some kind of custom job. A chromed-up two-seater with the front and back both narrowing to a deadly edge. It looked built for bisecting pedestrians. She could almost feel her cutlass getting jealous.
She reached out her paw and watched it touch its reflection. 'I think I'd like to have a car like this for myself someday,' she thought. With that three million payday coming up, it was possible. Expenses would eat away some, but there'd still be plenty left over to build a good life on. 'This could be my big break. For real this time. No more hunting penny jobs. People would come to me.'
Zinc and Bungalow were walking over, arm in arm. The mutt's voice intruded on Junella's thoughts. "...got mufflers like you wouldn't believe. Quiet as a church, trust me. So what do I owe ya for her checkup, doc?"
The bobcat chuckled. "Honestly, I oughtta be the one paying you! She brings in business like a magnet. Every day I get at least one looky-loo stoppin' by to ask, 'What is that thing!?'"
Zinc laughed, then gave a loving pat to the very car Junella was standing beside. "She's a head-turner allright."
Junella's eyes got wide as saucers. "THIS is YOURS!?" she exploded.
Zinc was so startled he jumped back a step. "You don't like her?"
"Jesus, the OPPOSITE!!" She looked back and forth between the classy, gleaming beast of a car, and the tattered tramp who held her keys.
Zinc could read her expression. "Heh. I may not take care of myself. But a man's car is a different story."
Bungalow leaned in. "Who's your ladyfriend, Zinc?"
The canine straightened up and made introductions. "Bungalow, this is Junella. Junella, Mr. Doodaddy."
She quickly shook his hand, still ogling the car.
"Enchanté, madam," the old bobcat purred. "And at the risk of being crude, might I say, you've got a body that'd look just as good in a display window."
Junella narrowed her eyes. Then smirked at his boldness and cocked her booty at him. "You're damn right."
He grinned to shame the Cheshire cat.
Zinc grinned too. "I see you've already met my pride and joy, the Killcanoe."
"Hell of a nickname. Fits though." It was low like a rat rod, but the engine wasn't exposed so Junella had no idea which half it was in. In fact, the front and rear seemed identical. The body was held up by four tall, thin wheels, almost like BMX tires. Exhaust pipes ran along the sides near the bottom. Two pairs of wide headlights jutted out at either end like surprised eyes.
Zinc draped his wrench over the side in a loving hug. "Ain't she a killer-diller?"
"From the look of those sharpened ends, I'd guess literally."
A gleefully bloodthirsty nod. "Yep. You know Dorster? Just down the street from the Tatterdemalion? Makes odd weapons. I brought in the car one day and said, 'Gimme some great big goddam axe heads on her'. After he got done callin' me crazy for a while, he got to work. They're really somethin', huh? Run your finger 'cross one if you dare."
Junella Brox never fled from a dare. She gently traced the car's leading edge. Without any pain at all, her finger split open. A stain like black tea leaked out. "Sweet mama..."
Zinc licked his chops. "Gets useful out in the wilderness. You see a construct comin'? Just drive on through, baby. Cuts through meat and bone like a breeze."
Junella sucked on her finger. "I like this car," she sang reverently. "Though, how'd a hobo like you afford 'er?" she teased.
"It's a lot cheaper when you build 'em yourself from the ground up."
Junella turned her head to check for any signs of bullshitting.
"I can confirm," Bungalow said. "Every time he'd get imaginite in his pocket he'd be back here buying another part from me."
"That, and scavenging every junkpile from here to the Blackdamp. There were nights I thanked God I was already dead and couldn't starve."
Junella boggled at his dedication. He seemed absolutely aimless about everything else.
Zinc indicated the two windshields. "Diamond glass. Shrugs off bullets like raindrops. Hard to get, but worth it. And notice there's no doors? Just two seats back to back. Take a guess what the chassis used to be."
Junella did not know much about cars. But the way he'd said that hinted it was something out of the ordinary. She'd seen this seat configuration before. Her mind clicked. Not seats, cockpits! "Did this usedta be an airplane!?"
"Awriiight! Got it in one!" He gave her a forceful high-five. "There's a graveyard in Scrofula: all kindsa half-buried military shit. Rented a tow truck and dug out a dubya-dubya-one biplane. Clipped its wings, cleaned it like a fish, added some wheels, and sha-ZOW! She flies again!"
Creative, she had to admit. "So which end's the front?"
"Either!!" he said gleefully. "Hop in any way you want and mash the gas. With the wheels set like they are, she's got a damn-near-three-sixty turning radius. And you never have to back her up! Unbeatable mobility! Some guys kit their rides out with a ton of heavy armament. Nah. Just weighs you down! Why outgun what you can outrun?"
Junella was poking around the seats and, indeed, both cockpits had identical dashboards and pedals. The steering wheels were more like sets of handlebars, which made sense for a furson with abnormal hands. And protruding from both sides were mirrored shift rods with 8-ball handles. Nice. "What's she run on?"
"Miniature Dyson sphere," he replied nonchalantly.
She straightened up. "A fucking SUN!?"
"Well... a little one."
"That's still a burning nuclear reactor! And it'd have to be in the center of the car, so that'd place it directly behind... We'd be sitting on it!"
An ingratiating chuckle. "Not the most conventional power source, I concede. Hell, even a Cyrus Tear's more stable. If it started raining money someday, I'd put down the cash to make her bloodpowered. But hey, at least we never gotta change the battery!"
"I wouldn't keep her in the window if I thought she was gonna blow," Bungalow defended.
Junella swept a paw over her forehead, producing exactly the record scratch one would expect. "What the heck. We're already in the afterlife. So, where d'you wanna go with her?"
Zinc tilted his head. "Go? Wherever you want to, I guess."
"I thought you had an idea! I thought that's why you brought up havin' a car!"
"I... I guess, maybe..."
She growled at his hesitation. "Out with it!!"
Bungalow made a gesture indicating, 'I'm just going to head over there now. You two have fun.'
Junella rubbed the bridge of her nose, then tried again, softer. "I told you a minnit ago to assert yerself sometimes. So if you've got something, assert it."
He still looked sheepish. "Aw, you've probably got a better plan. I'll defer. That's peachy with me."
She looked at him straightforwardly. "You know what? I'm gonna be honest with you. I don't know where to go from here."
Zinc was genuinely surprised.
"Short of just heading out into the desert in the direction those uglys came from, I'm blank. I'm starin' at stucco. That's part of why I wanted another head on this. So if you've got an idea, even a wastebasket-feeder, just come right out and hit me witddit." She smiled lopsidedly. "If it sucks, at least maybe it'll jumpstart a better one."
He smiled too, anxiety easing somewhat. Although it was clear he wasn't used to being asked to give his input. "Okay. So I was thinkin', like, if we just ran in commando-style, we don't know what we're runnin' into, right? They might squish us like las cucarachas. So maybe instead, we whip out some spy stuff, yeah? Get some eyes on 'em first?"
Junella nodded appreciatively. "That ain't bad, trashcan. Not bad at all. It'll eat a hole in our budget, but there's gotta be survival supplies or an electronics store somewhere around town."
"Actually..." Zinc clinked his wrenchtips together. "I might know a guy who'll lend us some of his hi-tech for free."
Her paw shot out and squeezed his muzzle shut, not needing another word of convincing. She leaned in, eyes gleaming. "Free is always good. Lead the way."
"Ayf-ayf," he said through squished lips.
All that was left was the matter of settling Bungalow's bill. The repairs had been minor, and he was willing to knock the fee down further for using the Killcanoe as advertising. Zinc pulled his paper sack of imaginite out and started sorting pebbles. Junella stepped in and swept them to the side with a growl. She held up her Certificate Of Access. Bungalow gawked a bit, then started writing out an invoice to the city.
Zinc thanked Junella. She said she didn't have time to watch him count out pennies. He thought perhaps she was lying to cover up being nice.
Junella thought there was a back way they'd have to roll the Killcanoe out of. Nope. Zinc returned to the car and spat on his wrenches. Giving the jaws a few clanks to limber them up, he reached out and clamped them down on the strip of metal between the two cockpits. Then he simply lifted it straight off the display and carried it sideways towards the front entrance.
"Mind gettin' the door for me?" he asked.
Junella was too dumbstruck to move, so Bungalow swooshed in to hold it.
"Have a good day now! Come back anytime she needs new bits 'n bobs. Or just to talk! If you're not my favorite customer, I can't think of who else it might be!"
Zinc deftly maneuvered the car through the doorway, and tossed the bobcat an easy grin. "Yeah I'm pretty wonderful, ain't I? See you soon, old timer. Assuming I don't end up extra-dead on this job."
Unblinking, Junella followed, and watched the canine stroll down the sidewalk and deposit the car on the street like it weighed no more than a kitten.
"And a good afternoon to you too, madam," Bungalow said, tipping an imaginary hat.
"Same back, pops," she mumbled absently.
At the curb, Zinc hoisted himself up the Killcanoe's side and plopped into the traffic-facing cockpit. He settled in, getting his butt all snug in the comfy leather. Then he ducked his head to kiss the steering column. "Missed ya, sweetheart."
Junella came up and leaned on the chrome beside him. "What the hell is a guy who can juggle cars doin' in a dead-end dive bar, arm-wrestling drunks for crumbs?"
He gave her a perfect 'I dunno' look.
"I mean, you're strong. Seriously. And you're floppin' around in the gutter. I don't get it."
He smiled sadly. "Unnerstan, it ain't a life I woulda chosen. I just... I ain't got 'entrepreneurial spirit', or whathaveya. I mostly wait till opportunity knocks. I don't know where to go lookin' for it."
She gazed bitterly at him for a moment. Not understanding how he could put up with a life like that, settling for less, without it driving him crazy. She suddenly had an image of him heading right back to the same bar after all this was over.
She climbed into the other cockpit. "Gonna be weird ridin' around facing backwards," she muttered.
"Oh, the seat swivels," he pointed out. "It's that lever on the right side."
She made a little 'well how about that' sound as she rotated around to face him. "Allright then. Where's your man with the CIA gear?"
Zinc swiveled around too, suddenly wearing a vastly uneasy smile. "Yeah, about that..."
She glared. What new and exciting surprise did he have in store for her now?
He winced with his entire body. "I assume you've heard of the CTR?"
Junella's expression turned to pure revolted dismay. "The State Home For The Ugly!? Aw FUCK!"
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
Its proper title was the Coryzan Town Residence For The Physically Eccentric. People called it the CTR to refer to it discreetly. A more lighthearted euphemism was the Happiness Hotel. And if you wanted to be completely tactless, The State Home For The Ugly was an unflattering, if entirely accurate, nickname.
It represented the dark side of Coryza's citywide beautification ethos. Aesthetics were not just a priority for buildings and manhole covers, but people. Not to say that everyone with imperfect looks were all rounded up and carried away in the night (although in earlier years, the program was... shall we say, less than voluntary). Phobiopolis was a land of unexpected and violent transformations. Most could be undone at a local hospital, or via a quick suicide. However some effects clung like a disease. Fursons would qualify for the Coryzan Town Residence if they were unfortunate enough to end up in a form so hideous it caused severe social disruption or significant disability. The city would pay for free room and board until a reversal could be found. Alternatively, you could stay there indefinitely if, for whatever reason, you liked having a face that would make an outhouse puke.
Unsurprisingly, the CTR was all the way across town, near the border wall. If the monsters ever got in, no one would particularly mind them eating up the reject bin first. Zinc did not mind the distance, as it gave him plenty of time to appreciate being back behind the wheel of his beloved Killcanoe.
Junella thought he drove like a maniac. She tried to look nonchalant, but her hands were very tightly pinned to her armrests. Zinc took stop signs as suggestions. Pedestrian right of way was not observed. Plus his mouth kept running the entire time, rhapsodizing all the features of his fine automobile.
"...and check out the pinball machine knobs down there on the right side of the dash! Those ain't just for show! I pull that back, it tightens up the suspension. Then when I let her go-" He made an aircraft takeoff noise. "Sail away! Off into the wild blue yonder! Only for short hops, you understand, but they come in handy! Now have you noticed what the brake pedals are upholstered in?..."
Junella's mind drifted. The mutt hadn't actually hit anything yet, so she let herself relax. She leaned back and draped an arm outside the cockpit.
A thought sprung to her mind, unbidden.
'This is why you don't have any friends.'
'WHAT!?' she shot back. 'The hell are you talking about, Me? I'm bein' nice.'
'Are you?' Her inner voice's tone was like a mother with a scolding, nagging finger. 'You yell at him. You order him around. You call him names. You steal his ideas.'
She hunched lower in her seat. 'I apologized for that.'
'You shot him in the goddamn foot!!'
'Well... He killed me first!' she countered. Then cringed, immediately regretting how childish that sounded.
'You're trying, I can see that. But it's not good enough. You're a rotten apple, Junella Brox, and the worms keep pokin' out. People see 'em. That's why you're alone.'
She sniffed defiantly. 'I'm alone because this outhouse of an afterlife is chock full of assholes.'
A dry laugh. 'Everyone but you, huh?'
Junella ground her teeth. 'What do you fuckin' want out of me!? You even said I was trying my best!'
'You're trying. It ain't your best.' The inner voice could not be bullshitted, like so many others. Because it wasn't some cop or clerk she could bluff with a painted-on smile. It was the best part of herself, speaking from behind bars, down into that black basement where the rest of her lived.
'I'm not even sure we have a best.'
The voice faded away, leaving Junella in silence. She hunkered down in the backseat. Zinc's voice and the traffic were a faraway murmur.
She had wondered for quite a long time if she was evil.
All memories of a beforelife were gone. A slate wiped clean, typical of most souls who ended up in Phobiopolis. After arrival, her earliest memories were of mutilating everything that came near her. The frenzy of a panicked animal, brought on by finding herself alone and lost in a nightmare land.
But how had such a capacity for barbarism come to reside in her heart in the first place?
Most people ran. But without hesitation, Junella Brox had stood her ground and bared her teeth.
What was her core?
She looked down at her lap, at the whorled black vinyl her body had become. She hadn't started like this. She'd been a normal skunk of fur and flesh. But Phobiopolis was a place of unexpected transformations. Junella was no exception. Though she happened to like hers. And sometimes she wondered why.
Sometimes she wondered if the ink-filled hollowness beneath her plastic skin was somehow what she'd always been.
"We're here."
Zinc was used to people tuning him out, but his employer had gotten noticeably quieter during the ride. Now they were parked, and not even the brake had gotten her attention. He swiveled his seat and saw that her record-label eyes were staring hard at empty air.
Zinc snapped his wrench-fingers (which sounded like a bullet hitting a frying pan) in front of her peepers. "Hey, hey! Pilot to control tower!"
She jolted and refocused. "Sorry! Cripes, that was loud... I just got lost in myself. Daydreamin'."
"Been there myself." A light smile. "So, take yerself a gander. We've reached our destination. You ever been inside?"
One glance confirmed this was a much chintzier neighborhood than the one they'd left. Across the street stood a tall brick rectangle, not unlike a cereal box. A pointy iron fence was a reminder of the CTR's prison-like origins. Though now the building was as merrily decorated as any other Coryzan apartment complex. Flowerboxes in the windows. Chalk murals. A woman who looked like an overturned bowl of oatmeal strumming a banjo on one of the balconies.
Junella winced. At street level, a resident with an actual paper bag over their greasy head was approaching the entrance and fishing out his keyring.
"Gruesome. And hell no, I ain't ever been in there! The stories are bad enough!"
He hopped out of the car and chuckled at her obvious willies. "Scoff all ya want. We're halfway to membership ourselves if you've forgotten."
"HEY!!" she hollered. She hooked a leg over the cockpit, tumbled out, and stuck a finger in his face. "I look GOOD like this!!"
He couldn't help grinning. "No doubt. But I was talkin' about that 'If looks could kill' scowl you got. You should slap a warning label on it."
In response to that, she slapped his face. Then turned towards the CTR and walked away.
Zinc rubbed his cheek. "Ow." Knowing he was prodding a landmine he added, "Ya know, you can't really sell yourself as Queen Satan, then get all fussy when someone agrees with you."
She whipped around at that.
As he expected. He backed up against the car, braced for an eardrum-bursting reply. But while there was a furnace of emotions on her face, it wasn't the outrage he'd predicted. To Zinc's complete shock, tears were flooding from Junella's eyes. Her features were clenched up in agonized sadness.
"Geez.. I'm sorry," he whispered.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SORRY FOR, YOU DUMB MUTT!?" she exploded.
He was entirely baffled now. "W-what?"
Junella violently wiped her eyes off on her arm. "I just hit you! I hit you! I didn't even think about it! Just hauled off and backhanded you, over a joke! What in the flaming plague-ridden hell is wrong with me!? I was just having a conversation with myself about this! Just a second ago! About how I'm trying not to treat you like garbage! And then I go and do something like THIS!!" Her fingers flew over her grooves like hummingbird wings. Her sheer volume made several passers-by detour out of the way with startled expressions.
Zinc had no clue how to handle this. He lifted his arms, not sure if she needed a hug or something. He couldn't think of anything to say but, "I'm sorry," again.
"Don't," she thundered. "Jesus God, I don't deserve your apology. I'm a natural disaster. I'm a hurricane. I blow in and make noise and knock everything over and make everyone's day worse." She clenched her fists in desperation, like she was drowning.
Zinc was dumbstruck. His jaw moved up and down soundlessly.
"There's no part of me that's good at bein' good to anyone else!!" Junella cried. She hid her face in her scarf and shook her head. "What the fuck is wrong with me? What the fuck is wrong with me?"
"Cripes, Juney..." Zinc was keenly aware of the reaction her little performance was getting. He wanted to comfort her, but he also wanted to quiet her down out of sheer self-preservation. Most people, when seeing a big scruffy guy next to a crying woman, tended to let their imaginations wander to bad places. "I don't mind. Really. You're just tense, dealing with this Sulilong guy and-"
"Don't make excuses for me," she begged.
Zinc threw up his hands. "Awright, you're a monster! Can we go inside now!? People are lookin' at us funny!"
She sobbed again. 'Wow. I literally can't stop messing his life up without even trying.' She at least got out of the middle of the road and blearily made it back to the side of the car, where she flumped against it. She flinched all over when she felt his wrench wrap around her. "Stop. Don't."
"Can't help it. Cryin' chicks freak me the hell out," he told her gently. "Now willya calm down already?"
She dried her eyes and took a deep breath. "I'll try. Look... first and foremost, I need to be the one apologizing to you."
He waved it away. "Water under the bridge."
"NO!" she insisted, lightly shoving him. "It's not! I've been like a tyrant to you! I've been treatin' you like a slave! I shot you in the goddamn foot!!"
His expression said, 'Yeah, okay, that was pretty atrocious.'
It was a good thing her scarf didn't muffle her voice, because she had her face completely hidden in it. "Just a moment ago, I made a decision in myself to stop bein' that way to you. And it wasn't enough. Do you understand? That's what brought on the waterworks. That I wanted to. And I forgot in an instant! Like, like... what does that say about me!? That I'm nothin' but poison and that's all I'll ever be!?"
Zinc thought a while, then shrugged. "Eh. I'm no saint either. And if it helps any, I know from hard experience that old habits don't die just because you wake up one day and don't want 'em anymore."
She nodded. His comforting words felt both desperately needed and abhorrent. How could he possibly think she deserved comfort? "And of course, you gotta go and make it all worse, ya damn scrufftail. Forgiving me for everything. Like a boxing dummy that just keeps coming back for more punches." She showed him a weak, sick smile to let him know she didn't really mean the insults. "If you'd just be an asshole back to me, I wouldn't feel so bad, y'understand? Instead you keep taking it... and taking it... I feel like I'm kicking a puppy."
He chuckled without emotion. "Yeah... All of that's pretty accurate. Though don't be thinkin' that's all on you. Plenty of it's me." He narrowed his eyes and gazed down at the rough concrete. "I done some bad work here and there. Had to put up with some shitty bosses. The things you'll do to get money... Let's just say I got a lot of practice buildin' up a high tolerance. Being a boxing dummy, like you said."
A slender black paw reached up to softly rest on his wrench. "You didn't deserve that."
A shrug. "I know. But life's one big toilet, eh? And the turds go round and round." He made a swirling gesture in the air.
Her shoulders hunched in a laugh. "Yeah. Lookit us. Just a coupla floatin' turds..."
He prodded her shoulder. "Seriously though. Maybe you don't gotta beat yourself up so much, huh? Other people seem to like ya well enough."
A grumble. "So long as I keep 'em at arm's length from the real me, yeah."
"Close enough. And, I swear on me mudder's Bible, you are not in the top five worst people I've ever worked for."
She lifted her head and gave him a flat look. "I'm six, ain't I?"
He hesitated for a moment. "...Seven, honestly."
She rolled her eyes. "Ugh."
Zinc smiled, noticing she wasn't crying anymore.
Junella looked at him. Looked at that damn imperturbable smile. "Weirdly enough, that actually does make me feel better."
"Eyyyyy!" He patted her on the back. "Great! Because I'm dogshit at this. I know all about fixin' engines. Not so much people. I just want you to get your head back on so we's can get back to work."
One last sniffle. "That is exactly the right attitude, comrade. We got shit to do. People are counting on us. And Tessie'll nail our asses to her office door if we don't get 'em in gear."
He barked a laugh and nudged her towards the apartments. "Highly probable outcome. Though, just to be sure..." When they reached the opposite sidewalk, he turned her towards him, face-to-face. "Are you really okay? Really double seriously? I'm not just tryna shut you up. I mean that."
She smiled bittersweetly. The thought occurred that maybe a softhearted lugnut like him would be the perfect practice for trying to become something better. "I'm not, Zinc. But that's fine. I will be 'ventually. Thank you for everything you said."
He nodded. "Awright. And thank you for being one of the few people to ever whap me 'n then apologize."
Junella laughed outright. "You're a funny motherfucker, mutt."
"A smart mouth is a gift and a curse," he replied poetically. "Starts as many fights as it ends. Let's head in."
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
Inside the walls of the CTR, it was exactly as bad as Junella's most unkind assumptions.
She'd seen weirdos in Phobiopolis. Plenty of them. The difference here was stark. Just inside the lobby, there were a half-dozen examples of just how car-crash, mirror-breaking, octopus'-asshole fugly a furson had to be to get a room here. Underneath a potted palm tree, a gentleman with bristling insect feelers clogging the entire left half of his torso stood reading a newspaper. The janitor carried his face in a sling. Behind the reception desk was a wolf who looked like several clones sent through a paper shredder. A laughing child darted past, propelling herself at great speeds on her gargantuan hands despite her corkscrew-shaped lower body. And over by the elevators, a man covered in fingers and a woman who looked like a half-eaten shark corpse were sharing a sensual moment.
They were actually kissing. With those unspeakable mouths. Junella thought she might pull her own eyes out.
She pulled herself close to Zinc. "Let's get up to your friend's room before I start reflexively shooting these people."
Zinc was bemused by her unease. "Awww. You mean you wouldn't wanna settle down here? Find a nice three-headed fella and raise up some plug-ugly rugrats?"
All sorts of responses flew through her mind. But she was trying to be nice, goddammit. "I would prefer not to," she ground out, needles scraping out curlicues of plastic.
Zinc was occasionally good at knowing when to stop teasing someone. "Okay, okay."
The lobby was tacky but not run-down. Cheap but clean. Yellow and gold linoleum. Wood paneling. Zinc headed towards the elevator and tossed a wave to the concierge.
The shuffled wolf took one look at him and simply nodded.
Zinc passed by with a smile.
"You're not insulted in the slightest by how easy that was?" Junella asked in a whisper.
A chuckle. "I ain't no magazine idol, I am perfectly aware."
She huffed and puffed. "He better think I'm your attractive date..."
At the elevators, Zinc searched his brain, trying to remember the right floor. Maybe they could just go knocking on doors till they found him. 'That would send Juney into paroxysms. Oh wait! Ain't I a genius? 'Four rhymes with floor' he said.' The canine tapped the button with a wrenchtip.
Junella twitched while watching the numbers lower. "Your pal... He's gonna be allright with us droppin' in unannounced?"
"Oh sure, sure!" Zinc said with confidence. "We go way back! He useta sell equipment to the doc what kitbashed my head. Fellow fan of dirty hands and toolboxes. He'll be over the moon to see me again."
She sure as hell hoped so. She didn't want the door to open and see a shotgun come poking out.
The elevator was prompt and the hallway it took them to was dim and grey and narrow. To Junella's great consternation, the residents were very friendly. It was the kind of place where people could leave their doors open, wander over to catch the game on a neighbor's TV, and let their kids run around unattended. As soon as she and Zinc exited the elevator, a scorpion kid and a tractor-faced kid nearly knocked them over. An otter with a gaping wound from his forehead to his thigh, peppered with tiny rebar nubs, leaned against a wall nursing a cigarette. He gave Junella a quiet "Howdy" as she walked by. The skunk stared in revolted fascination.
She nearly bumped into someone coming down the hallway in the opposite direction, whose gangly limbs scraped the floor and ceiling with a plethora of right angles. "Ziiiinc..." she whined.
He arched an eyebrow. "You're bein' kind of a scaredy cat about this, aren't you?"
Her cheeks got hot. "This place gives me the super-creeps. Maybe it's like you said. Maybe it brings out my insecurities."
"Awww. Don't worry. I take it back; never in a million years would this place offer you a room."
Her cheeks got hotter for a different reason. "Um. Thank you."
Not all the doors were open. About half were shut, and one of them was the one they were looking for. "Here it is! Number sixteen!" Zinc shouted. He gave it a few loud thumps. "Conrad!!" he boomed. "Hope you're not on the shitter!!"
The door suddenly flew open with a startled, overjoyed, "ZINC!?"
Junella did not initially take notice of the occupant. She was preoccupied with the several gallons of horrifying green sludge that had just flooded out of the room, all over her feet, as soon as the door opened.
She did not waste time shrieking. In a wink, she had leapt to the ceiling and was hanging by her needles.
"Wow!" said Conrad. "Is your girlfriend a gymnast!?"
"She's not-"
"WHAT IS THAT SHIT!?" Junella spared a hand to scream.
Zinc's friend came out into the hallway to give her a reassuring smile. Several, actually. Conrad Glen was a short, long-limbed bullfrog kid. Mostly normal for his species, except for a bumper crop of vestigial mouths. They were all over his head and upper torso like surrealist acne. Only the one with a larynx spoke, though the others all moved their lips eerily in sync with it. "It's shlime! Isn't it great?" he said joyfully, with a bit of a gummy speech impediment. "Don't worry, it'sh clean! I mean, as much as slime ever gets!" A snorting giggle.
"In hindsight, I probly shoulda mentioned it," Zinc said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "It kinda just... follows him."
Conrad wiggled his green, drippy fingers. "Like a mysteeeeeerious fog!" More giggling.
Junella was, to put it mildly, upset. But she wanted to be nicer to Zinc. And that meant being nicer to Zinc's friends. With every part of her body in full-on cringe, she let go of the ceiling and dropped down into the goo. It squooshed between her toes. She bit her tongue. Thinking of the stuff as a weather phenomenon actually helped to prevent vomit.
"You'll learn to love it," Conrad assured her. Then he turned to Zinc. "So what bringsh you by, old buddy? Just cruising around the neighborhood?"
"To be honest, I need to borrow some hardware. Not that it ain't an added bonus getting to catch up with you."
The frog's grin was almost bigger than his head. "Ditto! And don't feel too bad about ashking for a favor. I've got so much cool shtuff to show you!!"
"Aces!" Zinc's tail wagged. "By the way, Conrad Glen, meet Junella Brox. She's my boss."
"Oh really? I like a lady who can take command." He attempted a debonair wink. It did not succeed.
"Th-thanks," Junella said, staving off Category Five Heebie-Jeebies.
The frog reached out to take her paw, and brought it suavely to his lips for a kiss. "A pleasure to be sure. Come on in, madame. Mi casa esh shu casa."
Junella blinked several times. She looked at her hand. It was glistening with a residue the color of lime Jell-O. Twitching, she turned to Zinc. "I would like to wash my hands for the rest of my life now."
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
Conrad vanished back through the doorway, causing several wobbly waves of slime to come sloshing over the two-foot barrier at the bottom of it. Junella stared. The entire apartment was filled. Like a swimming pool.
Zinc observed her reluctance. "You wanna go wait in the lobby? Or, there's a pizza place a few doors down that's friendly with the residents. Could grab us dinner."
Junella realized she was acting like a complete baby in front of a subordinate. She jabbed a needle in her thigh. Partly as punishment, partly to jar her alertness. "No. I'm bein' stupid. I'll come in, we'll have us a nice visit. I am a grown-ass woman."
Zinc clapped her on the back and nodded. He followed after Conrad. "Don't trip on the dam."
Junella watched Zinc hike up his shorts and submerge his legs up to the knees in that... stuff. She chewed her lip. 'It ain't gonna be as bad as you're imagining it,' she said. She stepped forward. She lifted her paw. She tucked in the ends of her scarf so they wouldn't dangle.
She took the plunge.
It was warm. Oh God.
She pulled her other leg over and in. "Hey Zinc."
"Yeah?" His partner looked like she had a mouth fulla chili peppers.
"You remember that old nasal spray commercial? The one with the little cartoon germ walking around inside a runny nose?"
"I have not seen that, but I can guess why you're bringin' it up."
She nodded, glad they had an understanding.
Aside from the entire apartment being flooded with vaguely luminescent viridian goop, it was a pleasant little place. Not too small, though the shelves made it seem fairly cramped. (Something to distract her. Good.) Every wall of Conrad's abode had shelves all bulging with electronics. Cameras, audio equipment, cables, vacuum tubes, cardboard boxes of labeled parts. It was all very organized. Everything shiny and clean. The frog obviously cared a lot for his stuff. She hadn't noticed it before, but there was a soft, omnipresent background hum in the apartment. Static and power.
A toy submarine suddenly scudded past her in the slime. Roaming around like a pet.
'I'm gonna roll over and wake up any minute, aren't I?'
The frog himself was busy clearing away armfuls of gizmos from the living room couch and chairs so his guests could sit. He looked around. Every other surface was also crammed full, so he darted into the bedroom and dumped his junk on the covers. "Zinc, you are not gonna BELIEVE it!" he shouted over his shoulder. "I finally got one! I'd been hearing about them for months now!"
"Wuzzat?" Zinc asked. He nudged Junella towards the sofa.
She instead chose a chair. It looked less slippery. She tried to think of anything to say about Zinc's friend that didn't involve slime or mouths. She remembered that he'd only come up to about Zinc's chin. "He looks... young."
"Looks," Zinc replied pointedly.
"Ah." Phobiopolis regressed everyone to childhood on influx. People could choose to age or not from there. It was entirely possible to meet eight year old eighty year olds.
Conrad returned carrying a gargantuan ugly silver box. "It's a VCR!!!" he exploded rapturously. "Just LOOK at it! It'sh gorgeoush! Finally, someone remembered one!"
Zinc attempted to appear impressed. "Cat's pajamas. What's it do?"
Conrad chortled at such a question, but recalled that his slapdash pal was usually behind the times. He skittered to put the heavy device back in his bedroom, then dashed back out to plop on the couch (Junella put her hands up to shield against the splash). "It'sh the absolute latest in technology. You know how you can record voiche on magnetic tape?"
"Yeah."
"Now people can do that with video! Oh my god, right? And it goes in theshe little boxes. Much smaller than a reel-to-reel, lemme tell you. You shtick the box in the VCR, push play, and then you can watch whatever they recorded!!"
Zinc blinked, not sure where a picture would come out of that thing. "Does it, like, project it on the wall?"
Massive giggles. "No, ya goober! You get a coaxial cable and hook it up to a TV shet. Thankfully, I got puh-lenty of those." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at a cluster of eleven televisions. He leaned towards Junella. "I'm kind of an expert. Lady Crynight herself hired me to shet up the monitors in her office," he bragged.
The skunk simply raised her hand and dumbfounded the Certificate Of Access. "I met her too."
"Whoa!! No WAY! So you guys're, like, on a mission!? That's AWESOME!"
Junella caught herself smiling. Gross or not, the little guy seemed harmless. "You could say that. And allright, you got me curious. How does one go about getting a VCR? Or all these other fancy doodads?"
Conrad's eyes sparkled with joy. The only thing a nerd loves more than his favorite obsession is being asked to explain his favorite obsession. "S-sure!! See, I'm all about new technology."
"It's his specialty," Zinc added.
A vigorous nod. "Whatever it is, I wanna be the first guy in Phobiopolish to get it. So I've got friends in Hypoxia, Stoma and Dropsy."
Junella nodded: the three small towns closest to the forest where most new souls appeared.
"After a few days to get their bearings- for politenessh shake- they ask any new people about technology they remember. If they've got shomething good in mind, I send over imaginite, my friends get the newbie to concentrate, and there it is!"
Junella's eyebrows went up. She'd never really thought about where stuff came from here. Between imaginite and dumbfounding, it never seemed like it'd be difficult to find anything you could ever want. Although a furson had to conceive of something first in order to want it. What Conrad was really buying was new ideas. "That sounds... really smart, honestly. And profitable, I assume?"
His widening grins said 'absolutely'. "I'm not the only one to think of the idea, but I'm the besht at it."
"No matter how much crazy new shit gets built here, someone's always gonna be homesick for bits of Earth they still remember," Zinc observed. "You got any of these VCR boxes we could watch?"
"Oh yeah! About a dozen. Stuff that people have fonder memories of are WAY easier to get ahold of. And a lot more people love a movie than the thing they watch it on."
"Makes sense."
"Although," he blushed, "I haven't even hooked it up yet. It just got sent through yesterday. I've been shtaring at it, totally in love, for hours! Plus I shtill gotta find a place for it, and another outlet, and keep it above the slimeline so it won't short out."
Junella had, amazingly enough, actually forgotten about the stuff she was currently sitting shin-deep in. She looked down and could vaguely see her feet through it. The viscous pressure of the slime on her lower legs did feel almost, sort of, potentially, hypothetically comfortable.
Conrad bounced on the couch. "Hey!! Now that you're here, we could hook it up together! Take in a flick! That'd be great!!"
Zinc put a wrench on his shoulder. "Pump the brakes, kemosabe. We're here on official business, remember?"
"Ohhhhh right. I got ya. We can have fun later. Businessh up front, party in the rear." He clapped his hands and pointed two finger-guns. Then he sat bolt upright. "HEY! Is thish about what happened to the wall!?"
Junella jolted forward. "How do you know about that!?"
The frog was briefly worried she might arrest him. "A man of my position tends to pick up more than tech."
She returned a 'fair enough' expression, then turned to Zinc. "Least we don't gotta waste time explaining it to him."
"Yup. Kinda figgered our boy'd have his finger on the pulse of the city." Zinc gave Conrad an approving backpat, resulting in several dozen smiles.
Junella sat back in her seat. "Awright then, mutt. You brought us here. You had an idea. Roll it out."
Zinc nodded to her, then turned and fixed Conrad with a serious gaze. "Surveillance equipment. You got any?"
"Cameras? Mics? Absholutely! Do you even have to ashk?"
"Tops. There's a rude bastard somewhere out in the desert who's 'sponsible for that dent in the wall. Juney 'n me wanna scope out his pad before we break up the joint. I figured you were the frog for the job."
All of Conrad's mouths 'hmmmmed'. "That'sh a little different. I've got stuff that'd be good if you wanted to hide in the bushes and sneak snapshotsh. But there's no cover out there to hide behind."
Zinc blanked. Then an absolutely wonderful idea landed on his head. "You got any remote control cars!?"
"Sure. A few. Though..." Conrad nibbled his finger. "All the video cameras I have are bulky. They'd put a strain on the motor, or outright kill it. I don't think you want shtatic photos. You wanna see, and hopefully hear, exactly what'sh going on wherever this guy is."
"That'd be good, yeah."
Conrad got an idea of his own. He looked right at Zinc's eyes. The eyeballs themselves, held in place on their little wire frames. "Remember all the pranks you used to pull on me with those? Sneaking one in my cereal? Pretending you were psychic by watching my back?"
"Yeah!" The full implications hit. "YEAH!! We don't need a camera!" He reached up and plucked out his left eye. "I already got one!"
"You can still see through it?" Junella asked, surprised.
He pointed it towards her. "Good as ever."
"Huh." Things here did tend to work in whatever ways people assumed they would. "Your ears hear too?"
Zinc unclasped one and held it up. "Like a fuzzy li'l radar dish."
Ideas were filling Conrad's mind like popping corn. "What'sh the range on them, d'ya think?"
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
Junella actually did go out for pizza, as Zinc had mentioned earlier. But doing so served a double purpose. She tucked the mutt's untethered eye and ear into her scarf and brought them along with her. Conrad said to get four large pizzas, two with sausage and anchovy, and the rest she and Zinc could decide on. He lent her a wellwatch so full it was practically vibrating. It wasn't too surprising to find out he was well-to-do. The frog was running a thriving business, and all he cared about spending will on was food and more gadgets.
The pizza place smelled great. Junella envied whoever lived above it. She put in her order, then used the wait time to go jogging around the neighborhood. Zinc's parts obviously couldn't give verbal feedback on whether or not they were still broadcasting, but he could move his ear a bit. They agreed he'd give a double-flick if he stopped being able to perceive. So far, nary a twitch. Not even when she estimated she was a mile away from the apartment building.
She stopped at this far point and readied to return. The test was successful and she didn't want the pizza to go cold. She leaned on an alley entrance to give her back a satisfying stretch.
"You look like a real good kisser."
Junella glanced sideways. There was a man behind her. She caught a glimpse of a knife.
She pointed backwards at his throat. "Bang."
"Ha. That's-"
A revolver appeared in her hand and put a real bullet through his neck.
His body hit the sidewalk and she went back to jogging.
The incident wasn't worth mentioning to the boys when she returned. She skillfully balanced four pizza boxes on one hand all through the lobby and the elevator ride. Some kids hovered around her in the hallway, sniffing and coveting. She chased them off with a hiss. It was a lot easier to sink back into Conrad's ooze pit now that it wasn't unexpected.
The trio spent the next hour brainstorming, talking with their mouths full and refining a plan. Zinc reported crystal clear hearing and eyesight throughout the range test (and tossed the skunk a covert thumbs-up for effortless handling of a scumbag.) There seemed no reason they couldn't mount his eye and ear on an RC car and send it out on recon. Conrad said he could probably jack up the remote's power far enough that they'd never need to leave the apartment. He'd used the guard towers as antennae to boost signals before. Junella was fairly impressed by the sheer balls of running wires into the buildings without them getting spotted. He said it was worth it to tune in TV shows from Ectopia Cordis.
After their paper plates were chucked in the trash and their fingers were licked clean, the trio huddled around Conrad's workbench. He brought down a model Indy car; an older model he would've traded in anyway. He began dissecting it. Junella mostly watched and tried to follow the his rapid-fire commentary. Zinc helped too and was naturally quite good at clamping parts together for gluing or soldering. Conrad swapped out the car's tires to give it better grip on sand. To enhance the antenna, he attached a vial of nightmare construct blood: floating in its center was a minuscule shard of glinting blue Zulamang. "I want this car back, Zinc," the frog said firmly. "You cannot get your hands on this stuff at any price." Zinc nodded in full understanding. This was the most legendary of all substances in Phobiopolis. Aldridge's freakin' wand was made of it. Though the canine was curious how Conrad had managed to get a sample. "Found it in the street," he said with a shrug and a smile.
The construction went smooth as butter. Zinc's sensory organs were incorporated snugly, and Conrad was hit with a stroke of brilliance regarding them. He asked if Zinc could stand a brief bit of pain. The half-machine canine just giggled. So the frog fetched some AV cables and plugged them directly into the disembodied bits. It stung like a bitch for a few moments, but the results were well worth it. Conrad wired the remote to a portable TV and soon they were seeing and hearing exactly what Zinc was.
There was a problem though. The boys had been delightedly tinkering away at their toy when Junella voiced a practical concern. "Aren't they gonna notice this thing scootin' around?" That brought the tools to a halt. None of them had considered that. It was very likely someone in the hideout they'd be infiltrating would hear the sound of an RC motor, see an obvious surveillance robot, and blast it to smithereens.
Conrad tackled the sound problem, encasing the motor in whirr-dampening foam. Not silent, but better. Junella suggested maybe camouflaging it as something no one would pay attention to. Zinc had an 'Aha!'. The wastelands were crawling with constructs, and among the most common and least threatening were diaperrats. Garbage-eating loathsome little rodents shaped like used diapers. They scuttled everywhere, spreading stink and disease. Just what the doctor ordered.
Conrad immediately rushed to his safe and brought back a basketball-sized hunk of imaginite. The trio joined hands and all directed their will at it. Within moments they had a flawless rubber diaperrat disguise. It fit over top of the car like a latex glove, and looked just as fuzzy and scuzzy as the real thing. Plus it even muffled the motor a bit further. And the antenna could be hidden nicely inside the tail.
There were high fives all around. Success seemed assured.
Conrad added an IV tube from his median cubital vein to the car's remote control. Zinc heartily approved. His own wrenches were bloodpowered, so he knew it was the best choice for adding finesse to a power source. Everyone watched on the monitor as Conrad drove their rat-car down the hallway to the elevators, then out into the lobby. Much amusement was to be had at the concierge's reaction.
From there it was just maneuvering it down the street and out of town. No one on the sidewalks gave the faux-nightmare a second glance. If someone had picked it up they'd know immediately it was a phony, but darting past in the shadows, the illusion was perfect. The rubber paws were even positioned so the wheels made them jitter up and down realistically.
There was a smidge of trouble getting it up and onto the downed Coryzan wall panel, but from there it was smooth sailing off into the desert night. The ratcar skimmed over the dry, dead ground with ease. Parasomnic constructs were all around, searching the darkness for living souls to terrify. But they were no impediment. Nightmares had simple instincts. They never bothered machines.
Plus, luck graced the trio with a much-welcomed gift. They had sent the ratcar out with no particular direction other than where Eagsyne had seen the three meatheads come from. But out in the wastes where the winds rarely blew, Zinc's eye saw footprints in the moonlight. Constructs didn't wear shoes. Sulilong's monsters had laid out the red carpet. Junella was so flushed with victory she jumped around and splashed in the slime.
Their anticipation made time stretch. For a while they wondered how much longer it would take to catch a glimpse of the hideout. And then they wondered no longer. The glow on the horizon wasn't a bright star at all.
"We know one thing about 'em at least," Junella observed. "They're too brazen, or too dumb, to hide themselves."
From so low to the ground, Zinc's eye couldn't observe much detail. But Sulilong was clearly living well. The hideout was a bronze-and-gold striped palace encrusted with blazing lights, parked on a base of soil-chewing construction treads. Junella thought it looked like the massive rolling platform they used to move the space shuttle. Zinc was reminded of a carnival tent, or the kind fumigators used.
There seemed to be a party going on inside. Quite the ruckus. If any henchmen were patrolling, none were visible. But there were constructs nosing about, looking for scraps or limbs. A few pigthings. Something that looked like a skeletal dimetrodon. And quite a few diaperrats. Junella thanked her lucky stars.
Even though no one in the castle could hear them, Conrad whispered. "You guys don't jusht want to circle the perimeter, right? You wanna shnoop around inside?"
"You betcher butt."
"Then we have a problem."
It was easy to see. With the structure raised up on treads, there was no access to air vents or basement windows. And the ratcar had no jumping mechanism.
Junella could see Conrad's worry at disappointing her. "Keep driving around. Just knowing their position is good. If there's no way in, oh well. But if there is, patience will show it to us." She clapped his shoulder reasuringly.
He visibly relaxed. "Allright."
"And Zinc? Keep your ear open. If we can't get a view, maybe we can eavesdrop something useful."
"Roger that, captain." He leaned forward on the workbench with his head on his wrenches, closing his remaining eye to concentrate more fully.
Conrad drove their rat as close as he dared to the castle's ominous underside. It looked as though the builders had scavenged the bottom halves of a dozen excavators. The treads were mammoth. Each was about hip-high on an adult, encrusted with years and years of dried-up construct remains. Browned blood splatters. Tatters of fur. A hooved leg was wedged sideways in one, like spinach between someone's teeth.
The minutes crept by and the trio's tension ratcheted. Conrad dared to maneuver around among the treads, knowing that if they suddenly jolted to life, the car might be squashed and his pal might end up permanently half-blind and half-deaf.
Suddenly Zinc sat up. "I heard a thump. Like a ramp hitting the sand."
Conrad whirled the ratcar around and Zinc directed him. There was a rectangular shadow covering part of the night sky.
"Go for it!!" Junella screamed.
Conrad slimed rather than sweated; now he was almost a waterfall. His eyes bulged with concentration. His fingers made deft corrections as he blasted the car at top speed through the maze of treads, then out into the open. He drifted into a 180 turn.
There was indeed a ramp. And a perfect specimen of low-level thug moseying down it. He was smacking a pack of cigarettes against his hand. Smoke break time.
"He can shee us!" Conrad whimpered.
Junella pounded on the table. "Who cares!? Blow past his ass!! The faster we are, the more likely we'll get away with it!"
"All on you, Hopalong," Zinc encouraged.
Conrad steeled his nerves. He surged his willpower into his bloodstream, down the IV into the remote, and mashed the trigger. The ratcar took off like a bottle rocket.
The thug had barely any time to react. His hands were already full with a cig and a lighter. All he could do was shout when one of those nasty-smelling rat critters skittered past him into the castle. "GawdDAMN! Sully's gonna rip my mustache off for this!"
He took a couple of running steps, then saw how much of a head start the little construct had. He put his hands on his hips. "Fuckit. Least them's don't kill nobody."
He shook his head and went back to his break.
Conrad was involuntarily screaming. He turned left and right blindly. They were inside! He had no idea of the layout of this place! People could be anywhere! Someone could stomp on him! Holy shit!
"There! That bathroom!" Zinc pointed out.
The door was ajar and it was pitch black inside. Perfect. Mere seconds after Zinc had finished his sentence, Conrad was in.
Safe in darkness. Totally alone. Everyone collapsed on the workbench and panted for a moment.
"We did it. We did it," Conrad muttered, as if to convince himself. "Totally, one hundred percent, tubular."
"Ain't finished yet," Junella cautioned. "We can rest for a bit. Get our nerves to stop jangling. Then it's back to work. We gotta get the layout of this place. Learn whatever we can about who we're up against and how he did what he did to the wall."
"Thish is gonna take more grape soda," Conrad assessed.
"Got any booze?" Zinc asked.
The frog did not. But he did have steadier nerves after he'd downed some sugar. Now that they were inside, they could take all the time they needed. Conrad was focused and careful as he navigated out of the bathroom and down the hallway. He hugged the corners, trying to move in furtive spurts like a real diaperrat.
They couldn't tell if the whole compound was like this, but the section they were in was structured like an army camp or a submarine. Close quarters. Everything drab and functional. The concrete floor was a breeze to drive across.
Conrad was a silent statue, eyes glued to the screen. Braking at any hint of movement or footsteps.
"You're doing great, man," Zinc whispered.
Conrad simply nodded. "Atari skills."
Judging from the constant background thump, music and dancing were going on somewhere else. Junella wanted a peek. Nothing more though. The fewer people they encountered, the better. Conrad eased the ratcar towards the commotion. Legs and boots passed them. Mostly men. Zinc said he knew the type. Work all day at some shitty manual labor job, spend all night at the bar. Up ahead was a doorway where colorful light poured through and the echoes conveyed a commodious space. Conrad zipped around the corner.
There was no worry about anyone spotting them in here. The ballroom was packed so tight, all they could see was the sparkling ceiling and endless pairs of dirty pants. Strange music energized the air. Drunks hooted in the typical manner. There were a hell of a lot more people here than any of them had expected. Sulilong didn't just have a gang, he had a small army. Possibly a cult.
Junella prodded Conrad. "That's enough. Let's get outta here, back to the quiet part."
"You do not have to tell me twice," he replied, and reversed course as quickly as safely possible.
The trio's hearts beat slower once they were away from the noise of the party. It wasn't clear what their enemies were celebrating, but the imminent pillaging of Coryza was a good guess.
Conrad drove past tight-locked storerooms, and crew quarters with racks of bunkbeds. There was also a miniature jail. He didn't have the nerve to give it more than a glance, but the few details they saw indicated the prisoners were not treated well here. No one ever seemed to mop up the stains. They continued on through the cramped, maze-like corridors.
"Wait, go back," Junella sang suddenly.
Conrad put the ratcar in reverse.
"Zinc, can you look way up?"
He could. It was a door like any other, but upon it was a taped-up sign: LAB
"This piques my interest. Squeeze us in, tadpole."
Conrad nodded. Making sure first that no one would spot their entrance, he crept the diaperrat up to the door and gingerly nudged the motor a few times to push them through.
It was dim. Lots of shadows to hide in, which was good. Conrad held close to the wall and slowly traced the perimeter. There were shelves full of bottles and body parts. Open barrels full of raw materials. Unknown but ominous equipment. Three hefty tables had three nervous-looking gentlemen hunched over them. The skink and cat were both in lab coats, but bizarrely enough, the moose had bright pink head-to-toe pajamas.
"Stop! LOOK!" Junella pointed at the screen.
Behind the scientists was a corkboard, and on it were pinned many notes and photos. Among them, several snapshots documented the growth process of a group of six test subjects. Half of the men just turned ugly. But the rest turned ugly and big.
"Eagsyne's monsters," Zinc marveled.
Junella patted Conrad's shoulder in congratulations. "I think we're gonna wanna park it here for a while and just observe."
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
She had been staring at the screen for hours. Her face was starting to slide out of the hand propping it up. The only thing these dorks were doing was quietly putting liquids into tubes of other liquids. Mad science was so much more exciting in the movies.
Conrad and Zinc had gone off to the livingroom long ago. Junella assured them she could handle this. So the chummy duo were having a grand old time cooing over electronics while she sat on her ass staring at nerds. She overheard them messing with the VCR. Cheering when it finally connected up. Watching what could have been, from the sounds of it, either a horror movie or a porno. Junella didn't bother to get up and check. Not only could something important happen the lab at any moment, she wanted the boys to have their fun.
She was irritated at how much she envied them. She knew it was the mission keeping her apart from their giggles and reminiscing, but she could still feel the warmth from their conversation. They made it look easy.
Zinc swung into the room with another slice of pizza dangling from his mouth. "Yuh find ouf anyshfing new?" he asked.
Junella sighed. "Only that the pink guy talks to himself quite a bit. Mostly, almost exclusively, about how much he wants to get and/or eat pussy."
The mutt chuckled. He tipped back his head and vanished the slice in one gulp. "Sounds like one a' them, whattayacallems? Artistic savants? The ones that're both smart and dumb at the same time?"
Junella was about to raise an objection to that, but realized it wasn't actually inaccurate. "I can't quite see all he's doing, but he's been cracking open a lot of construct bones, then scrapin' out the marrow and boiling the shit out of it over a bunsen burner."
Zinc cocked his head to the side. "Weirdsville. Anyway, I just wanted to check up on ya. Y'want any more pizza? We got truckloads of leftovers"
"I'm fine. But thanks for the consideration," she replied.
"Cool. I'm gonna head back to the movie then. The dinosaur just bit some chick in half."
"Ain't it hard concentrating on it with one eye elsewhere?"
"Nah, I just tune the other side out." "He burped. "Welp! Lemme know if there's any breaking news! I trust you to pay more attention than I would." He tossed her a little salute and turned away.
"Right on." A tiny smile crossed her face as she watched him leave.
The skunkette crossed her arms and rested her cheek on them like a pillow. On the screen, the three scientists were still puttering away quietly. The other two ignored the pink one. His babble seemed like a nervous tic. Sometimes they'd murmur a question between themselves. Sometimes a fourth guy would come in, but his purpose seemed only to fetch them coffee.
It was a struggle not to fall asleep. Though Conrad inadvertently helped with that. His multi-mouthed laugh was positively polyphonic. She wondered where he'd gotten 'em. The forests here were full of traps, she knew. Some would just eat you. Others changed you into something different. Those kind pissed her off. She liked keeping control of her appearance, and always kept anti-transformation potions on hand. She remembered one persistent encounter where she'd had to come to the hospital here. A case of blue pimples that just kept growing and growing like water balloons. Ecchh.
Her mind asked, 'Why's it easier to think about that, than hearing those two laugh together in the other room?'
She snorted. 'That's an easy one, Miss Junella. Because when you always look on the cloudy side of life, it gets normal. Happiness gets to be something you shy away from, afraid it might bite. Gloom starts to feel comfortable. At least when I'm miserable, there's no disappointment. I'm already low. No place to fall down from.'
She watched the screen. Nothing changed on it to distract her away from her melancholy thoughts.
'Have I just been fighting against everything since I got here?'
She traveled back through her memory slideshow. Finding herself alone and attacked. Getting killed by nightmares till she learned to turn the tables. Getting good at it. So good that people were willing to pay her to protect them. It was nice to finally eat a hot meal that she didn't have to scavenge up herself.
'If my nature is to fight, then at least I found a use for it,' she thought. 'And business transactions ain't friendships, but they're better'n solitude.'
She smiled slightly. 'Maybe I am climbin' up. Just, slowly. So I didn't really notice it at first.'
The door to the lab was flung open with such force it sounded like a cannon shot.
Junella shrieked soundlessly and jerked to attention.
"Heyyyy! What's going on in here, boys? You look like busy little bees! Good! Good! I was on my way to the pissroom and thought, why don't I check on the wallflowers on my way back? Get a little progress update? You're missing a hell of a party, by the way."
The voice was a booming purr. A rumble soaked in honey. The man who had entered the room was draped in an ornate crimson robe with gold trim. He was only slightly taller than average, yet his presence made him seem like a giant.
Junella tore her eyes away long enough to shout, "GUYS!!! INTERESTING SHIT IS GOING DOWN!"
Sounds of two startled fursons attempting to pause a VCR while scrambling over each other to get to the workroom.
"What's happening!?" Zinc barked.
"Are we in trouble!?" Conrad whimpered.
Junella waved them over. The frog and mutt sandwiched her on both sides so everyone could see the little screen.
The man in the robe swept grandly around the room, arms crossed behind his back. He craned his neck over the cat scientist's workstation, casting a shadow with his antlers. "My, my goodness! Looks like complicated stuff, shorty! How's those grenades coming along?"
Junella had spent some time with the remote control, managing to finagle a spot on a middle shelf, using a leaning pane of safety glass for a ramp. They had a decent angle to watch the cat shrink back beneath his boss' grinning gaze.
"Uh, uh, uh... they're fine!!" he finally spat out. "Concussive. Lightweight. I'm working to increase the damage. You said not just to living targets, so I removed some of the inner shrapnel layer to make room for a wider core."
Pleased nodding. "Mm-hmm. How soon can I have a bushel-full?"
The cat calculated in his head. "If I don't sleep tonight, I can have the final model finished by dawn. Then we can replicate as many as we have imaginite for, I guess."
"FANTASTIC!!! That's great! Keep it up!" The man in the robe clapped his employee on the back. It looked like it hurt.
The cat struggled to keep smiling. "Th-thank you, Mr. Sulilong, sir!"
Junella had assumed as much, but the name was a nice confirmation. "Smile, asshole, you're on Candid Camera," she whispered.
Zinc scratched his head. "He's our guy? What is he? A dragon deer?"
If any of them had been familiar with Chinese mythology, they might have recognized him right away as a qilin. Zinc's assessment was fairly accurate. Sulilong had the body of a strong, regal stag. Broad-chested, like an athlete in his prime. His imposing set of horns brought to mind images of impalement. Tall, straight skewers. But his head was overlaid with a densely-set pattern of jade scales that scattered the light when he passed beneath a bulb. His face seemed crafted to make room for his broad, smiling mouth. A golden mustache draped down to frame it like theater curtains. His small eyes were shadowed beneath a heavy, bushy brow.
Sulilong left the cat to continue his stroll around the room. Taking in details. Pausing to read the notes on the corkboard. Unhurried. Methodical. The three scientists tried to crouch beneath his notice.
"The way he moves is... wrong shomehow," Conrad noticed.
Junella nodded. "Custom-built body. His head's the only part of him that's real; I read about it. From the neck down he's all iron. He's more Tin Man than you, Zinc."
The canine was silent, trying to guess whether or not his wrenches would stand a chance.
For a man with iron hooves, Sulilong made surprisingly little noise when he walked. He was precise in his movements. Controlled. As he surveyed the lab he let compliments flow freely. He nodded and listened. Asked questions. When the fourth guy came in with another cup of coffee for the skink, Sulilong reached over and took it for himself. He sipped. "That's not bad. I like a bit more cream in it though." The gofer rabbit nodded nervously and dashed out of sight.
The moose in the pink jammies had been scrunching himself lower and lower at his work station. But it is futile to attempt stealth when you have antlers big as catcher's mitts. Sulilong finally finished the preliminaries of his visit and swooped in beside him. The moose gasped and twitched like a mouse in a trap.
Sulilong put his arm around him. "And here's my wunderkind! My Jaziezal! You've got magnificent things to tell me, I'm sure. All that sweat on your forehead? You've been pushing your limits! I can tell! So!" he clapped his hands with a sound like a brass bell. "I am just bursting with excitement! How much better is our drybleed recipe this time?"
"Drybleed?" Zinc muttered. There were few concoctions in Phobiopolis that didn't ring a bell for him.
Jaziezal jittered so much he couldn't form words. "Buh-buh-buh-grrnk-ffft-uhhhh..." He made no attempt at eye contact.
Sulilong stretched out a finger to raise his employee's chin. Even in the dim light, the trio watching the screen could see that the qilin's hand was a dark, burnished grey, almost black. Like a well-maintained armored gauntlet. But it was also crafted like a marionette's. Each jointed section fit smoothly together, with small gaps showing the cogs inside.
"Jaziezal. Look at me."
Sputtering and shaking, the moose allowed his head to be turned. Their eyes met. "Eh... eh, boss?"
"Tell me good news. Please." His face was still smiling. His words were still a purr. But they hinted that his patience was not infinite.
Jaziezal gulped air and tried to speak coherently. "The st-stuff... the drybleed... it's... she's... there's no..."
"Take your time," Sulilong said, but clearly did not mean it.
The moose sucked in a long breath, then bulged his eyes out as he exhaled. "I can't! The bones...! It's a-already as concentrated as it can g-get! I boil and boil! Same results! It's n-not getting any stronger!"
Sulilong became a statue for a moment, creating an agonizing silence.
Beneath his looming shadow, Jaziezal quivered like a leaf.
The next words were a clear warning of impending dangerous territory. "Surely you're going to tell me more. Aren't you?"
Forcing himself to smile, the moose quickly changed the subject to a flask of red slurry. He held it up to the light. "B-but I made more, boss! More! See!? Ahead of schedule! Three days instead of f-four! Boss!?"
Sulilong raised both of his hands, slowly. Then he spread his fingers. He raised them up to rest upon Jaziezal's antlers.
The moose slumped a bit, just from the dormant weight of the iron.
Sulilong drew his words out with precise enunciation. "That's fine. More is good. We need more. The boys are shrinking by the hour. But, my dear friend, my little genius, more is not enough," He emphasized this last word with a hissed exhale. "Were they able to get through the wall the last time?"
"N-n-no, b-boss."
"You are correct." He pressed downwards a bit, making Jaziezal's head sink into his collar like a turtle. "The crux of this endeavor is to get through the wall. And if all we do is repeat our performance from last time, will that do the trick?"
"M-m-maybe!?"
Sulilong pressed down harder. "Maybe. Could be. The boys might have weakened the structural integrity enough to break through on a second round. But also, Coryza might have repaired and reinforced the damage by now. Did you think of that?"
"N-no, boss!" Jaziezal yelped, and there was a note of pain in his voice.
Sulilong's fingers clenched like a vise onto the velvet-covered bone of his employee's antlers. From their shape, it was almost like one set of hands clasping another. He pushed down harder.
Jaziezal shrieked.
"Do I ask much? Not really," Sulilong mused. His tone was reserved. Measured. "I only want you to do your job. That's all. Just your job. And what is your job, Jaziezal?"
The poor bastard was jerking around like a fish frying in batter. "P-POTIONS!" he screamed through tears. "MAKE 'EM!"
Sulilong pressed down harder. "Not quite."
The trio behind the screen heard the first sounds of cracking.
The qilin's mustache raised up as his smile grew wider. The voice flowing from between his clenched teeth was immune to the suffering it was witnessing. "Your job is to give me what I want. And I want Coryza. You promised me Coryza. You said your formula would give it to me. But it hasn't yet. It hasn't. Isn't that sad? It's almost as if you're not truly living up to your full POTENTIAL."
On that last word, there was a sharp snap. A jagged fracture appeared in Jaziezal's left antler, accompanied by a gut-wrenching wail.
Conrad stumbled backwards off his chair, looking like he was about to throw up. "I can't watch this," he blurted as he ran from the room.
Junella glanced briefly at Zinc, asking if he was about to follow.
The canine shook his head and stayed put.
She nodded: right choice. "We need to see this," she whispered. "We need to hate him enough to not hold back when we're face to face."
The cat and skink scientists were doing everything they could to play pretend. Their work was so very fascinating, they just couldn't turn their attention away from it. Meanwhile their colleague jerked and danced and screeched like he was in the electric chair.
Sulilong had to speak a little louder to be heard over the cries of pain, which annoyed him.
"Your JOB, you spazzy little egghead, is to MAKE. IT. BETTER. Stronger! I need my men stronger in order to break the wall. Does that not get through? Does that not compute!?"
Jaziezal said the worst thing he could have possibly said at that point, "I-I... can't!"
Sulilong held the pressure steady, but needed a moment to compose himself at such a slap in the face. "Do you know what I see when I look at you? A malfunctioning machine. I've put in my quarter, but it's not giving me my candy. What do I have to do to get my candy out? Now, you might think that kicking the machine in frustration would be a poor strategy. Ah! But if you kick the machine enough, it breaks open. Then you can just reach in and take all the candy you want. Isn't that right?"
"PLEASE, BOSS!!! PLEASE!! OH GOD!! STOP! BOSS! PLEASE!!"
Sulilong cocked his biceps like twin crossbows, then shoved down with so much raw strength that the left antler snapped like a tree branch. Jaziezal's scream was utterly mindless with agony. The heavy antler dangled down from his bleeding temple by a thin scrap of skin, flopping back and forth as its former owner twitched deliriously. Sulilong ripped it away and threw it across the room into a stack of shelves, breaking several flasks.
Jaziezal was a blur of twitching, noise, and tears. He swayed side-to-side on his chair, clearly unbalanced by the sudden loss of head-weight. Blood poured out of the hole in his scalp like a faucet. He tried to stem it with his hand, but poked himself on the needle-sharp shards of antler sticking out.
Sulilong flecked the mess off his hands, then placed them on Jaziezal's shoulders.
The moose's scream nearly broke all their eardrums.
Sulilong gritted his teeth. "Shut up," he ordered.
Jaziezal showed incredible fortitude in snapping back to his senses. He chewed his lip to keep it closed.
The green-scaled muzzle drew in till it was less than an inch away from Jaziezal's eyes. So the smaller man could see every microscopic detail of the words being formed. "I don't want to hear, 'I can't.' I want to hear, 'I'll try harder.'"
"I'll t-try harder, b-boss!!" the moose blubbered.
"Good. That's all I wanted," the qilin said, as if it was the most reasonable request in the world. "We have time. Coryza's not going anywhere. I can wait for you to brew me a stronger batch. But that is what you will do, Jaziezal. Let there be no ambiguity about it. For that is your job, and you shall do your job. Am I right?"
"Y-ye-y-y..."
Sulilong took in a long slow breath, held it, then exhaled, making Jaziezal's fur ruffle. "I am right. Do your job. Try harder. Give me results. Yes? Yes."
The shaken moose couldn't say anything more. He just rocked back and forth.
Sulilong gave him a cheerful little pat on the cheek. "Good." He turned away and headed for the door. "Oh, and clean yourself up, you fucking pig. You're bleeding all over the place."
He left and slammed the door behind him.
For a very long time, it was deathly quiet inside the small laboratory. Only the magnified sounds of lab equipment rustling in a pantomime of work, and Jaziezal's fluttering, quaking breaths.
The moose stared at nothing for a while. Tears, snot, and drool poured unnoticed down his face. Then a shaking paw climbed his neck to explore around his wound. The blood was turning black and jammy. A sharp triangular shard was the only remnant of his antler.
Finally, he spoke a very quiet, defiant, "F-fuck you," to the place where Sulilong had been.
He hopped down from his stool to leave. He was not so broken that he couldn't direct a gaze of incredible hatred at his cowardly colleagues for doing nothing throughout his torture.
The cat and skink kept their heads down.
There was a heart-stopping moment when Jaziezal seemed to be heading directly towards the rat-car. But he hadn't spotted it. He was after his antler, which he retrieved and started trying to slot back into place. He moaned and gurgled at the flashes of pain. But Phobiopolis was funny about healing. It was worth a try.
After he stumbled out of sight, Junella sat far back in her chair and just shivered. "I can't say I've never been that cruel to someone," she felt the need to confess. "I can only say they earned it."
"I've killed some folks before..." Zinc said hollowly. "I mean, it's Phobiopolis. Who ain't? But I never broke a guy like that." His brows drew down. "Kinda want to now. Show that big iron cocksucker what it feels like on the receiving end."
The skunk beside him nodded emphatically.
On the screen, the skink suddenly pushed himself away from his table. "I can't-" He flinched at saying the word. "I c-can't concentrate. I'm gonna go lie down for a while now."
The cat did not look up. "Fine. I have to keep working."
The skink looked back for just a moment at the wet stains on Jaziezal's work station. He clamped a hand over his mouth and quickly exited.
Junella looked instead at the flask.
Zinc scratched a cheek. "So, like, we got any plans now? I think we're done with our spy game. We got a good look. Doubt we'll see anything more revelatory than that tonight.."
Junella kept staring at the flask. "Conrad!!" she suddenly shouted.
To his credit, the frog popped back into the room with admirable haste. "Yeah?"
The skunk pointed to the screen and held out the remote control. "C'mere."
He took the controller, remembering now that they actually had to retrieve the car. "I think I remember the way back out. But the ramp might be closhed up by now."
Junella shook her head. "We don't leave until we do something about that bottle right there."
Zinc sat up a little straighter. "Shit! Yeah! That's a good head on your shoulders, Juney. If that's all the supply he's got, we can at least set him back a few days by smashing it."
She nodded. "Exactly my thoughts."
Conrad's teeth chattered. "Um, I've already forgotten what'sh in it," he admitted sheepishly. "I think those screams drove it right out of my mind." He shook his head.
"Can't blame ya," Zinc said consolingly. "To recap: Pajama-moose figgered out a way to take nightmare marrow, concentrate it, and turn it into superjuice. Makes kids grow up big 'n strong, yeah?"
"Right, right. Got it."
"Now, tadpole, drive the car as close as you can get, then ram the table. Knock it down."
"The cat guy might see me."
Junella sneered. "He's a yellowbelly. Won't do nothing but jump on a chair and yell for help."
Conrad trusted her assessment. Still, caution was the best first strategy. He eased the little car down the glass to the floor, then scooted it into the shadows. Even with the motor muffled doubly, the noise still seemed thunderous in the coldly still room.
The cat probably wouldn't have noticed gunfire though. He was focused on perfecting his grenade prototype with renewed determination. The ratcar snuck by easily.
Zinc kept his eye trained on the flask of gritty scarlet sludge. "It will give me great pleasure sticking a wrench in that dragon bastard's plans. I just hope he doesn't blame the moose guy for it and wad him up in the trash."
Junella hardened her heart. "Might happen. But he made the choice to buddy up with the devil. If it means trading his pain for all of Coryza's... Our choice is clear."
Zinc didn't like it, but he couldn't disagree. "Mash the motor, Conrad."
The frog backed up as far as he could. The flask was dead ahead, glinting in the light of the overhead bulb. "Will do." He jammed the trigger down and the ratcar shot forward at full speed.
The bottom of the table rushed up to fill their vision. There was a THUMP and everything went scrambled.
But there was no crash afterwards.
Conrad backed up again. They saw no broken glass on the floor. No spilled drybleed. The trio goggled at the screen, puzzled.
Zinc looked up at the table. The flask was certainly gone. He chuckled awkwardly. "Maybe it grew wings and flew-"
An impossible idea occurred.
He rolled his eye as far back as it could go and a shroud of red covered his vision.
Everyone just about shat a brick.
Junella started pounding on the boys' backs and jumping up and down. Zinc let out a cascade of disbeliving curse words. Conrad's mouths fell agape.
When Junella could finally control her fingers enough to make words she shouted, "IT'S ON TOP OF US! HOLY GOD HALLELUJAH AND HORSESHIT!!"
"I mean... a diaper is a pretty good cushion. And the flask had a flat bottom," Conrad muttered, as if trying to convince himself of the miracle.
"Jeeziss, Juney, what now!?" Zinc sputtered. "Wait! Conrad, do you think you can skedaddle outta here with it balanced up top like that!? Bringing it home's a fuck of a lot better than just smashing it!"
Junella nibbled her other fingers. "We could take it to Tessie. She'll know who can analyze it. Reverse-engineer it. Work up countermeasures..."
Conrad absolutely hated to bear bad news. "Zinc, honestly... there'sh no way. It could slide off at the slightest bump. I don't even know if I can get it out of thish room, much less all the way out of here and across the deshert!"
A gorgeous idea struck Junella's mind like a lightning bolt. "YOU DON'T HAVE TO!!" she exploded.
The boys flinched away, fearing she had gone loco.
Junella looked around the room, frantic. "Do I need pencil and paper!? Can I just call out for 'em!?"
"Calm down, toots!" Zinc urged. "Who?"
"The Vermillion!!" she screamed in his face.
Conrad squealed as he got it. "If they can deliver packages here, then why not... Oh, that'sh genius!!"
"Course it is." Junella always had time for a self-congratulatory grin. She got herself calmed down enough to remember the rules of Phobiopolis' postage system. "Zinc, all you gotta do is will them to show up. Do it."
The mutt nodded. "I'll try. Heart's going a bit fast for a concentratin' mindset." Nonetheless he looked around for a possible mousehole and figured an empty mug on the workbench would work. "Vermillion? Come out, come out, little guys?"
Prompt as always, a whiskered muzzle popped out of the cup and looked at Zinc, awaiting instructions.
Normally one directed them by thinking hard about whomever they were sending correspondence to. "So... can you go to where my other eye is? I've got a "package" waiting there for me."
The mouse said nothing, but managed to convey an expression of, 'Yes, you idiot, that's what we're for.'
"Swell. Bring us that shiny red bottle. And, hell, if you can manage it, the big fake rubber rat too."
Without hesitation, the mouse turned away and vanished.
The trio were on pins and needles. They looked amongst one another, not daring to say anything. Could it possibly be this easy? Could they dare hope to be so lucky?
Something knocked a box over in the livingroom.
Skunk, mutt, and frog caused a hell of a splash as they all vaulted out of their chairs and plowed through the slime to look around the corner.
Seven Vermillion had tipped over Conrad's popcorn bowl to use as an egress big enough to fit the ratcar through. And right beside it on the couch was the intact flask of drybleed.
The screams of joy were so loud and prolonged, several other tenants called the front desk to complain.
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
The flask was now corked and safely dumbfounded away in the nowhere that Junella stored her gun. Nothing in the world could get it back from her now.
She and Zinc stood in the hallway, dripping green from head to toe and grinning their asses off. They were both exhausted from the night's emotional rollercoaster. Conrad stood in his doorway, just as drained and just as happy. They had been saying goodbyes for seven minutes. None of them wanted it to end.
Conrad was still jiggling from chortles at Zinc's last joke. "Honeshly, I've never had a night like thish before and I never want to again! My nerves are in knots! My heartbeat probably won't shlow down til Thurshday!"
"But ya liked it, dincha?" Zinc said with a wry wink.
"Abso-freakin-lutely!!" Conrad burst out, then lowered his volume so the security guards wouldn't visit again. "That was 100% radical! Awesome and a half! We actually did honest-to-heck shuperhero stuff!!"
"All the ups and downs of it," Junella agreed.
"And none of it would've been possible without you, buddy. Thanks a million." Zinc shook the frog's hands in a very gentle wrench-grip. "You ever need a favor from me? You name it. Anything."
"Are you kidding, Zinc? I'm shtaying as far away from you two crazy people as I can!" he teased.
Everyone chuckled again, and winced at how sore they already were from excess good cheer. "Seriously though..." Junella said softly.
Conrad looked to her.
He didn't look ugly anymore. Not a bit. Not his clammy skin or his gaggle of gobs. He was just Conrad now. "I had a fun time tonight. Thanks. Sorry I was a bit rough at first."
"No problemo, mademoishelle."
The frog tried to play it off nonchalantly, but she could tell he was genuinely delighted. "And..." She rolled her eyes. "I guess I don't mind your slime no more."
His grin could outshine a lighthouse. "See!? See!? I told you you'd love it!"
Zinc guffawed quietly at his pal's sheer effervescence.
Junella came closer and ran a paw gently across the short amphibian's forehead. "You're an allright guy," she said, and leaned down to give him a little kiss on whatever mouth was closest.
Conrad would've fallen to the floor if the doorway hadn't propped him up.
Smiling genuinely for the first time in a long while, Junella turned towards the elevators and waved goodbye. "Be seeing you again sometime, tadpole."
Zinc would have said goodbye too, but saw there was no way the frog was any condition to process words. He tipped an invisible hat to his friend, then followed along behind his partner.
Conrad sat chest deep in slime and simply glowed with happiness. "The ladies... They can't get enough of me..."
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
Zinc and Junella headed back to the car. There were several interesting stains around it, from where the Killcanoe's automatic defense systems had deterred would-be joyriders.
The skunk felt a surge of confidence. "Take us back to city hall, Zinc."
He glanced at the buildings around them. There was always a clock in sight in Coryza. "Ya sure about that? It's gettin' kinda late. Walls'll be up soon."
"Tessie Crynight sleeps about as often as Hell freezes over. She'll want to hear about this. And Zinc, let me pose a question to you."
"I'm all ears," he said, and wiggled both of them. (Then adjusted the right one for about the dozenth time since he'd put it back on.)
The skunk's eyes seemed to gleam in the streetlamp light. "Do you wanna just call it a night and head on back to the Tatterdemalion? Sink into bed and let our troubles rest until the morning?" Her smile showed her teeth. "Or do you think you got enough energy left inya to go out 'n get some blood on our hands?"
He caught her drift. His tail started to wag. "Y'know, I was a bit tired a second ago. But now that you mention it... Yeah. I think I could stay up past my bedtime." He pounded his wrenches together, shooting sparks.
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
They stood in front of the deputy mayor's slithering tangle of silver-furred arms. Zinc had been tickled pink by the look of rage on Angelbull's face at seeing the two of them again.
"We've got a plan," Junella sang. "Though it means letting word out to the general public 'bout what happened to the wall."
Tessie's expression could have soured milk and withered an orchard. "I already don't like where this is going."
The sparkle in Junella's eyes did not falter. "It also means us bringing this Sulilong situation to a permanent halt tonight."
The chinchilla's eyebrow raised. "Keep talking."
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
The Killcanoe blazed across the arid ground of the realm's eternal night like a deadly silver missile. Her suspension and tires handled the terrain like a pro, gliding over fissures, scrub, and corpses with ease. Her headlights cut the dark like a scimitar. Her hood and windshield were already streaked red. Below her passengers' butts, the engine radiated a maniacal heat.
The skunk and mutt were already wearing all the weapons they needed. Their only stop was at the Tatterdemalion to let the Xenoikos in on the plan and to pick up some pre-suicide-mission drinks. Junella asked the bartending vegetation for a gin aviation. She wanted to feel mean but graceful. Zinc was amazed by its ethereal blue color. Afterwards, he slugged back two El Terremoto tequila shots: worm included. As the duo left the hotel, Mia assured them she'd help rally her friends and neighbors to pitch in their part.
Scattered around the desert's grim, choking gloom, nightmare constructs watched them drive. The mindless beasts turned automatically towards the presence of souls. Most had no hope of catching up and fell tangled in their own feet. The Killcanoe bisected the rest.
Zinc licked his lips as his beloved ride outlined another cactusyote in its headlights. Within seconds it was nothing more than two green smears on the hood. "WOO-HOO! She cuts like the finger a' God, don't she, Juney!?"
The skunk just 'hmph'ed, feeling a slight pang of jealousy. "She ain't bad. But ease up a sec and let me get this next one."
Coming in from their northwest was the lumbering, sloshing form of a furless drowned polar bear. Its skin was rotting black, sloughing off in chunks as it ran. Its footsteps soaked the ground with seawater and clabbered blood. It stared with empty eye sockets at the duo, readying a mouthful of yellow, jagged teeth to tear them apart.
Junella made her revolver appear at her fingertips. Crossing her left arm in front of her face, she rested the barrel on her elbow and aimed down the sight.
The arctic horror was headed straight towards them. Claws as long as cleavers. Broken ribs showing through its rancid hide.
Junella slowed her heart and steeled her aim. The ground was a little bumpy. A mild impediment. Nothing she couldn't handle.
Putrid saliva flew in ropes as the polar construct roared.
Then half its skull wasn't there anymore. Its head exploded like a firecracker in a watermelon, spraying streamers of brain across the moon.
Zinc flinched when the gun went off beside his ear. The ringing was pretty tremendous, but he grinned nonetheless as he watched the bullseyed bear faceplant into the sand like a crashing battleship. "Hot damn! I got Annie Oakley in my car!"
A very pleased smile as Junella dumbfounded her gun away.
Zinc glanced back. "By the way- And I want you to know I'm strictly playin' devil's advocate here..." he trailed off, annoyed by the tinnitus. He took his hands off the wheel long enough to pluck his ears off, give them a shake, and reattach them. "That's better! Anyway, yeah, I'm a hunnert percent down for a rumble tonight. But I can't help askin', what's the big rush? We got the drybleed. Ain't that enough?"
Junella shook her head. "He can make more."
Zinc felt foolish. "Ah. Yeah."
"Plus, this isn't just about preventing him from getting in. This is about sending a message." Junella poked her palm with a fingertip. "Nobody fucks with Music Box City. Tessie wants this guy dead for trying, and I couldn't agree more."
Zinc swerved slightly to separate a bonecuddy from most of its legs. "That's about what I was thinkin' too."
"I want this operation to go down quick and quiet. We get in, we get close, we slay the motherfucker, we ghost. There's a thread of a chance our man ain't even noticed the drybleed missing yet. I'm willing to roll the dice and try to get there before he does. Be one hell of a sweet spot if we did. If it never enters his mind we're the ones who stole it, fine by me."
He nodded agreement.
Her voice took a dip into grimness. "You know we gotta play this hard, right? No mercy. These jolly jokers make folks disappear. Permanently. We are bad enough assholes to want to join up with their outfit, dig? Can you do brute henchman?"
Zinc laughed out loud. "Can I do brute henchman? Can I do brute henchman!? Sister, I've been a hired goon more times'n I've clipped my toenails!"
She'd assumed as much, but confirmation was always nice. "I believe it."
"I'll bring home an Oscar. Don't you worry your pretty little head."
She smirked. "A little pinch of worry keeps a gal's eyes open. But for real though..." She leaned close and lightly scratched a handful of needles down his left wrench. "Y'sure you're up for this, junkpile? I mean, I ain't never actually seen you fight. How do I know you're any good at it?"
He could hear in her tone, this was not doubt, but encouragement. "Oh, you're gonna see me." His wrench-jaws clenched on the steering bars. "Just point me at whatever you want dead. I'm a hair trigger, mama! My safety's OFF! I'm red hot lead! I'm TNT!!"
"Music to my ears." She patted his shoulder and chuckled darkly. "Oh! And one more thing, 'fore I forget. I don't know what he looks like, but keep an eye out for Sulilong's bodyguard. I've heard he's tough."
Zinc swiveled his seat for a moment, to meet her eye to eye. "So's yours," he said simply.
Junella was struck silent as the mutt turned back around. She wanted to toss back a sassy quip, but nothing came to mind. In truth, she was oddly touched that he'd think of himself that way. And she wasn't sure why.
Their adrenaline made it seem like twice as long as it had taken the ratcar to reach Sulilong's desert sanctuary. During their spying, Junella thought it looked more tightly locked up than Fort Knox. Sneaking in was out. They'd be spotted approaching from any direction but above. So if the only way in was through the front door, then they'd walk right up and knock.
The car sliced through a few more cactusyotes before they finally caught a flash of their target's faraway glow. As the distance ticked away, they dwelt on the danger of their mission. The sheer number of foes they'd be facing inside. Though soon, all those thoughts were driven out of their heads by the sheer extravagance that emerged before their eyes.
Sulilong's palace was a self-contained carnival of light, sailing across the desert like the horizon's second moon. More than just a home or hideout, this was a declaration of presence. The qilin wanted his prey to know he was coming. He wanted them to have time to flee, so he could truly savor the despair of the ones he caught. Roughly hexagonal, the moving fortress blazed with broad stripes of alternating gold and bronze. There were towers and gables and archways and spires. Floodlights commanded the night away. It could have been a lighthouse, or a rolling Shangri-La. A design dreamed up in a young child's joyful fantasy. But there was a corroded heart sheltered away at the spangled structure's core. All the radiant beauty of its surface couldn't douse the aura of death it carried. The tracks its treads left behind in the sand stretched on for miles into darkness, like a winding pair of neverending cobras.
The Killcanoe coasted as Zinc fell awestruck. In a daze, words fell from his lips. "'In Xanadu, did Kubla Khan, a stately pleasure dome decree...'"
Junella was stunned to hear something so cultured come out of him. "What in the world was that?"
"Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Famous poem. I heard it once in school and it stuck with me for some reason."
"It's pretty," she acknowledged.
Then her eyes went wide. "THAT'S NOT!"
Directly in their path was a nightmare dimetrodon. In place of a fin, all sorts of horrible metal implements grew out of its back: curtain rods, fireplace pokers, swords, rebar, signposts. It turned on its stubby alligator legs and hissed at them. The headlights illuminated a mouth full of carpet nail teeth.
Zinc assessed it quickly. Too pointy to cleave. Those spikes would wreck the living shit outta the front end and probably impale him and Juney both. "PLAN B!" he screamed, and bashed a button on the dashboard.
The headlights flipped up and spat out two doughnut-sized spheres of incandescent plasma.
Night briefly turned to day. The construct literally did not know what hit it. One moment it was gearing up to chew some mortals to ribbons, and then it was subsumed in flame.
When the Killcanoe drove through its cremains three seconds later, her tires kicked up a cloud of black ash and desert glass.
Junella shielded her eyes against the scorched particles and coughed.
Figuring she'd ask, Zinc hollered back, "Nice, huh? Squirts out an injection of pure Mr. Sunshine, straight from the engine! Best kept restricted to emergencies though. Anything that perturbs the core comes with a ten-to-thirteen-percent chance of accidental detonation."
The skunk wiped off her lips but could still taste cajun-fried dinosaur. "Don't tell me these things."
When they were close enough to the castle to see the rifle barrels pointed out the windows towards them, Zinc slowed the motor and turn-signaled for a parallel course. He winced. "I guess I'm gonna have to park her. Hate to. I know the constructs won't chew on her, but still, I hate to let her out of my si-"
A harpoon shot through the hood. Grappling hooks sunk their fangs into the metal.
The skunk and mutt both jumped.
"That solves the parking problem," Zinc deadpanned. He was very relieved that each end of the car was mostly hollow and used for storage. If the harpoon had hit the engine, well, it would have accomplished their goal of killing Sulilong. And everything else within the diameter of a nuke blast.
A hatch rose up on the side of the castle, revealing four unpleasant men with painlaunchers. The red tips of the weapons glowed like stove burners. All were pointed at Junella and Zinc.
A sheepdog encrusted with dreadlocks shouted out, "Congratulations, dumbasses! You just got yourself caught by the talons of Sulilong!"
Junella stood up in her seat and blasted back, "Who you callin' dumbass, dumbass!? Why the fuck d'you think we were heading straight atcha? To ask for jumper cables!?"
The sheepdog looked puzzled, and a bit crestfallen. The look of terror in captured travelers' eyes was half the fun. "You... wanna sign on?" he asked.
Junella sighed exaggeratedly. "Looky here, Zinc, this one's got more'n two brain cells. Yes, assface!!"
The sheepdog's weapon drooped. His colleagues giggled at him.
Cheeks burning with humiliation, he snarled and pointed the painlauncher right between the skunk's eyes. "GET YOUR FUCKING CARCASSES OVER HERE RIGHT NOW OR I'LL MAKE YOU CRY BLOOD, GODDAMMIT!!"
Junella tossed Zinc a 'Not a bad threat' look. She gestured for him to cut the motor. He nodded and did. She was quite glad that he'd already picked up on her wanting him to hang back while she did the trash-talking.
Another of Sulilong's crew pulled a lever and the hatch slid and flipped to become a ramp. It trailed a line behind it like a finger in the sand. Four glowing red dots urged the skunk and dog to hop onto it immediately.
The castle was always in motion, but it was a slow enough crawl that, even if they were to miss the jump and fall, a brisk walk would have been enough to catch up. Junella and Zinc both easily transferred from the Killcanoe to the castle. Even though he was supposed to be playing the dumb muscle, Zinc could not stop himself from looking back just long enough to blow his beloved vehicle a kiss.
The treads rattled beneath them like an ongoing earthquake. Junella stood on the pockmarked metal ramp and stared down all four thugs, as if she could brush off their painlaunchers like they were pea-shooters. In truth, she hoped her bluff would work. She had been shot with painlaunchers before. You went down, and screamed a lot the whole way there.
Zinc stood one pace behind her, trying to look monosyllabic. He let his wrenches drag on the ground like a gorilla.
A tortoise with a scarred shell and a look of almost-competence in his eye stepped towards them, keeping his weapon steady in both hands. "You are going to get down on your knees. You are going to put your hands behind your head. You are going to surrender all your weapons and valuables. They belong to us now."
Junella met his eyes and didn't blink. "No."
He discharged his painlauncher an inch away from her foot. The red beam ricocheted off the metal, up at the stars. "I guess you didn't hear me clear 'nuff."
"I heard you fine," Junella returned coolly. "I just don't agree to the terms. In fact, here's what's actually going to happen. You're gonna take us to your leader, Tex, before I get impatient and kill all four of ya."
The tortoise chuckled derisively. The others joined in.
A rat with a nose like a chewed-up salami oozed closer to Junella, smearing his eyes all over her curves. "I think that'll be difficult, doll. I think we might kill you first." He drew in a deep, grinning sniff. "I haven't changed my pants in four weeks. Maybe I'll see if I can pistol-whip you to death with my aromatic meat hose?"
Junella put a hand on her hip. "Or maybe I'll just grab it like a handle and sling you over my shoulder into the treads. Make me some rat jelly."
More chuckles. Some beginning to turn appreciative.
The tortoise considered for a moment. "Allright, girly, allright. You got me curious. I am interested to see what kind of masochistic idiot comes to us outta her own free will. What's the story with your dumbbell buddy there? He wants in too?"
Zinc just glared at him.
"We're a package deal. He follows me like a second tail. Mops up whatever I don't take care of first."
"Two new fish for the frying pan," the tortoise appraised. He made a show of lowering his painlauncher, while keeping his scaly finger on its trigger. "Listen up, shitheads. Here's how this goes down. Two of us in front of you, two of us behind you. We will take you to Sulilong. There's an audition process. Standard procedure. It oughtta be fun." He emphasized this last word with a sadistic leer. "If you talk, we will shoot you and throw you in a cell to rot. If you pull out a weapon, same outcome. If you do anything we don't like, or if we just fucking feel like it, same outcome. This is not the magical land of Oz. This is a machine that breaks souls. You have just volunteered to grease the cogs of a carnival made of shit and screams. I hope you-"
In a geyser of blood, his head suddenly receded into his intestines.
Stricken, the remaining three watched their comrade drop to his knees on the ramp with three solid feet of hinged steel growing out of the top of his cracked and splintered shell.
Zinc walked over and yanked his wrench out, trailing guts behind. He shoved it back onto his shoulder mount and met eyes with the rest of the thugs.
"That one talked too much."
Not even bothering to shake off the blood, Zinc looked to Junella and jerked his muzzle in a, 'let's get inside' kind of way.
She gave him an appreciative clap for his performance. Then surveyed the remaining henchmen to see if any of them still wanted to talk terms.
None said a word.
Junella strode through, leading the way. She gave her record-shard tail a flick towards each of them, warning against any funny business.
The rat and sheepdog let her pass. They followed behind with their painlaunchers dragging. Zinc kept his eye on the pair.
The tortoise's corpse finally slid off the ramp. Three hundred pounds of meat and shell thudded into the dust, to be left behind and eaten by scavenging constructs.
A moment later he popped back to life in a new body, lying flat on his back in his own bloodstains. The remaining henchman, a nutria, helped him to his feet.
He shook his head, then gnashed his beak. He snatched up his painlauncher that had fallen beside him. "I am gonna stick this so far up that bossy little bitch's ass..."
"I hear wedding bells," his companion kidded.
"Shut up!!"
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
The interior was much the same as they had seen on the screen in Conrad's apartment, only their viewpoint was higher now. The hallways were unadorned, claustrophobic grey concrete, with rough edges that scraped one's shoulders. Unshielded bulbs hung down every few feet, creating alternating patches of deep shadow and blinding brightness. Junella tried not to look like she was memorizing the path backwards in case of a hasty retreat.
Thwomping footsteps rushed towards them as the tortoise caught up. Junella braced herself, but was still knocked to the floor by the sudden blinding agony of a painlauncher's tip jammed right beneath her tail. The tortoise yelled something at her, but all her senses were overloaded.
Junella panted hard for a few breaths, then dragged herself up the wall to her feet. She turned to face the tortoise. Despite the stinging aftershocks echoing through her body, she was pleased to see how pouty-mouthed mad she'd gotten him. She wiped puke from her mouth with her arm. "You made me spill my drink."
He bellowed back, "I'll spill your goddamn intestines all over the floor!! You backsassin' uppity cunt!!"
Zinc glared broadswords at him. "I could kill you again."
In reply, the tortoise jabbed Zinc in the breadbasket with the red tip.
The canine didn't drop to the ground, but only because it had been a quicker dose. He was still left bug-eyed and gasping.
"Sure you could. That's why I won't let you. Now MOVE!!" The tortoise slapped Zinc across the muzzle with the launcher. Not giving him a second blast with it, yet.
Zinc and Junella wrapped their arms around each other to brace themselves, then wobbled the rest of the way down the hall.
"Soon as them painlaunchers came out, I knew I'd have to take at least one shot," she whispered. "Sorry you did too."
"They ain't cake 'n Christmas, is they?" Zinc acknowledged.
"That they ain't. But if it's comin' anyway, might as well run my mouth enough to earn it," she said, and smiled weakly.
Zinc laughed, then rubbed his sore tummy.
The glaring lights bit their eyes as they limped. Junella spat and spat to get the taste out of her mouth. She could hear the snorting breaths of the tortoise behind her. Maybe a swat with her tail could put him down, but he might have the reflexes to zap it first, and her shards might not even pierce his leathery hide. No, this was the time to keep her head down and not dig herself deeper.
The closer they got to the core of the palace, the louder the noise grew. The gut-churning thrum of a massive crowd, plus the same strange music they'd heard before. Twisting orange light filled the passageway ahead. Weapons at their backs, Zinc and Junella were pushed forward into it. Their footpaws went from pockmarked concrete to polished hardwood.
The ballroom was a riot of color and roars. This was nothing like the dreary industrial hallways they'd been mazing through. From an unrestricted vantage point, the skunk and mutt could now see just how huge and gaudy this place really was. The interior finally matched the exterior. Gold and bronze stripes reasserted themselves on the wallpaper, alongside floor-to-ceiling tapestries. The stained-glass ceiling made reflections glitter across the mob. The space was close to packed. Mostly rough, low men in tattered clothes. The music drove its hypnotic, pulsing bass into their bones. Every carnal activity one could imagine was on display. Many fursons were dancing in a blind, clustered frenzy. Their movements resembled fighting, or mating, or both. Others drank themselves into oblivion under ever-flowing faucets of foaming alcohol. The few females among the group were being pawed at and passed around. Some looked entirely into it, others like they couldn't have been more numb. But the most popular activity among the crowd was watching the bare-knuckle fights in the center of the room, underneath the largest chandelier. Watchers surged and screamed, waving their betting money. Two hunched combatants with fur so bloodstained their species was unguessable crashed against each other like butting rams until one of them ran out of life and flopped to the floor. Cheers erupted, imaginite changed hands, and the loser was dragged away and slung into a corner. The next challenger entered, pounding his fists, eager to continue the dance.
"My kinda party," Zinc had to admit.
"Too fuckin' noisy," Junella assessed.
The revelers conscious enough to recognize that two newcomers had been captured shouted in glee and started pelting them with things. Junella bore down on her gritted teeth and tried not to react. Plastic cups and shoes smacked into her noggin. Zinc managed to snatch a thrown beer bottle out of the air and take a few swigs of it before smashing it on the floor. This earned him approving cheers.
The sheepdog grabbed a random partygoer by his collar. "Get Sulilong. These two wanna say hello."
The rando looked uneasy, but saluted and scampered away.
Junella and Zinc were shepherded towards the room's center. Dancers and drunks stumbled against the skunk from all sides. The commingled odors of this place made her glad she'd already vomited. None of these people seemed to have discovered the magic of bathing.
When they reached the edge of the fistfight spectators, the tortoise's voice rasped from behind Junella's ear. "How about before the boss gets here, I just chuck you right in the middle of 'em and see what they all decide to do with you? Maybe you'd get lucky. Maybe they'd take one look at your feminine charms and decide they didn't feel like fightin' anymore."
She turned and narrowed her eyes at him. "I'd love an excuse to start slashing some throats."
He guffawed. "How many you reckon you could cut before the rest hitcha in an avalanche? Just imagine them all on top of you. Breathin' in your face... Grabbin' for a piece of the fun..."
She snorted. "Am I out of my mind, or is this projection? You tryna flirt with me?"
The nutria henchman stifled giggles.
The tortoise raised his painlauncher a fraction of an inch from Junella's nose. "I wouldn't fuck you if my dick was aflame and your slit was asbestos, you mouthy little-"
In a flash, Zinc's right wrench was clamped down on the painlauncher's barrel. He gave a twist and made the letter U.
The mutt stepped sideways between Junella and the tortoise, eyes ablaze with clear intent to murder. He'd been waiting for a moment of distraction and pounced on it when it came. He savored the look of total shock on his enemy's face. "Daddy-o, you'd better start diggin' your own grave."
The tortoise backed up and looked frantically towards his comrades. "Gimme another gun!!" he begged. But they held theirs close to their chests and shook their heads. From the uniformity of their reactions, an unspoken rule of Sulilong's crew was clear: if you start a fight yourself, be prepared to end it yourself.
While the reptile was looking in desperation to the others for aid, Zinc's other wrench darted forward to clamp around his beak like a big metal scarf. He 'MMMPH!!'ed in terror behind it.
Zinc slowly closed the jaws. A red line appeared around the edges.
"Now now," Junella said reproachfully. She sauntered out from behind the canine with her cutlass dumbfounded. "Didn't you learn in kindergarten that you have to share your toys?" She raised her blade and let it rest, light as a feather, between the tortoise's eyes.
He looked at it crosseyed. He was shuddering in his shell. "MMMMMMPH!!!"
Zinc closed his wrenches another inch. He heard a faint crack.
Junella began sawing.
"MMMMMMMMPPHHHH!!!"
The tortoise was spared an unspeakable death by the sudden jolting absence of music, and the sudden abundance of light.
Everyone blinked and looked around. The lighting had changed from a shifting, dizzying colorswirl to plain electric brightness. The room now looked like a hundred burglars caught by surprise in a fancy house.
The reason for the festivities' abrupt end became clear when Sulilong entered the room.
Now in an immaculately-tailored gunmetal grey suit, the qilin strode with an easy smile among his legion of followers. He waved to them with both hands, showing off his jointed iron palms and sparkling diamond cufflinks. His face's jade scales were polished to a mirror sheen. His horns were proud ship's masts. His mane and mustache looked like waterfalls of liquid gold. He beheld his crew with amusement, but not affection. Like a man passing a cabinet full of trinkets he owns.
They cheered for him, but the tone wasn't quite uniform. Some of the men were clearly in worship of this regal benefactor who blessed them with beds, booze, and food. Others, perhaps ones who had been on the poisoned end of his temper, smiled to keep up appearances. Yet their eyes showed the strain of a maltreated animal in captivity.
One would not have looked at Sulilong's body and guessed it artificial. The qilin stood at six feet five, but carried himself like twenty. A lithe fortress of compact might. Not tacky in showing it off, but projecting an aura of coiled, cultivated power. Secret service instead of bouncer. Olympic swimmer instead of bodybuilder. He walked like a politician.
Junella hadn't noticed it before, but at the back of the room was an actual for-real throne. 'Of course he'd have one,' she thought. With an ego like his, she was surprised there wasn't a giant painting of himself behind it. The massive pedestal was forged from what looked like four or five tons of sterling silver. Steps led up on either side, to a chair fit for royalty, eight feet off the floor. Sulilong ascended with unhurried grace. Still waving, still smiling. He sat with a muffled-but-audible 'clink' of metal meeting metal. Almost instantly, a lit cigar was placed between his fingers.
He brought it to his mouth and the whole room waited while he savored the first few puffs. Befitting a dragon, he exhaled two perfect smoke rings from his nostrils. "This'd better be important, boys. I was right in the middle of absolutely nothing."
The masses bellowed laughter. Junella could spot the toadies from how much they were overselling it.
Sulilong drew in a long breath, burning the cigar halfway to ashes. Then he flicked the butt into the crowd, heedless of who it hit. "So whazziss? I heard we got a few new friends or something?"
The deathmatch spectators were already formed into a circle. Now they parted to let Junella and Zinc get shoved into the bullseye. The combatants left in opposite directions. The most recent challenger had barely gotten blood under his claws. He stormed off, unsatisfied. The battle-scarred defender slunk away in relief, to find a secluded place where he could die quietly from his injuries.
The skunk and mutt were now the focus of everyone's attention. From the way the whole crowd hummed with anticipation, they'd seen this play out many times before. Zinc tried to look like he couldn't give a tin shit about any of it. Junella straightened her back, squared her shoulders, and drew on her own inner fire. 'You could take on everyone here if you had to,' she told herself. 'What's it matter there's a lot of them? Bunch of lowlife lopsided rummies. Half of 'em'd probly fall down before they even got to you. You own this room. You are the most dangerous thing in it. You are Junella Fucking Brox, and don't you dare forget it for a second.'
Sulilong scanned the new meat. Hands on armrests, he inclined forward and wordlessly picked apart every microscopic detail of the pair.
The room was so quiet you could hear the rustle of fabric from individual fidgeters in the crowd.
Junella's vinyl paw squeezed her cutlass' handle rhythmically. Its familiarity was calming.
Inwardly, Zinc was shitting bricks. Calculating if there was any possibility of them getting out of this alive. But he was a better actor than most would assume. One develops an impenetrable mask when one is reduced to doing almost anything for survival. Years of practice keeping his mouth shut and his feelings behind glass.
Sulilong drew a dark grey hand across his mouth, the metal plinking softly against the scales.
Junella took a step forward. "If you're gonna-"
The qilin's palm came up immediately: a clear gesture of 'halt'. He lowered his head and closed his eyes in annoyance at the interruption.
Junella buttoned her lip. This was an audition, after all. She'd have to pass it in order to get close enough to carve this smug slug's face off.
His head popped back up. "You know what? Let's not even do this right now. Shelve it. Put it aside for the moment. I've got a much better idea. Something entertaining. Plus, it'll give these two bright-eyed young scalawags a sample of what they've stepped into." He looked for agreement from the crowd. "That sounds like fun? Yeah?"
Even without knowing what the hell the boss was planning, the majority of the crew all nodded and agreed.
The two closest fursons to the throne were a badger in nought but leather underwear, and a bat wearing goggles and a grenade launcher. The badger seemed more lucid. Sulilong beckoned. "C'mere."
The badger scampered up the silver steps. "Yeah?"
"That nice young couple we picked up yesterday morning. Normally I'd have them marinate in their cells a while longer, but I think it might be instructive to bring them out now. What do you think?"
As if he was dumb enough to disagree. "Sounds fine! I'll run go tell the warden."
Sulilong appreciated proactive employees. "Exactly what I was about to ask. Go."
The badger looked relieved and delighted to have gotten a smile out of the boss. He zoomed out of sight in a blink.
Sulilong turned back to the pair center stage. His tone was relaxed but he projected his voice quite easily across the span of the room. "Okay. I want your names and your reasons for wanting to be here. Nothing else. No bragging, no begging. None of that horseshit. Straight and to the point. You're on."
Since Junella already had one foot forward, she spoke first. "Junella Brox. And here ya go." She raised her other hand and dumbfounded her Certificate Of Access.
The crowd went fucknuts. Junella's action was the equivalent of a vice cop flashing their badge in the middle of a speakeasy. Angry shouts raised the roof and all manner of weaponry was suddenly pointed at her.
Zinc tried to keep his eyes from bulging right out of their wire frames. Or from shouting at his partner, 'What the fuck are you THINKING!?'
Junella glanced side to side, noting everyone's reaction, and smirked.
Sulilong stood up and made a 'simmer down' gesture with his hands. "Hey, hey, HEY! Ease up! Let's allow the lady the benefit of the doubt. Give her a chance to explain the unfathomably stupid thing she just did."
It was impressive how easily he morphed the room's mood from outrage to humor. A chuckle rippled across them and their weapons were lowered.
Sulilong sat back down. "So, miss, what's the deal? Are you planning on arresting the whole bunch of us?"
Another collective chuckle.
"Not hardly." Junella tossed the end of her white scarf over her shoulder. "See, Tessie got your note. And she put out a casting call for someone to deal with the situation. I applied. She told me about the hole in the wall your mooks made. Or tried to make," she emphasized, getting some 'Ooooh's in response. She then dropped the COA to the floor and stamped on it like a cigarette. "She gave me an assignment to come out and smack your hand for being naughty. But see, I like to be on the winning side." She looked up and met Sulilong's eyes directly, her own gleaming with greed. "You made an impact. Pun intended. I figgered I'd better get in position to catch some of that imaginite myself when the piggybank breaks."
An appreciative smile grew across Sulilong's muzzle. One shared by many of his men. "Bold," he complimented. "And smart. And a little bit treacherous, so I'll have to keep an eye on you. But so far I like what I see. Next!" He turned his attention to Zinc. "You. What's your story? Or can the cavedog form words?"
Zinc maintained an expression of dumb, glaring disrespect. Exactly the right amount of surliness. Neither a bootlicking wannabe or too independent of spirit. Someone who'd grunt if given orders, but follow them.
Inside however, there was a vibrating string tugging his gut. He was 95% sure his partner had mixed a bit of the truth with a lie in order to pass the sniff test. But there was still that stinger of doubt. She wasn't really turning her back on her assignment, was she? And if she was, did she plan to just leave him in the lurch while she switched sides?
He forced his unease to keep silent. The mask had to stay up no matter what. He took a loping step towards Sulilong and sneered at him. "The name's Zinc. Nothin' else." He jerked his muzzle towards Junella. "And I go where she goes."
He stepped back.
Sulilong's golden eyebrows raised. "That's it? A man of few words. Good enough. You certainly followed my directions. "
Now that the boss had shown approval towards these newcomers, so too did the crowd. There were restrained shouts of goodwill towards the duo. Not at full volume; they knew full well that plenty of other rookies hadn't gotten far past the first hurdle. Failures either ended up on the absolute bottom of the hierarchy, scrubbing cooking pots and toilets, or deep below the cold, choking sand of the desert.
"I got a question," Zinc suddenly snarled.
Irritation flickered briefly across Sulilong's expression. A slight purse of the lips. "Oh you do?"
Junella risked a brief glance of 'What're you up to?' at the canine.
He didn't acknowledge her. Just kept staring at Sulilong.
"What would you like to ask, little puppy? Something about your wages here? Health benefits? Wanna know how many people I've killed? Wanna know if those wrenches of yours are stronger than these hands of mine?" He flexed his fingers with a soft creak.
Zinc was slightly rattled, as he actually had been wondering that. But his facade didn't slip. "Nah. I don't give a rip about any of that. I just wanna know if any you fuckers got bloodbacon. I ain't eaten in a while."
Sulilong was taken aback. He'd expected a challenge, not such a banal request. "Allright then. Someone toss that man a snack."
Amused by Zinc's sheer balls, quite a few of the henchmen pulled out wrapped bars of bloodbacon from their pockets, or dumbfounded them. They were tossed at Zinc's feet and he picked out the least-diseased looking one. Not giving even a nod of thanks, he tore into it.
Junella silently chuckled. 'You're on your way to that Oscar, mutt.'
Zinc had just enough time to finish his salty treat before his ears pricked up at scuffling coming towards them. From the doorway to the right of the throne, two mice emerged dragging their feet. They were ushered along by two absolutely gigantic slabs of hooded sadism. The mice thrashed and fought and kicked, but they were both clearly low on energy. Their struggles couldn't have done much even if their captors hadn't looked like stone golems come to life. The crowd parted to allow them through, laughing cruelly at what they'd soon face.
Junella could tell a lot about the mice from just a quick look. They were clearly a long-term couple, judging by the way they ignored almost everything else in the room but each other's eyes. They strained against the tree-trunk arms restraining them, pulling towards one another. And they were the same species too. Given Phobiopolis' penchant for kooky unplanned shapeshifting, she doubted they'd started out that way. There were places you could go to and get your appearance altered intentionally. It was a fairly common tradition for lovers to choose a resemblance. This guess was further strengthened by their fur being similarly dyed: his being sky blue, hers more sea green.
Also, they both looked malnourished, dirty, and desperate. Junella had caught a glimpse of the jail cells earlier. It didn't take a genius to put two pieces together. 'Must've been even worse than they looked, to do this to them in barely more'n a day.'
That thought chilled her. 'He caught them yesterday morning. While I was in the library, reading articles on this monster, he was busy kidnapping and torturing these nice people. Jesus...'
Zinc coughed.
Junella realized her own mask had been faltering. She tried to wipe all traces of sympathy from her face and sneer at the mice like everyone else.
They were brought into the ring. The two gargoyles grunted at Junella and Zinc to back up or get stomped flat.
The duo wisely did.
Sulilong flicked his hand at the two jailers and they let go of their prisoners. The mice immediately ran to one another and embraced. They babbled and cried and caressed one another, blind to all else.
'He kept them in separate cells,' Junella realized. Her sympathy began to boil into rage.
"Quiet down, quiet down," Sulilong said. "Let 'em have a moment. You folks might've already been informed by now, but you're about to make a choice. Same choice I extend to-"
The male mouse suddenly whipped around and screamed at Sulilong with tears in his eyes, "You BASTARD!!! I went through HELL!! Just one night was like a year in there! We already gave you everything we had! You already took EVERYTHING!! What more could you possibly want from us!?"
Sulilong's face did not change expression, but murderous indignation flashed red in his eyes. He replied, stiffly, "If you would just let me finish telling you..."
The female mouse was sobbing so hard she was choking on her breath. Clutching at her lover's shirt like she couldn't let go.
Sulilong steepled his fingers, sitting far back in his chair. "I am about to offer you two options. Two. Understand that. Not three or four or five, or any number other than two. You will listen. You will choose one of these options. There are absolutely no other avenues open to you, you impatient little mealworm. I want you to understand that completely."
Wrapping arms around his lover, the male mouse stared back defiantly into the face of evil.
The qilin held up a finger. "Number one: you join my crew. You will do what you are assigned and you will not complain. If you are obedient, you will share in the spoils of our victories. It can be a very rewarding life, let me tell you. You can have just about anything your heart could ever dream of wanting. Just so long as you understand that I will always get first pick of whatever we take." A greasy chuckle. "Heck, you might even earn back what we stole from you."
A rustle of laughter from the crowd.
The male mouse tried to stop himself from asking, knowing he was stepping into a trap. But he couldn't hold back the words. "...And the other choice?"
Sulilong leaned forward completely, so that he resembled a buzzard looming over a soon-to-be-carcass. "We dig a big hole and we put you in it. Then we bury you alive. And no one ever sees you again. The end."
The mouse's eyes went wide. He shuddered with his entire body.
His companion held herself tighter to him, as if his shirt was a bedsheet she could hide herself under to escape from the monsters.
"Choose. Now."
Driven back by the sheer cold-blooded callousness in those eyes, the male mouse's jaw juddered up and down as he tried to form words.
"Choose," Sulilong said again. "NOW."
"W-we'll NEVER join you!" the mouse shouted back. "You're sick! Heartless! You make me wish this was Hell so at least I could watch you burn! Bury us! Fine! We'll NEVER work for you! NEVER!!"
A barely-perceptible shrug of the qilin's shoulders, as if he couldn't have cared less either way.
The mouse turned his attention back to his beloved and whispered soothing words in her ear.
"Allright," Sulilong continued after a long pause, "but... what does she choose?"
The male mouse gave his treasure a fierce kiss between the ears. "Don't even talk to her. Of course she'll stay with me. How dare you even ask, you-"
With shaking arms, the female mouse reached up and pushed herself away from him.
He could not have looked more shocked. His body went rigid with disbelief. He stared at the space between them as if it was an impossibility.
She very deliberately stepped back, distancing herself.
"W-why...?" he asked.
Her eyes told the story. Rimmed crimson from endless crying. One could see that they weren't focused on anything in the room. She retreating back into herself, far away from her current reality. "I... can't. I can't. I'm... sorry. I can't... Buried. No. I can't. The sand... Buried... I c-can't. I can't." She started shaking her head. "I can't. Buried alive! No! I can't! I CAN'T!" Whipping her head back and forth, she retreated further and further away from him. Her words descended into gurgles. Her phobia consumed her.
The male mouse stood alone and destroyed, watching their time together end right in front of him.
"So you choose to stay?" Sulilong asked the female mouse, as casually as one might ask a colleague what they were planning to eat for lunch.
Her head drifted vaguely towards the question. Moments away from a full break with sanity, she nodded.
"Allright then." Sulilong turned back to the male mouse and gave him an exaggerated frown. "Sorry, Jack. Tough luck."
Junella watched as a delegation of women came forward to draw the quaking mousette towards them, tutting and patting her arms consolingly. A single glance at their weary eyes let her know exactly what services her new duty would consist of. And for a moment, pure horror exploded in her glassy gaze. One could see the question float through her mind: Was staying the worse choice?
And then it was gone. Her eyes turned as blank as two helium balloons, floating lifelessly in their sockets.
As the other women pulled her closer to them, it was like watching a venus flytrap close.
"I'LL KILL YOU!!!" came a sudden helpless screech.
The male mouse was making no move to rush forward and realize his threat. He was stuck to the spot. Rooted in place and shaking. Tears cascading down his face.
"YOU DEMON FROM HELL! I'LL KILL YOU, I'LL KILL YOU! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO DO THIS TO US! YOU'RE EVIL! I'LL RIP YOUR HEART OUT FOR WHAT YOU'VE DONE!!"
Sulilong winced at the man's volume. He held up his hands. "Could you- Could you not do that? Stop it. Come on. Cut it out."
The mouse stamped his feet on the glossy ballroom floor. "BARBARIAN! COWARD! MURDERER! YOU DESERVE TO BURN FOREVER!!"
"You really need to just stop that. I'm telling you, for your own good-"
"I'LL KILL YOU! YOU CAN'T TAKE HER AWAY FROM ME! YOU DID THIS TO HER! YOU! SHE'S MINE, AND WE'LL BE TOGETHER!"
"Shut up."
"AND NOTHING CAN STOP US!"
"I said shut up. Please. Shut the hell up. No one wants this."
Snot was running from the mouse's face as he stomped his foot up and down, up and down, like an oil derrick. "WE'LL WIN! TOGETHER! YOU'LL SEE, YOU COWARD! YOU MONSTER! YOU'RE EVIL! I'LL BREAK EVERY BONE IN YOUR BODY! SHE'S MINE!"
Sulilong looked physically pained. Not from the volume, but from having someone refuse to obey what he viewed as a perfectly reasonable request. He looked away from the noisy mouse to his followers. "Foam," he called out. "FOAM!"
The male mouse was in midsentence when the jailers both rushed over to grab his arms and restrain him. From out of the crowd, several goons drew weapons that looked like caulking guns. Which is pretty much what they were. They sprayed brown streams into the mouse's mouth, quickly filling it with fast-expanding plumber's foam. His jaw was forced excruciatingly wide as the substance within it became brick-hard in seconds.
One could tell by the strain and panic in his eyes he was still screaming, but not a single decibel made it out.
Sulilong visibly relaxed. He took a deep breath and let it out. "Ahhhh... Annoyance over." He made a 'whisking away' gesture. "Get rid of him. Do it now. Bury him extra deep, and throw some rocks at his head while you're digging. Stupid asshole."
As her lover was dragged away, thrashing and kicking so hard it was a wonder he didn't break both his arms, the female mouse's expression did not change. She had retreated into shock. She would not come back to this reality again if she had any choice in the matter.
Junella watched too. And as she contemplated the impending fate of the male mouse, and the unfathomable cruelty she'd just witnessed, she was very glad for the second time that she had already vomited.
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
Sulilong's head rotated to follow as the mouse was led away. He gave him a little 'bye-bye' wave. Then in a blink, his attention shifted directly to Junella. "Wake up, skunk. I was kind enough to put on a show for you."
She flinched, then snapped to attention.
"I gifted you a sample of what you came here to join. And their choice is yours now. Did you want to change your mind? Plenty of dirt out in the desert if you do." His eyes flashed fire and he ground out his next words like striking flint. "And whatever the hell you reply, have the goddamned fucking decency to keep your voice down, okay!?"
Junella felt all of her confidence drain out of her body in a puddle around her feet. How could she say anything back to this appalling monstrosity of a man? Anything other than, 'Fuck off and die'?
Unbidden, Zinc took a step forward.
He scratched at his cheekfur. "Was all that mess sposto get a reaction outta me? Seriously? They were a coupla losers dumb enough to get themselves caught. What else'm I supposed to say?"
Junella gawked at him. She kept her posture straight, but her eyes said, 'Jesus CHRIST, that was cold!!'
He flashed the absolute tiniest expression back of, 'Well, you told me to be merciless.'
And he was right. There was a greater good at stake here. Once they were in Sulilong's graces, she would be close enough to jam her cutlass straight up his winking asshole and make him sing.
She shook her head and chuckled, looking up towards the throne. "I'm a bit of a softie. I admit, that shook me up a little. But the mutt's dead on. You gave 'em a choice. It's not your fault they fucked it up."
That was exactly what he wanted to hear, and he appreciated that. "Good. See? I'm glad someone finally understands me on this." He began to clap and, after a startled beat, the rest of the crowd joined in the applause.
Junella hated all of them. Viciously and infinitely. She hated herself too for how easily the words had come, and for smiling now like she'd just won a prize.
Scaring the piss out of everyone, Sulilong suddenly stamped both his hooves against the floor of the silver pedestal. "SO! I don't like wasting time. If you want in, there's a simple test of skill first. I want to see you play with my bodyguard. He's very good." The qilin leaned down and sing-songed to the space below him, "Oh Nollacero?"
Any remaining sympathy for the doomed mice died out at the sound of that name. Drinks were raised high and the crowd chanted loud enough to shake the ceiling, "NOLLACERO! NOLLACERO! NOLLACERO!"
Junella braced herself. This was it. She'd been certain that getting in wouldn't be as simple as asking 'please'. The fact that she was standing in the spot where the crowd had been holding deathmatches all night should have clued her in already. She took the blade of her cutlass into her other hand to wipe the sweat off its handle with her scarf.
She scanned the faces in front of the throne. Which one was her target? She'd thought maybe it was the bat with the goggles. He did have a rocket launcher after all. But none of the scruffy miscreants around Sulilong's chair looked like they were even worth a bullet.
And then the silver pedestal itself cracked open. It discharged a cloud of vapor like a deep freeze unit.
The crowd's cheering rattled the chandeliers as the entire front panel hinged outward. A gush of chill air escaped, so intensely cold that Junella caught a shiver from a hundred feet away. Underlings scampered, rubbing their arms and chattering their teeth.
And then, walking without sound, Nollacero emerged.
Junella tilted her head. This was the guy?
He was a small arctic hare. White from head to toe, except for a few black marks on his eartips and tail. Vapor curled off of him like dragon's smoke. His ears were stubby, his muzzle pinched and flat. He wore a simple dark shirt and trousers. His stride was calm; each footstep perfectly spaced from the last. From his gaunt, rigid musculature, he gave the impression of a cultist fanatically devoted to training and fasting.
He didn't look like much. But Junella knew she'd be stupid to underestimate him, just from the raucous volume of the crowd. They cheered him like an unbeaten champion.
And yet, as they screamed for him and reverently parted to make a path, he never spared a glance towards any of them. From the moment the door had opened, Nollacero's eyes had been fixed unblinkingly onto Junella's.
Sulilong's voice cut through the noise like a tripwire. "Here are the rules. Skunkie, you're up first. My boy here's going to try to kill you. See what you can do about that. Impress me. Your chatterbox pal can go next, after we drag your body out of the way."
The crowd burbled giggles. Junella didn't even look up at the qilin's leering eyes. Instead she raised her sword and kissed it. "One more," she whispered. "You've slain thousands. This ain't nuttin' but one more sucker."
But Zinc heard a tremor in her voice. She wasn't feeling her words. He gave her a nudge with his wrench. When she turned, he saw the uncertainty on her face. "Come on. Are you scared of this pencilneck? Look at him! If you can't wipe the floor with him, I'll gargle gasoline."
She'd nearly forgotten she had an ally at her side. The mutt still had his goon face on, but his eyes were clear and serious. He wasn't just talking her up. He believed in what he'd said. And while her eyes replied with a sincere 'thank you', she forced herself to point her sword at him and say, "If you're implying I'm having any doubt, I'll make you gargle that gas!"
A grim little smile. Zinc stepped backwards to meet the edge of the crowd, letting her have the floor.
Junella tipped him a last nod before returning her attention to the battle ahead. Seeing his confidence in her helped. A lot, honestly.
Nollacero continued towards his latest adversary like a straight line drawn in white ink. His expression was neither friendly nor hostile, yet neither was it blank. His gaze penetrated like an icicle. She was a puzzle he was coming to solve. A task he intended to finish.
A few mooks were pushing the pedestal door shut again. As they did, Junella caught a peek at a ramp leading down from the opening into a small frost-covered apartment. She had to admit, directly underfoot was a good place to stick your bodyguard.
Sulilong got himself comfy in his seat. Honestly, this was one of his favorite parts of the whole criminal enterprise. Winding up his favorite toy to watch him go.
Junella rolled her neck and stretched her shoulders. She swayed side-to-side to loosen her hips. Her foe had crossed the invisible circle into the arena. "So what's your deal?" she called out. "You spend all day meditating in a meat locker?"
His pace never altered. His eyes never looked away from hers. But a small, courtly smile came to his face. "Yes, actually, I do. You're very observant, which is commendable."
She couldn't place his accent, though it felt like it was from someplace cold. Even with the silver door closed, the hare seemed to emanate winter, draining and eliminating any warmth in the room. Maybe it was just his creepy stare and how he never wasted a movement.
For the first time, Junella saw he was carrying something small in his hand. It looked like a TV remote. She cocked her head at it.
"Good. You noticed." He smiled. He held the object up. It was a sword hilt. A black rectangular grip with no wrist guard. And no blade.
A murmur spread over the room. Out of an enormous assemblage of people, nearly all of them were focused on the nondescript little object in the arctic hare's hand.
Junella felt uneasiness roll through her guts. A broken sword should not have scared her. But the reaction from the crowd was like he'd just pulled out a holy relic. She tried to laugh dismissively, but it came out with a quaver. "You, uh, look like you're missing something there."
He ignored her words completely, replying immediately with, "What do you believe in?"
She was taken aback. Why was this scrawny little nobunny giving her the shakes? And why wouldn't he stop STARING at her like that!? Her fingers managed to find her grooves. "I believe in a lotta stuff. Gettin' paid. Not taking any lip. My sword."
His eyes sparkled with delight. "I'm so glad you said that. Because I believe in mine as well."
He flashed his arm out, like a fisherman casting a line, and Junella felt her nosepad and cheek split open.
The crowd burst out laughing at seeing her jump.
Her free hand shot to her face. Blood! Not a lot, but enough of her black oily essence to drip down her palm. And he'd cut her so cleanly there wasn't even any pain!
Zinc made a move to rush forward and help her. Arms as thick as anchor chains wrapped around his chest and mouth.
Nollacero did not seem to blink. His eyes were welded to his prey's. He began again to say the words he dearly loved, because it let his opponents know what they'd be facing. His matches were over far too quickly to offer any challenge otherwise. "Do you believe in your blade as much as mine? A blade that isn't there? Do you believe enough to stand with your feet in ice for days upon days, until the weeks stretch into years, swinging hundreds of times every hour at the same wooden plank? Doing so until your limbs turn black with frostbite? Until you fall dead to the ground, your only rest for the day? Do you believe enough to persist in your madness until one day, one day, you finally see a scratch appear on the bark? And from that point on, you no longer need to believe, because you know?"
Junella had been holding her nose until the vinyl sealed back up. It was a small cut; it didn't take long. She whipped the blood from her fingers, making dots on the floor. "Mister, you are crazy."
The hare did not reply to that. But his smile seemed to eagerly agree. "This fight will not last ten seconds."
Junella growled and dropped into an offensive stance. She held her sword at shoulder-height, readying for a full-on assault. Nothing would have made her happier than ending this in one rib-cracking thrust. She wouldn't even get her gun out for this. She'd beat the Cheshire sonofabitch at his own game. "Y'know, I love a polite enemy. Wanna know why?"
"Why?" he asked, savoring the game before the game.
"It's fun to watch 'em get mad when I fight dirty!!" Her other hand flew to the grip of her weapon and she charged. Her feet thudded hollowly against the hardwood. The goddamn snowbunny didn't even flinch as she ran like a steam train straight at him. Just kept drilling his eyes into hers like an owl.
She roared in perfect silence and jumped, aiming for an overhand strike that would split his head in half. But it was actually a beautiful feint. Her tail whipped sideways and she pirouetted midair to slash at the rabbit's legs.
Nollacero's hand moved.
Then Junella was crashing to the ballroom floor, sending strobelight flashes of pain through her shoulder. The two neatly-sliced halves of her cutlass clattered down a moment later.
Rage flooded her soul. She wriggled upright to face her enemy. He was still standing in the same damn spot, as if nothing had even happened. The sight of her sundered blade was impossible.
"Get up now," Nollacero said, "or I'll put this through your heart." He held up the empty hilt. Then he made sure she could see as he ran his finger along absolutely nothing, and it was cut.
Growling, Junella somersaulted to her feet. She whipcracked her arm out and dumbfounded a new sword. The halves on the floor remained, but would disappear shortly once no one was paying attention to them. "Thanks, dummy."
He blinked. "For what?"
This time she didn't finish the quip. 'For letting me know you bleed,' she said in her mind. She ran at him again, but this time threw her sword at his face, then ducked into a sliding splits. A third sword appeared and she swung at his ankles.
She popped back up into a defensive squat. She hadn't hit him, but she'd made him jump out of the way. A first step, at least.
The hare looked disgusted with himself. He rotated his hilt, loosening his wrist, and strode towards her with a narrowed glare.
It was Junella's turn to smile. 'Got him mad already.'
'She thinks my emotion is real,' he mused, almost disappointed in her gullibility.
The crowd roared for blood as Nollacero lunged. Junella flung herself out of the way, but still felt a thin line trace across her back. She scrambled away on a diagonal. The circle of slovenly underlings gave her only a few hundred square feet of space to make use of. For now she wanted as much of it between her and the hare as possible. Distance meant time to think and plan.
Of course that was a ludicrous hope. The sonofabitch had an invisible blade. No, worse than that. It was a blade that didn't exist. If what'd he'd said was true, what he was actually wielding was his own manifested willpower. That shouldn't have been possible. All of Phobiopolis ran on will, yet it always needed something to ground its power. Imaginite. A wand. A willwell. Even if the rabbit had been flicking his hilt around for a century or so, how the fuck was he cutting her with nothing? And how the fuck was she supposed to dodge something she couldn't see coming!?
'There's gotta be a trick to it,' she told herself.
But he saw what she was thinking. It was easy. So many others had shown him the same screwed-tight mouth, the squinting eyes, trying to convince themselves that he hadn't told them the plain and simple truth. Nollacero walked towards her briskly. She scuttled backwards, keeping pace. He only had eyes for her.
He held out his hilt and waved his other hand around and over it. "There is no blade attached, but there is also no blade anywhere else. Why should it matter where the blade is or isn't? What makes the handle so important? Or rather, what makes the air above the handle any more useful than the air anywhere else?"
Having persuaded her into a pattern, he circumvented it. While Junella continued retreating counterclockwise, he lunged towards the space he knew she'd evade to and drew his sword across it in a vicious slash. The skunk was just quick enough to drop to the floor and avoid losing an arm, but the mooks standing directly behind her weren't so lucky. They became a barbershop quartet of red waterfalls.
Junella barrel-rolled out of the way of their falling, gagging bodies and sprung upright again.
Nollacero caught her gaze. "Because I choose for it to be. And it obeys."
Her breath was ragged already. She could feel panic crawling up her back, and did her best to rip it off and stomp on it. Hot anger would get her killed right away. She needed to burn cold now. Colder than this googly-eyed sideshow freak. Staring right back at him, she shouted behind her, "Hey Sulilong!! I'mma guess the rules say that whoever dies first, loses?"
"That's about the gist of it, yeah," the qilin called back.
"Just checkin'." She shot towards Nollacero like a fired cannonball. She swung with all her strength, but didn't really intend to hit. Her focus was on dodging. She watched his arm swoop low like a clock pendulum. Her tail counterbalanced her out of the way, but she still felt a nick along her leg.
'Good, good. Teach me, you tightass.'
So began a blindingly-quick dance between the two of them. Nollacero was skilled beyond compare, but Junella's strength lay in her quickness, her adaptability, and her drive to prove herself superior whatever the cost. Now she ducked, squiggled, darted, hopped, and zoomed. She was accumulating quite a lot of cuts, some of them pretty nasty, but that was all part of the plan. She would take him at his word, granting that the bladeless blade was real. So if he was making it exist through sheer belief, that meant he'd have to keep a solid image of it in mind. That meant the blade couldn't stretch and squash willy-nilly. It had to have a consistent shape. And with each one of his attacks that hit or missed, she was getting a feel for that shape.
It did not take long for Nollacero to figure out her angle. It wasn't as if no one had ever tried this strategy before. And it fit her well. The skunk's plastic skin seemed particularly resilient. It healed almost as quickly as melting wax. So she could afford to take small hits. He let her continue taking measurements until the point he was sure she'd be distracted by her thoughts. His sword arm thrust towards her right lung.
She wasn't distracted at all. She aimed for the sword that wasn't there and parried.
Or tried to. Her cutlass sailed through empty space, and it was only her total surprise and subsequent clumsy pratfall that saved her from choking to death on her own blood.
She smacked into the ground and was quick enough to turn it into a bounce. By inches, she dodged the spot where Nollacero drove his blade six inches straight into the hardwood.
On all fours, she skittered to a safe distance. 'Dammit, that should've worked! If it's there, why couldn't I hit it!?'
Automatically, he turned his head towards her. He effortlessly pulled the hilt up and out of the hole he'd left in the floor. "Of course you can't block it! There's no sword there, you silly thing!" He laughed a single bell note.
This time she stayed put. She kept both hands on her hilt and let him come to her. The slashes on her arms and sides hissed with pain. Not life-threatening, but they were annoyances. Focus-stealers. She clutched the leather grip harder and readied her stance as he came at her again.
He saw, within the small few seconds it took to cross the circle, that she didn't plan to swing. Her eyes showed something else in mind. He was interested to find out what it was. He raised his blade to kill her.
Junella had not chosen her spot blindly. She'd made a quick scan of the crowd, locating the skinniest guy in sight. Someone light enough that she could suddenly drop her sword, turn, and hurl him by his shirt and jeans straight into the arctic hare's path.
It takes much more time to shove a body than it does to swing a sword. Nollacero recalculated his attack with ease when he saw the hapless man toppling towards him. His run became a slide. He limboed backwards. His blade passed through meat and bone with as little resistance as a soundwave. It cut through the distraction, then it opened Junella's abdomen in a foot-long slice.
As before, Junella felt no pain. Only a sensation like a bowling ball landing with a thud in her guts. Probably because they were now on display.
The goon had only time enough to realize he was flying sideways, then he split into halves from shoulder to groin.
Nollacero swung again, and it was reflex alone that saved Junella from having her throat slashed too. She created another sword and flung it clumsily towards him. As in drunken boxing, the move was so uncoordinated, Nollacero was unprepared. Junella stumbled away, crashing against the crowd who shoved her back forward like a pinball bumper.
Nollacero touched the place where her flying sword had torn open his shirt, leaving a triangular gash along his pectoral. He sighed in mild frustration. It was more of a victory to end a fight unscathed. But it was a rare opponent who could manage to tag him. He had to respect her for that. And this match had already lasted much longer than he'd predicted. Of course, it was not going to last much longer now.
Junella's belly had a gaping smile. Inky blood came sloshing out like an overfull rain gutter. She clutched an arm over the wound, trying in vain to keep it closed. The total lack of pain was surreal. She was probably moments from dying and it hadn't even stung.
The hare's gaze, as always, was locked onto hers with steel precision. He began to walk towards her. Not even a run, just a lazy stroll.
Her teeth gritted. Somehow his lack of urgency was what put her over the top. The very idea that someone could look at Junella Fucking Brox like she was harmless. Like no threat at all. Her inner fire turned sapphire blue.
'You're dying, you fucking idiot. No way this is gonna heal up. And you ain't got no bigass Band-Aids. You've only got seconds left to live, so use them. I don't care how, but you are going to figure out a way to take this joker down with you. Because no matter how much better he is with a sword, no one is better than you at sheer blackhearted meanness.'
For a heartbeat she considered whipping out her revolver and putting bullets into him until his corpse stopped twitching. And she certainly could have. No matter how fast this bunny could hop, a bullet was always faster. But this was a contest of swords. Her gun would mean a forfeit. No way in hell.
He was raising his arm to swing. Without a plan yet, her only option now was to go on one-hundred-percent defense. She glanced around at where she was in relation to the crowd. She hurled herself backwards, well out of Nollacero's reach. When her feet hit the ground, her wound hiccuped what felt like a gallon of blood.
She could taste it in her mouth. 'Clock's ticking.'
The hare swung. The skunk jumped. The hare swung again. The skunk jumped again.
Nollacero showed a very brief frown. "This is undignified. Are you only going to leap about like a frog and wait out the clock?"
Both hands were busy holding her sword and holding her stomach, so she tossed back a shrug that said, 'Hey, why not?'
Glaring daggers, he came at her again.
She nearly lost her life as he jabbed four times in quick succession, but even in the midst of finally realizing his weakness, she was fleet enough to weave around his strikes. She could almost see his blade now. But that wasn't the really important thing. She tried with all her might to keep the smile off her face.
Junella flung her sword again. Utterly without grace, it wobbled through the air like a wounded goose and the flat edge whanged against the hare's blocking arms. He never took his eyes off hers except to blink. His expression very clearly said, 'Stop that.'
With a hand now free, she scratched along her side to ask, "Just outta curiosity, what would happen if I swung that hilt instead of you?" Her voice was slightly slurred. With as much ink as she'd lost already, she could feel her fine motor control starting to lag.
Nollacero returned a look that let her know what an embarrassingly stupid question that was. "Nothing. Obviously. Because you don't believe."
She nodded slowly. "Allright." She tucked her hand behind her back. When she brought it out again, it was holding a rectangular black hilt. The hand holding her stomach reached down to her thigh to add, "Wanna bet?"
(A few of the more eagle-eyed minions standing behind Junella saw what she had done. She had not abracadabra'd the hilt out of nowhere, but rather, dumbfounded a chunk of imagine from her 'pocket' and willed it into the shape of Nollacero's weapon in the space of seconds. A pretty nice trick, and a fine display of her own considerable will.)
However, Nollacero not only didn't take the bait, he was disgusted at even being shown it. "You're embarrassing yourself to think that will work. It took me more years of practice than you've likely been alive."
She kept her face slack, letting the strain of merely staying upright show itself. She tried her best not to telegraph the move as she held his gaze a moment longer, then chucked the fake hilt at his hand.
When a furson has something thrown at them, is an ingrained reflex that they will either try to duck it or catch it. Nollacero had been certain his opponent was getting lightheaded from blood loss and would actually attempt to turn his own technique against him. And in a way, she did. He was surprised enough at her throw that his hand reacted on instinct, tried to catch the second hilt, and fumbled both of them.
Junella giggled to see his befuddlement transform into total exasperation as he dropped to the floor and started feeling around for his weapon. Some of the crew even shared her laugh. But what the skunk was really the most pleased to see was that he groped for his weapon by touch alone. At no point did his eyes leave hers.
Nollacero stood up stiffly. He dragged in a deep breath, let it out, and tried to steady himself. "That was infantile."
Junella smirked. A bit of blood and drool leaked down her jaw. "Are ya sure you got the right one, chuckles?"
He glared viciously. "Of course I am. I know the weight of my weapon to the atom."
"But are you suuuUUUuuuUUUuuure?" she sang, in her most childishly mocking tone.
She actually got him to snarl at that.
'Perfect.'
Then he blitzed towards her, weapon raised. From the intense rage creasing his face, it was clear he intended to end this fight with one final blow.
Letting go of her wound, Junella wrapped both hands around her sword hilt. She stumbled backwards in a dazed panic. Blood geysered out of her stomach cleft. Buckets and buckets of it. And she was really feeling it now. Like she'd just lost two-thirds of her inner gunk in one gargantuan sploosh. Like there was nothing left inside her from ears to knees. Like she was just a big ol' hollow chocolate Easter bunny.
She was friends with Mia Xenoiko.
Mia ran the Tatterdemalion. She did this because, like many other Phobiopolans, she had certain specific requirements. Mia chose trade instead of violence to acquire them. In her own case, she needed to drink fresh heartsblood regularly to maintain her form and sanity. Junella, consistently being equal amounts fearless and broke, often paid for her room by letting Mia punch through her chest and suck her ticker dry. They'd been through this transaction so many times, it was almost becoming banal.
One time, just as a fun little change in routine, Mia had challenged Junella to try to stay alive long enough for her heart to reform inside her. For a normal furson of flesh and bone, this would have been impossible. But Junella's transformation to vinyl had also changed her inner workings. She didn't have bones anymore, and she didn't have organs aside from her heart. Nothing else inside but a sloshy black soup. So as her feline friend drained her heart into a smoky-clear withered husk, Junella watched and tried her damnedest to convince herself that, if the rest of her remained intact, the loss of one little part didn't matter.
The fourth time they had tried this game, Junella had won.
Now she was playing a new variation: convincing herself that she could lose three quarters of the blood in her body and still function.
Her head was an empty balloon. Her heart was bobbing around in her right thigh. She kept her hands glued tight to her cutlass, ready for one last swing.
Nollacero almost felt bad about this. It was no longer a competition, it was putting a delirious nonev to sleep. The skunk's determination was the only thing admirable about her. She was sloppy, stubborn, and rude. He could see on her face that she could barely keep herself conscious. And yet, she held on to her weapon. Deluded into thinking she could possibly counter his attack. He'd make this quick. Not even out of respect, but because this fiasco was beneath him.
She watched his eyes blazing with a madman's concentration. An engine devoted entirely to driving his belief-blade straight through her heart like a vampire hunter's stake. Never looking away. Never seeing anything but his prey. Not caring if his attacks hit any of the spectators. Not turning his gaze to pick up his weapon. And not paying attention to his surroundings.
She wasn't backing up to get away from him. She was creating an oil slick between them.
She watched him charge like a maddened bull. Then saw his fury tumble into surprise and horror as his foot skidded sideways on the greasy, oily Junella-blood he'd stampeded into.
Junella swung her cutlass with every ounce of strength left in her body. Several spectators 'Awww'ed in disappointment when her strike didn't pass within a foot of Nollacero's fumbling advance.
But she wasn't trying to hit him with her sword blade...
He realized, too late, that she was using the momentum of her feigned attack to spin herself around with deadly momentum. Her tail rotated into sight. A tail bristling with hundreds and hundreds of jagged, razor sharp broken LPs.
...she was trying to hit him with aaaalllll her other blades.
Nollacero had just enough reaction time to recalibrate his swing and chop her tail in half. But his blade always cut without friction. So it did nothing to slow its target's inertia. All he managed to accomplish was getting mauled to shreds by two masses of record shards instead of one.
Junella finished her spin, noticing vaguely that her ass had gotten suddenly lighter.
She heard the crowd's silence. She lurched around to look.
For a second time, Nollacero's hilt had fallen from his hand. The hare was still standing, albeit slumped and pigeon-toed. From his eyebrows to his bellybutton, the left half of his torso was a grotesque red bouquet of dripping blood and vinyl daggers. He looked like he'd tangled with Satan's pet porcupine.
Nollacero twitched a bit, but the pain had left him paralyzed. Any tiny movement sent throbbing lightningcracks rocketing along his nerves. He couldn't count the number of barbs sunk in him. They were in his eyes, in his cheeks, all along his ribs and shoulder. There wasn't even room in his mind for thought. He had been rendered entirely inanimate.
For now, both fighters remained on their feet. One of them would drop first.
With every eye upon her, Junella dragged one foot, then the other, around towards her foe. It was like wading through concrete. Her vision swam and tilted, more blur than sight. Still, she could tell she'd made the poor rabbit reeeeeeal ugly.
Through a crimson veil, he saw her coming to end him.
It wasn't so much a grapple as just losing her balance and falling against his chest. A few of her own shards dug into her tits, but c'est la vie. Wrapping her free arm around his shoulders, Junella gathered the last of her energy and delivered a vicious uppercut to his stomach. Except she was still holding her cutlass. The metal traveled easily through Nollacero's abdominal muscles, onward up his throat. She felt it scrape against his clavicle.
He gurgled. He puked a streamer of blood down her back.
She held him close like they were hugging goodbye. And in a way, they were. Nollacero juddered like a gasping fish. Junella held on tight and kept twisting her sword until everything in him stopped moving. Until she was absocompletely sure the resilient little wabbit was well and truly cacked.
She withdrew her cutlass and let it fall to the floor. Nollacero's corpse spilled out of her grip and crumpled beside it. Despite a significant case of the woozies, Junella managed not to topple onto him.
Somewhere far away, people were cheering.
With barely a shred of consciousness left, the skunk's hand flopped towards her grooves for a final assessment of her defeated opponent.
"Nuttin' but a... one... prick... tony..."
Then Junella Brox collapsed to the floor with a loud wet smack. Dead as disco.
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
Life reentered Junella's soul like a sucker punch to the throat.
Her eyelids flew open like windowshades. She dragged in a gasping breath. Her arms pistoned her up off the floor and her fingerneedles clattered from her involuntary shuddering.
For most Phobiopolan residents, revival after death is not an unpleasant process. After something quick like a bullet to the brain, there is a flash of ouch, a blink of darkness, then a return to perfect health. But when one's demise is sufficiently prolonged and traumatic (and drawn out even longer than normal by one's incredible stubbornness), the result is a bit of a hangover.
She felt like she was waking up from a year-long dream. Sounds bombarded her ears but held no meaning. She grabbed her head and squeezed, to stop the world revolving around it. Her legs somehow lifted her to standing.
When the fog unspiralled to comprehensible input, she realized the crowd was exploding in raucous approval.
She was a bit surprised. Hadn't she just 86'd one of their guys? Maybe they all thought Nollacero was a pompous little dickhead too. Or it was just the universal thrill to see an unknown challenger unseat the champion. Some of them threw pebbles of imaginite at her, and she sure as heck wasn't too proud to bend over and snatch a few up. Looking down, she could see that her blood had flooded over a vast swath of the floor. Like an ink factory had exploded. 'Yeesh. Baby done made a oopsie.'
She returned her weapon to her hand to lean on it like a crutch. Her innards were still sloshing around like a ship at sea. The men surrounding her pointed and roared and raised their glasses. Though plenty more looked pissed-off. Maybe they'd lost money on bets.
Within the crowd's deafening blare, a familiar voice became distinct. Junella turned around to see a certain arctic hare hollering his head off. Cheeks red, facial features pinched, mouth as wide as a megaphone. And being physically restrained by no less than three other crew members. "...DO YOU HEAR ME!? HOW DARE YOU EVEN LOOK AT ME! YOU CHEATED! YOU DIRTY ROTTEN HONORLESS COWARD, YOU CHEATED!!!"
She cracked her back and reached around to reply, "Yeah, well, that's just something I do. Get used to it."
Nollacero bit down on his lip so hard it nearly bled. The crewmen holding him gave him shoulder-pats of 'There, there. You'll get 'em next time.'
She'd won. It was taking a while for it to sink in, but she'd actually beaten the odds and won the fight. And from the reception she was getting, this might not have been unprecedented, but it sure as shit was uncommon. A grin slowly grew as she soaked in the crowd's sheer volume. Both cheers and boos, they meant the same thing: Junella Brox was on top.
She scanned around, looking for Sulilong. Wondering if the smug cocksucker would be tearing his hair out. To her surprise, when she spotted him still perched above the masses, he looked merely attentive. No expression in his eyes. Just rubbing his chin as if contemplating a chess move.
Her intuition's stinger poked her. Wasn't there someone else here who should have been by her side congratulating her?
'Zinc!'
Junella whirled around, eyes cutting through the mob, seeking any trace of that jerry-rigged noggin. He'd been standing right behind her, ready to fight Nollacero next. Had he run off? She shook her head. Even though she'd known him less than a day, he'd struck her as goalless, but not cowardly. Maybe he was off getting a beer? Taking a piss? Or had they kidnapped him? Already taken him out and buried him while she was-
Oh, there he was! Back behind the front row of spectators. Those two hooded behemoths who'd dragged in the mouse couple were back. They were holding onto Zinc by the shoulders, but he was offering no resistance.
His arms had been unscrewed and taken away. And now his head hung low to his chest as if the spark of life had been removed from him as well.
Junella's breath caught in her throat. Reality began to melt again. Why? WHY!?
She spun back to Sulilong, teeth bared ferally, and pointed her cutlass directly at his face. "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO HIM!?"
Far at the opposite end of the room, the qilin's expression was carved from jade. Coldly inanimate. He took his hand away from his chin and sat up slowly. "You mean, having him 'disarmed'?"
His words were like a frost falling over the room. The crowd's volume fell dead into silence.
Everyone else became wallpaper, leaving the skunk in the circle and the qilin on the throne the only two living souls in the room.
Junella's arm was a cocked arrow. "I won. You said his turn was next. He didn't do anything to you. What is this backstabbin' bullshit?" she demanded.
"I can understand your confusion. Lemme explain." Sulilong crossed his legs and leaned forward. "Y'see, you weren't supposed to win. The test to get in is, I see how long you can hold out against my boy before you, y'know, die. It's a 'How long can you resist the irresistible force?' kinda thing. But you broke the game. And now I have to get rid of you."
"WHAT!?" she screeched, quaking in outrage.
Sulilong shrugged, open-palmed. "I mean, does that make any sense from my perspective? To keep around an employee who's capable of killing my bodyguard?"
She froze solid.
Her anger disintegrated. Her expression went slack and her gaze blanked. She thought she felt her heartbeat stop.
Within that moment, the only thing that existed in her universe was the excruciatingly acute awareness of how monumentally she'd fucked up.
It wasn't even her fault. Was it? Could she have known? And yet his logic made perfect sense. Her mission was to get close enough to eliminate him, and now she'd gone and demonstrated right in front of him that she was skilled enough to do exactly that. The signs were all there. Sulilong did not want equals to his power, he wanted subordinates who would keep their place.
'I've ruined everything,' she thought.
"Foam!" Sulilong called out, snapping his fingers with a sound like a hammer hitting an anvil.
The crew was very much mixed on this. It didn't seem fair. The skunk chick had won, just like she'd said. But when the boss gave an order, you followed it. Or someone else would include you in the same punishment. As before with the male mouse, several henchmen with caulking guns stepped into the circle and began to hose Junella down.
She was still so much in shock it took several seconds to notice. Her slow reaction doomed her. There was something fizzy being sprayed all over her. If she'd reacted instantly, she might have been able to jump out of the way. But the plumber's foam was already beginning to cocoon her.
Junella shrieked without a sound and started struggling for her life. The foam crawled along her body like a huge living fungus. Expanding, hardening, compacting her within itself. Junella punched and kicked against it, but no matter how many times she managed to wrest a limb free, the guns just kept gushing out more of the stuff.
In less than a minute, Junella was encased in a rock-hard pillar, leaving only her head unengulfed.
Sulilong stood up. "I almost want to apologize for this, honestly. You did put on an entertaining match, and it's a rare treat to see Nollacero get his ass kicked. He's so good it almost gets boring watching him win. But I don't want entertainment. I want someone who can consistently repel problems before they become my problems." He cast a very pointed look at his bodyguard.
The hare sobered up damn quick, and replied with a deferential nod. He was being warned. Years of unbroken service meant that they both acknowledged this loss as a fluke. Law of probability. But it was not to become anything more.
Sulilong crossed his arms behind his back, gazing down at Junella as an emperor condemning a gladiator. Gazing without fear into a pair of orange eyes as overflowing with hatred as the flaming rivers of Hell. He graced her with his final words of explanation. "I'm not going to let you become my problem. You're going off into the desert now, both you and your friend. He already said that wherever you go, he goes. So I didn't think I needed to bother asking."
Wary laughter from the crowd. The boss could be bottomlessly cruel, but so long as it wasn't directed at them, it was all good.
The two bulky jailers shoved Zinc into the ring, towards Junella. They were alone in the middle again. Center stage in the spotlight.
Junella looked over to him, having to fight against the foam just to move her neck two inches. The canine looked dead on his feet. Eyes cast downward. Ears drooping. Drops of saliva hung from his slack mouth and made spots on his shirt. He mumbled something.
With her hands pinned in place she couldn't speak, but she managed a 'What was that?' kind of sound.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, not raising his head. "They jumped me. Took my arms. Without them I can't.. I just..." He couldn't even finish.
Among her already-torrential whirlpool of emotions, Junella felt both intense sorrow for him, and a fiery contempt. How could he give up so easily? Even if they were a pair of gutted fish on the chopping block? Even if they had just blown their mission completely, breaking their promise to Lady Crynight and leaving all of Coryza ripe for the plucking?
'I might never see daylight again,' she suddenly thought. 'Never sleep in another bed, never eat another meal, never say one more 'What room am I in this time?' to Mia.'
The horror of these possibilities was too big to face. She recoiled from them in fear, but then grabbed her fear by the neck and kept turning away in defiance. 'NO! Not until the sand's six feet deep above me will I give up! And not even then! I'll dig myself out with my teeth! This slimy, smooth-talking shitball is NOT going to win!!'
But what did she have left to fight with? She was currently Junella The Jolly Termite Mound. Zinc was a wet noodle without his wrenches. 'My gun,' she realized. She'd never actually taken it out since she'd gotten here. They didn't know she had it. Maybe she could blast through the foam. What then? She couldn't hope a single bullet would crack it like an egg and set her free. At most she could make a hole to stick her hand out of.
Sulilong's eyes were keen. They scanned the skunk's expression, following her racing thoughts. Watching hope and despair swap places in a flicker. There was something obscenely enjoyable about this part. Unsettling even to him. It was like holding down a beetle with his finger and witnessing the frantic twitches of its legs as it tried to save its life. But people were so much more interesting than bugs. Because they could understand when their situation was helpless. He could often spot the exact moment when all their increasingly-desperate planning slowed to a halt, reality sunk in, and they fully understood that this was the end of their story.
It was addictive, in a way, to be able to cause another soul to live through that moment. There was really nothing like it.
But Junella was not going to become just another one of the missing. Maybe it was denial of reality. Maybe that was its own form of cowardice. But getting so motherfucking mad that it bent reality to her will had worked before, and she wasn't about to discard her favorite strategy now. If nothing else, the gun would surprise them. She could take a few of them with her on her way down. Go out spiteful. Maybe K.O. that smug bunny again. Maybe it'd startle Zinc enough to get him to cut the mopey bullshit and run for help. She still couldn't believe how easy it'd been to pacify him. For cryin' out loud, even if she'd been the one to lose both her arms, that wouldn't have stopped her from fighting! She glanced down at his legs. 'He's still got those. He could still kick a man in the gumdrops with 'em. And he's not clumsy with them either. I saw him take his whole head apart with his toes before we went to bed last night.'
An unspeakable idea occurred to her.
She didn't just have her revolver. She had something else stored away in her elsewhere. Something volatile and unquantified.
She inhaled. Without her hands she couldn't speak, but she could shape the sound of her exhales into a whisper. Barely audible, but that was fine. It meant that only one furson could hear her. "Zinc... I gotta ask you..."
One ear slightly raised.
Sulilong leaned closer too. He hated not being able to overhear final goodbyes. People often revealed who they truly were in their last moments together.
"Zinc," Junella exhaled. "Have you ever... uncorked a bottle... and drank it with your feet...?"
The canine's expression shifted. His eyebrows creased inwards, confused. "Sure, yeh. But I dunno why you'd ask that now. Of course I been drunk enough to end up in that position a few..."
His head slowly lifted. He turned to face her, eyes suddenly alight and very much awake.
She felt a shiver of hope. He understood. She nodded.
"If you've got any last words, Miss Skunk, how about you share them with the rest of the class!?" Sulilong needled.
She flicked a hateful glance at him, then returned her attention to Zinc. Wordlessly she told him, 'I'm sorry I have to ask you to do this.'
A trace of a smile struggled its way onto his lips. 'Hey, it's worth a shot. Might even be fun.'
"Just like at the bar..." she wheezed. "One..."
Zinc flexed his toes. He didn't know exactly what she had planned, but he'd got the gist. He'd have to be ready for however the hell she was gonna try to pull this off.
"Two..."
Sulilong narrowed his eyes. 'Oh shit. She's got an ace up her sleeve, doesn't she?'
Before he could shout for someone to stop her, Junella finished her countdown. "Three! GO!!"
In that instant between heartbeats, she knew she had to dumbfound her gun into her hand and simultaneously fire it to make room for its sudden existence. It was a ridiculous paradox. One that Junella needed to happen. And while dumbfounding is more difficult the more one consciously thinks about it, life-or-death necessity adds an awful lot of power to the attempt.
The instant she felt the weight of metal creating itself within her palm, her trigger finger squeezed.
Zinc was the only one prepared for the gunshot. In a near-silent room with fantastic acoustics, it startled the piss out of everyone else.
The crowd reflexively flinched, acting as a single superorganism. Zinc saw a crater explode in the foam surrounding his partner, a smoking revolver at its center. He jerked himself back from the shrapnel, but kept his eyes glued. He watched the black vinyl fingers drop the gun. Saw them flex. Saw the flask of drybleed appear in her grip like a magic trick without a wand. He let the momentum of his dodge unbalance him, falling tail-first onto the ballroom floor. But the pain went unnoticed. All his focus was on the flask as it fell from Junella's hand, and another gun took its place.
Sulilong was screaming at the top of his iron lungs for someone to rush in and stop them.
As Junella knew he would. So her finger curled around her trigger again. She hadn't seen where the first bullet went. Didn't care. The second one liberated a crocodile from most of his upper jaw. The recoil kicked her hand back. She let it be her dancing partner. She couldn't move her legs, but her feet were still in contact with the floor. With a wiggle of her toes, she helped the gun's recoil nudge her slightly backwards. Then again. Again. She fired six shots as quick as she could, letting them spin her in a circle.
Bullets flew like killer bees. The crowd broke up and started fleeing from the random fusillade.
Zinc saw none of this. Heard none of the shots. His entire world was that falling flask and his ten talented toes reaching out for it. An inch away from shattering on the hardwood, the weighty glass container fell into his soles, just as cozy as you please. He couldn't help a high-pitched squeal of amazement.
"KILL THEM!!!" Sulilong erupted. "SOMEBODY FUCKING KILL THEM!!!"
But Junella was a one-woman tornado. When her gun clicked empty, she let it fall and mindfucked up another. She had the qilin's minions bumbling over one another in a yelping panic, but it wouldn't last long. She calculated about twenty seconds before someone competent landed a headshot on her. She'd make the most of them, and give Zinc time to get that stuff down his throat.
Hot lead sailed over the canine's head. Still flat on his back, he brought the flask to his mouth like a baby bottle. He ripped out the cork with his teeth and let the red, sludgy contents spill over his muzzle. His tongue darted around, directing it to his gullet. If it tasted like anything, he was too on fire with adrenaline to notice. But it was having an effect already. Deep in the back of his awareness, he knew he was ingesting something WRONG. The burning in his esophagus was not like whiskey, but like something dark and otherworldly tracing its finger through his guts and marking him for damnation.
A few of the more sober henchmen raised their foam-guns up and tried to pin down the whirling dervish taking potshots at their comrades. Junella was severely restricted, but still a skilled marksman. Out of the three goons firing, she put a hole through one's right lung and missed close enough to make another flinch and drop his weapon. Good enough. The third hit her in the back with another gush of foam, but she was already straitjacketed from the neck down. A little extra weight didn't matter.
Zinc's eyes sproinged open. He began to pant heavily. His tongue lapped the neck of the flask, compulsively dragging the last of the drybleed down inside him. Oh sweet lord, he was in for a crazy ride tonight. He could feel tendrils of demonic energy squirming their way into every cell of his flesh and bones. Whatever the fuck was about to happen, it was a pity he couldn't be on the sidelines watching it with a bucket of popcorn.
Sulilong saw the empty flask roll out of the convulsing mutt's footpaws. He stared. 'That can't be...' He'd seen it on Jaziezal's desk just a couple of hours ago. 'They couldn't have.' They couldn't. His jaw fell open. He was paralyzed by the impossibility.
Nollacero followed his primary orders and stuck close to his employer. Let the others handle this shitshow.
Junella shot three more underlings in the back before another, a kangaroo, took a flying leap at her from across the circle and managed to land an impressive dropkick. She felt the world turn sideways. Her little paws wiggled to roll herself over, but there was nothing to kick against but air. Then her cheek was bashed against the floor as the kangaroo gave her a repositioning spin. She felt his massive foot stomp her gun into her hand, shattering her fingers.
"Let's see ya fire that now!" he shouted.
Her hand was a shambles. Oily blood ran down her arm. She tried in vain to dumbfound a gun in her other hand, but her confidence had been knocked off-kilter and she couldn't manage the trick. She'd have to heal or die in order to fire again, and she didn't have time for either.
She watched the kangaroo loom over her. He raised his foot. The sole looked as long as a canoe. "Maybe I'll smash your pumpkin, should I?"
A thing that was no longer a foot shot out and tore his head straight off his ribcage.
The 'roo fountained gore for a moment before crashing to the ground in a twitching ruin. Junella wriggled with all her strength to get a better vantage point of the horrifying thing that all the other henchmen were now gawking at and slowly backing away from.
Zinc pulled himself upright. He seemed a bit taller; at least five feet. And he was bubbling. He had more parts than before. All of his flesh was spreading out, growing like an alien fungus. His bones creaked ear-splittingly as they stretched longer and longer. His metal skullcap melted and drizzled. His chest ballooned outward, thick as a beer barrel. Multiple tails ripped their way out of his jeans. He kept on growing.
Sulilong watched as the mutt expanded in every direction, standing taller even than the silver throne. A bottle of drybleed had to be shared among at least three people or the result was an uncontrolled blimp of moaning, oozing, indistinct bodily bits (which was nevertheless still capable of killing a hell of a lot of scientists and guards). The qilin's throat went dry. "I think one of you really ought to shoot that thing," he husked.
Zinc felt like the epicenter of an earthquake. Ground zero for a nuclear test. Like rivers of lava and electricity were flooding his heart and arteries. And he LOVED it! This energy inside him was evil as fuck, but felt like it had enough juice to power a city. His elongating muzzle split wide in a smile with far too many teeth. His tongue was three feet long, slinging liters of drool in every direction. His vision had become indistinct, since his eyes were bulging past the rims of their wire containers, and extra pupils were budding within. But that was fine. His three nostrils could smell all the souls around him. And it'd be so much fun to grab them and tear them and chew them all up.
Junella reflected that this might have been a bad idea. Zinc had risen up so high his shoulders were pushing one of the chandeliers aside. Every part of him stretched like taffy. A hunching, hulking, colossal nightmare-among-nightmares. His skin strained to hold together its rapidly engorging muscle. Cysts and sores churned beneath his fur like boiling soup. New wrenches were birthed from his shoulder mounts and branched into different configurations, some of them jointed like living fingers. The immense half-mechanical hellhound roared in exultation at its metamorphosis, shaking the walls and knocking tapestries to the floor. Sulilong's crew were either frozen with terror, or fleeing for every available exit.
The qilin finally found his voice. "WHAT AM I PAYING YOU IDIOTS FOR?! DEAL WITH THAT!! KILL IT! KILL IT!! I DON'T FUCKING CARE HOW THE FUCK YOU DO IT, BUT SOMEBODY HAD BETTER GODDAMNED KILL THAT THING BEFORE IT KILLS THE WHOLE REST OF THE FUCKING WORLD FIRST!!!"
If there was any sane mind left in Zinc's horrorhouse of a body, maybe it overheard. Maybe it thought that was a really nice idea. Because now he leaned down towards the remaining crowd, opened his seven nostrils wide, and drew in the scent of their fear. Teardrops of panic; several pairs of wet pants. Zinc grew an erection as big as a charging rhinoceros. Grinning like an untethered suspension bridge, he reached out his Swiss army knife of an arm towards a cluster of men too stricken to move. Maybe he'd bite them all in half. Maybe he'd pull their arms and legs out of their sockets.
Something ignited and flew screaming in flame across the room.
It hit Zinc just below his right pectoral and turned sixty percent of him into pizza sauce.
It rained indoors. Gallons and gallons of glistening scarlet.
Sulilong ducked incoming organic shrapnel. The entire room had been painted red in the blink of an eye. Even the ceiling. The qilin ogled dumbly for a few moments, before turning his head to notice that the bat with the goggles was giggling in pride and showing off his spent grenade launcher. 'Oh right,' he thought.
"I shot him, boss, I shot him!"
The qilin manually wiped the shock off his face (plus a handful of meat juice). "Y-yes you did. A little late on the trigger there, but overall, not bad."
The bat squealed happily to receive such praise.
Scraps of fur and muscle dangled from the chandeliers. Henchmen spat dog blood out of their mouths. Twisted scraps of wrench had impaled the floor like crashed meteorites. And in the epicenter of the carnage stood all that remained of Zinc: an eight-foot-tall pair of mutated legs. A bit of spine poked up from the shredded waistband. Only the humongous, mound-like feet kept the remains standing upright.
Down on the ground, drenched in red, Junella felt all of her hope die again. Her 'hail mary' plan had just been torpedoed. Literally. Zinc, king of the monsters, was dead before he'd killed a single goon. And she was still completely encased in foam with a busted hand. Zinc would probably resurrect in a few moments in his same old much-smaller body. They'd capture him again. And they definitely wouldn't wait around to clean up the place first. They'd march him, and her, straight out to the sand.
'It can't end like this. I won't let it,' she tried to tell herself. But what else was left? Some asshole with a bazooka had put a spectacular end to her one last chance.
She wondered what the sand would feel like. How much would it weigh as it covered her head? She'd be swallowed in blackness. No light. No sight. Would she lose her mind and try to breathe it? Choking as she sucked it in and filled her lungs? Would it be centuries before anyone found her again and dug her up? Would they ever?
Behind her, someone screamed.
Reflexively, she craned her neck towards the sound. From her upside-down vantage point, she could see that one of the chunks of Zinc's exploded corpse still had some teeth in it, and was chomping some guy's foot like a beartrap.
She couldn't stop a giggle. Even in the depths of despair, funny was still funny.
Someone else screamed.
Before she could turn to look at whatever new insanity had just happened, the giant legs shifted their stance. Mere feet away, toes as big as Halloween gourds flexed up and down. Like they were about to play piano.
Junella felt goosebumps prick up along the back of her neck.
'Oh sweet Jesus. Whatever that bottle was doing to him... it ain't finished.'
She braced herself. Maybe she wasn't as good as buried yet.
All around the ballroom, bits of Zinc began to move. Blood bubbled. Hairs pricked up. Metal curled. Sections of intestines swayed like snakes.
Some of the henchmen had managed to escape the ballroom, but a large majority of the crowd remained. They started backing towards the center, away from the blindly flailing body parts. But there was no safe place to hide or run. The RPG had splattered giblets across every single surface of the cathedral-sized room. Around, below, and above. The men bunched up, back to back. Their eyes beheld the blood reviving itself.
Abruptly, the giant legs dropped to their knees. Two of the crew were crushed. From the dripping, meaty hollow in the pelvis, a malformed fetal torso began to grow. Pink flesh with blue veins pulsed below the surface. A mouth tore itself open and a man's scream rang out. A bellow of being born anew. The torso raised its arms, flesh entwined with living steel, and twitched its many-toothed fingers.
Other chunks started showing signs of renewed vitality. All of Zinc was growing again, in a thousand different directions. Drybleed reacted with living souls, infusing them with the fear-thirsting unholy energy of the nightmare world's core essence. And it had found a boundlessly willing vessel in Zinc. Before, Jaziezal's other experiments had ended in failure for one simple reason: the subjects resisted. They felt horror at their changes and fought back to the last of their spirits. There had only been success when some of the test subjects were not changed so far that they lost their sense of self. They could concentrate on power gained instead of appearance lost. But Zinc was special. He had always been happy to go with the flow. Roll with the punches. Let whatever come what may. And he had always loved, loved monster movies.
A six-foot arm grew teeth at the end of its fingers and began chasing henchmen around the room on its centipedal metal feet. A stomach with a horrifying unfinished face lurched back and forth, regurgitating bile. Patches of blood became tiny jellylike canines that ran amok, skittering about and trying to bite ankles. Intestines expanded to the size of anacondas, coiling around and constricting anything they caught. Half a wrench erupted in patches of raw, bleeding flesh, stumbling around on its new organic limbs, clamping repeatedly at the air. An eyeball formed tiny little arms and legs and ran around looking at people.
Hair burst out in bristly patches all over the embryonic mass at the center of the fallen pants. The legs suddenly lurched. There was a horrific noise of meat sliding and bones popping as the pelvis tore itself in half. Each leg began to grow into a whole new individual. The chunk with the already-formed torso began shifting into a humongous feral werewolf, while a face burrowed out of the other's foot and its length grew several new knees to become an unspeakable caterpillar.
Junella could do nothing but watch, and so she did. She was perfectly aware that she was probably seconds away from the very worst death of her life. But she consoled herself with the fact that, hey, at least Sulilong was too.
Speaking of the qilin, he was standing as immobile as Junella. This mess would take weeks if not months to clean up. He didn't even want to imagine the cost. Part of him wanted to just push all this cartoon bullshit away and insist he was dreaming. But he couldn't escape reality so easily. This was actually happening. Some no-name mutt had burst like a party balloon and was now turning into the world's ugliest zoo. In his house. In his fucking home.
His iron hand reached blindly out to where the bat with the goggles was standing. The bat stepped forward, thinking he was going to receive a pat on the head. Instead, Sulilong pushed down and dug in, until the man's head turned into pulp, squirting through his fingers. The body fell all the way down the stairs and landed in a heap, still spasming. That hadn't accomplished a goddamned thing, but it made him feel better.
The qilin noticed that a certain arctic hare had never taken a step away from his place beside the throne, even though he'd had to slice a couple of body horrors in half already. "Hey, Nolly. You wanna, maybe... Let's... Let's just go, okay? Get the hell outta here?"
The hare looked up over his shoulder. "I have no objection to this."
Sulilong nodded. He kicked the dead bat aside. All the exits were currently blocked by anatomical behemoths and men getting ripped to ribbons, but he headed down the stairs nonetheless. His bodyguard could handle it.
Yellow eyes bubbled up out of the central werewolf's skull. Its fur was patterned like Zinc's, but it did not share his form. It was a caricature in every dimension, with a mouth as long as an alligator's, full of so many teeth it flayed its own lips whenever it closed its jaws. It was almost wholly organic, except for ribbons of steel that were woven in and out of its musculature. Its nostrils flared. It smelled Sulilong escaping.
The two giant jailers had been struggling heroically with minor Zinc-critters, but when they saw the biggest monster turn its head towards the boss, they understood their duty. In a kamikaze attack, they both rushed at the mammoth beast. Veins bulged in their arms. They grabbed on tight and squoze with all their strength.
The wereZinc plucked them off like burrs stuck on his pant legs. He looked at them, smiled at their terrified expressions, then rammed both their heads together so hard it impaled their skulls on their spines. Zinc giggled. He tossed the two bodies to either side where they landed like burlap sacks full of mashed potatoes.
It turned its cluster of egg-yolk eyes towards Junella.
'Well, shit, it's gonna eat me,' she thought. She was oddly calm about the idea. At least it beat being buried alive. 'Maybe I can shoot my way out of its guts before too much of me melts.'
But instead, the nightmarish being cocked its head. It seemed to almost have a thought. Then it made a fist as big as a fridge and raised it high in the air. Its shadow fell across the tiny, trapped skunk.
She braced herself.
There was a swoosh of air, then a moment of amazing excruciation as her entire body shattered. But the hardened foam did too.
And when she awoke a second later, clear-headed and in perfect shape, she stretched her legs and realized she was free. She looked down at her hand and flexed it, then back up at the creature.
Saliva trickled from its lips, through the coarse, broom-bristle fur of its chest.
It winked.
Junella's eyebrows went up. She'd been just about to get herself a new sword and gun to defend herself.
The beast jerked its head to the side.
Junella glanced in the same direction and saw Sulilong following nonchalantly behind Nollacero as the hare battled his way towards the hallway.
She looked back up at the towering canine. "Thanks, mutt. I owe ya one."
It chortled, drooled, nodded, and turned back to where the two jailers were beginning to wobble their way back to life again. It definitely wanted to play with them some more.
Nearby was a crater full of foam chunks, black blood, and vinyl shards. Junella bent down and fished her white scarf out of her previous body. Not very white anymore, but it was still important to her. She tossed a dripping end dramatically over her shoulder, filled her hands with weaponry, and made a beeline for Sulilong.
Zinc was everywhere. Little Zincs, midget Zincs, big Zincs, one holy-shit-what-the-fuck-sized Zinc, and they were all having the time of their life. The approximately 325 remixes of him all shared a pooled consciousness, though most didn't possess enough brain power for anything more than emotion and reaction. See someone running; chase; kill; eat; fun. They knew enough not to eat one another, and that was about it. Plus they all kept out of Junella's way as she navigated the thoroughly-ruined ballroom.
A gaggle of itsy-bitsy blood ones stampeded past her. She stepped in a few. From their high-pitched giggles, they didn't seem to mind. The unsquished remainder chased down some of the women to jump on their butts and pull on their hair. Elsewhere, a car-sized disembodied mouth was dragging itself across the floor by its tongue, lapping up blood and turning henchmen into ground round. Another Zinc was a torso with eighteen gangly legs growing out from all sides, and spindly toes that liked to pull people apart. Not all of the Zincs had grown from a specific body part though. Plenty had metastasized from random blobs of muscle, skin, or fat, into bizarrely-proportioned homunculi. Galumphing about nakedly, committing wanton violence. One of them, with a wrench for a head, kept chattering its 'teeth' and walking into walls.
Needless to say, the amount of screaming in the ballroom was incredible. Any remaining survivors were either running in circles or trampling one another to get to the exits. Feral Zincs blocked every passage, just barely on the same wavelength enough to herd the panicked fursons into tightly-packed groups for easy pouncing and devouring. Whenever anyone resurrected, it was only a matter of moments before their next grisly denouement. Arterial sprays bedecked the walls. Bones and brains littered the floor.
Zincs beat people into unconsciousness with their own chewed-off limbs. Zincs burrowed into people's abdomens and ate them alive. Zincs howled at the moon through the stained glass ceiling. Zincs swung from the chandeliers. Zincs found all the remaining party food and alcohol and consumed the lot in five minutes flat.
Junella took her time. Not only because the floor was so ankle-deep in spilled bodily fluids that it'd be really easy to trip and break her nose, but because Sulilong was stuck in traffic.
Backed up between the exit and a massive clot of monsters, he kept close by Nollacero, who was definitely earning his paycheck tonight. That nonexistent sword of his worked like a charm at stacking up dead Zincs. The fact they were all a bit too braindead to dodge helped. Sulilong kept close and merely supervised. Sometimes he'd glance nervously at the hallway door, or look around the ballroom as if imagining how many interior decorators it'd take to return everything to normal.
Of course, his 'normal' ended tonight. Junella's revolver felt good in her hand. Her blade was hungry. Her quarry was watching the end of his parasitic enterprise and didn't realize it.
She got tangled up for a second with a hunchbacked, five-legged Zinc that had gotten its head stuck inside the tortoise's shell. It was blinded, but had plenty to eat, so it was happy. It knocked Junella on her butt, and in the few moments it took to get back on her feet and flick guts off her fingers, the situation with Sulilong changed.
He must have gotten tired of waiting. While Nollacero was still slicing and dicing, the bossman was showing off the strength of that tin body of his by picking up Zincs and literally throwing them out of his way. With both of them working to clear a path, they were at the exit in no time.
Junella took off running. 'I cannot, will not, let him get away. Who knows how many secret passageways he's got outta here? Maybe even a panic room he can hole up in and lock me out of. Fuck that.' The skunk brought all her speed and agility to bear crossing the remaining few hundred feet between them. She vaulted-one handed over a pair of Zincs eating opposite halves of the same henchman. She bullseyed a few slow-looking ones with her revolver, muttering apologies under her breath. Her feet skipped and slid on a patch of the blood munchkins, but she managed to twirl and keep her balance.
The hare and qilin were almost at the door. Junella fired at Sulilong's back. It only put a hole in his suit, not even denting his armored body, but it made him aware of her presence.
He looked back with a glare of supreme irritation. "Nollacero, do your job!!" he brayed.
The hare's ears perked. He'd been focused on dislodging the remaining pair of Siamese Zincs from the doorway. He turned to see what had upset his employer, and his eyes nearly turned red when he caught sight of Junella. A no-look behind the back swing of his hilt sent two canine heads bouncing off the floor. The way ahead was clear. Nollacero motioned for Sulilong to run past, then followed behind, running backwards, glaring eyes locked once again on the skunk that just wouldn't learn.
Junella cleared the dead mutant Zinc with an easy leap. She was smiling now. It was nice to see such perfect hatred on the stuck-up bunny's face. She was looking forward to their rematch.
A handful of Zincs were chasing down escapees in the hallways, but most remained in the ballroom. The few exceptions were mere speedbumps for Sulilong and Nollacero. The qilin didn't mind taking the lead, and smashing the gargoyle canines against the walls to dispatch them. He wanted Nollacero focused on the skunk. Basic strategy: if a hundred people are all trying to kill you, let your best man handle the smart one.
Junella followed their breadcrumb trail of bodies for a short way down the hall behind the ballroom. She came to a wooden door that had been literally bashed off its hinges by someone too impatient to unlock it. Beyond was a warmly lit golden hallway with a high-arched ceiling and burgundy carpet. 'Gotta be his private quarters,' she thought. 'Leave the ugly parts for the help to live in.' She crossed the splintered wood and followed the bloody footprints.
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
She turned a corner and nearly lost her head.
It was only a smudgy white reflection in a picture frame across the hall that clued her in to Nollacero's ambush. She flung her head sideways out of the path of his swing. The unblockable sword sailed frighteningly close past her ear, and shaved off a circle of tail vinyl.
"No further, cheater."
Junella jumped back. Circling around to a guarded position, she saw Nollacero standing at the mouth of a long, wide passage ahead. Artful photographs, mostly landscapes, decorated the walls. At the back was a tall, barred door. Sulilong was backed up against it with a set of keys out. Looking like he knew he ought to be unlocking it, but unable to resist the show about to start.
The hall was perfectly quiet. No echo at all from the pandemonium in the ballroom. They weren't far away, but Sulilong had paid for excellent soundproofing in this area. He wanted his inner sanctum to be an oasis from the bacchanalia he kept his followers stupefied in. The rich carpeting made even their footfalls soundless.
"I don't recall that I cheated," Junella snag softly. "Unless that's your definition of 'beat you fair 'n square in a way you just didn't see coming'."
Nollacero aimed his hilt at the hollow of her throat. "Not one more step," he growled.
The sneer on his lips showed limitless disdain. She could see he was trying to keep his emotions in check, but his inner fire smoldered bright. He would not accept that the fault had been his.
Junella's expression smoothed into a serene smirk of unshakable confidence.
She straightened up. She was not going to be on the defensive again. Taking a step towards him, eyes locked to his, she dropped both her weapons to the carpet with hollow thumps.
He glanced quickly to the fallen gun and cutlass, then back at her cocky little grin. Perplexed. His sword arm did not waver.
She decided to unbalance him with an unexpected question. Pointing past the hare at the qilin behind him, she asked, "So why do you work for a guy like that? Where's your loyalty come from, when he obviously doesn't have any towards you?"
At the back of the hall, Sulilong rolled his eyes.
Nollacero was caught off guard, but quickly recovered. "He is someone in whose service I can become stronger. That's all."
"Have you though?" she purred.
He narrowed his eyes hatefully, then raised his weapon to shoulder-height, preparing for a lunging attack. "Your attempts at mind games are as pathetic as your sloppy, careless fighting. My blade is a realization of my indomitable will. I lost ONLY because I couldn't imagine how low you would sink to win a fight. No one has ever beaten me twice. No one."
Junella slowly enfolded her arms behind her back. Making herself a sitting duck. Still smiling. "I got your number, fancy boy. You don't scare me anymore."
He stiffened in outrage.
She saw his sword arm tremble.
Sulilong saw it too and took a step towards them. "Nolly... don't get stupid on me now..."
The hare's cheeks flushed pink at being spoken to like a child. His breath quickened. He was not used to humiliation and was not handling it well. His lips stretched back, exposing even more of his grinding teeth.
Junella, on the other hand, had been kicked to the curb enough times to accept that sometimes it just happened. Being the best didn't mean having a perfect record. Sometimes you couldn't beat someone until they'd beaten you first. Sometimes you had to see them up close, in action, to understand how they ticked. And sometimes failure was fuel to get back up and get revenge. If it made you mad, then good. But you had to make that anger useful.
She took another soundless step towards him, and saw his offensive stance tighten into a defensive one.
She laughed to herself, low and quiet. "How 'bout I teach you a little lesson?"
His fingers tightened around the hilt. "I could learn nothing from you but vulgarity."
A gentle shake of the head. She dumbfounded her sword and began a casual stroll towards him.
He leapt into a run. Screaming mad. This was no longer a sparring match. This was his job. His means of proving himself. She dared to laugh at him. He would shut her mouth and end this in a single strike.
Junella saw the hilt, envisioned the blade sailing forward to skewer her heart. 'Thank you so, so much for taking the bait.'
Instead of dodging his attack, she leapt into it. His frictionless blade pierced her chest and went clean on through her back. A perfect, bloodless cut. She'd willed her heart to the opposite side of her chest when she noticed where he was aiming.
As he watched his weapon run her through, he realized too late that this was not a victory.
Her left arm shot forward. She sunk her fingerneedles deep in the meat of his hand, nailing it in place. With all the strength of her will, a snap of her wrist broke his.
He managed to not drop his weapon, but bit down a shriek of pain.
"June of all trades..." her other hand spoke.
In a flash, her left leg was crossed around his right ankle, locking them together further.
"...master of none..."
She held up her cutlass, then vanished it away with a magician's flourish. She dumbfounded her revolver instead, and slipped her finger around the trigger.
Nollacero shook his head in a panic and struggled to get away. But he was pinned like a butterfly. He could only watch she she wrapped her arm sensually around him, nose to nose, and snugged the gun's barrel up against his fifth cervical vertebra.
She looked deep into the trapped, panicking eyes of her prey and exhaled, "...but better than a master of one."
BLAM
Tears filled Nollacero's wide-open eyes as his head reflexed towards the ceiling. Everything below went numb. Dead. Useless. He felt himself fall to the floor, a marionette with its strings cut. He saw his outstretched arm, fingers splayed. His hilt had fallen several feet away like a discarded bit of trash.
Paralyzed within and without, he could do nothing but stare and feel the hot salty water trickle down his cheeks.
Junella vanished her gun and wiped his blood off onto her white scarf. She regarded him quietly. No more wisecracks. He'd gotten the message. They were done.
She stepped carefully around him, then raised her weapon and cast her eyes at Sulilong. Her intent was clear without a sound: 'You're next.'
That had not gone as the qilin expected. Sulilong wasted a few more seconds gawking at his bodyguard lying rumpled on the floor like a heap of laundry. Then he started frantically fiddling with his keys to get his bedroom door open. 'You just haaaad to always lock it behind you, so the boys don't sneak in and take the good shit,' he reprimanded himself. If he could get inside, he could run. There was an escape hatch. What castle didn't have one? He'd drop down amongst the treads and squirm his way past them to the open desert. Run off scot-free and-
'And what? Let her stay here and take everything I've built?'
That thought erased his panic. His hands stilled.
Standing up straight, he placed the keyring back in his pocket and turned away from the lock. "Allright. Fine. Fine. This is okay." He regarded the skunk approaching him with her gun calmly drawn. "What did I need him for anyway?"
Down the hallway, Nollacero choked on a sob. "Please, Sulilong! Kill me so I can get back to defending you!"
"Shut up," the qilin snapped back in disgust. "You're done. My turn now. In fact, you've lost your privilege of saying my name. We aren't on equal terms anymore. I'm your boss; you're my bootlicker, got it?"
Junella shook her head a little. That was cold. Even she wouldn't kick a poor rabbit while he was down.
Nollacero rested his cheek on the carpet, as there was little else he could do. He stared at the wallpaper.
Sulilong reached beneath his golden mustache and undid his tie. He threaded it out from his collar, then dropped it with care to the carpet. He began to walk towards Junella, matching her pace. His iron hands unclipped his cufflinks with the gentle touch of a watchmaker. "What did I need him for?" he repeated, now speaking directly to his challenger. "What's the point of spending decades to craft a perfect body, just to have someone else guard it?" His fingers clinked on each button of his suit jacket as he undid them one by one. He liked this suit. He wanted to make sure it'd still be in good condition, and unbloodied, when he put it back on again later. "Doesn't that seem a bit lazy? Maybe you don't really think I can take care of business on my own?"
Junella stopped. Thirty feet of carpet separated them. About a dozen framed photographs on either wall. She kept her weapons ready and didn't reply. Let him get his yakkin' out of the way, and then she'd take him apart.
Sulilong was gentle with each of the buttons on his white starched shirt. He stepped sideways long enough to hang his jacket on a large picture of Lumbago at sundown, then added the shirt on the opposite side so it wouldn't be unbalanced. He returned to his previous spot to resume their showdown.
He stood about two heads taller than the skunk. Destroying her would feel like kicking a kitten down the stairs. He inhaled deeply, showing off a bare chest built from polished iron panels with a million little gears spinning around underneath. Upon his pectorals was engraved, then layered in gold, an image of a traditional qilin. A mythical stag with a dragon's armored hide. Posed in a noble stance, it gazed far into the beyond.
Junella put a paw to her mouth to prevent a snorting giggle. "You got a tattoo of yourself!?"
He blinked in almost physical pain. "No. You dumb piece of shit, no. I carved myself into this image. Do you even know what it is!? Qilin are arbiters. They decide good and evil. The fates of anyone who stands before them."
"Yup. You're definitely up your own ass enough for that to appeal to you."
A long sigh at her unbelievable tactlessness. "Look, I get it. I was gonna bury you alive. That tends to upset people. Like I've never had someone show up a few years later all pissed off at me over that? C'mon. But you didn't have to mess up my nice ballroom, you and your friend. So what is it you want? To make you go away? Did you just come here to rob me or what? I'll give you a chunk of imaginite taller than you are if it'll get you the fuck out of my life."
Junella put her hand on her hip and cocked an eyebrow at him. "Oh no, buster. You ain't gettin' rid of me that easy." She swapped her pistol for the Certificate Of Access and held it up like a patrolman's badge. "On behalf of Lady Crynight and the city of Coryza, I have been delegated with the authority to enter these premises and break your two-bit Erector Set ass in half."
It was his turn to laugh. His eyes bugged out and he actually slapped his knee. "Oh my god, you weren't kidding about that!? Holy shit! I thought that looked like too good of a COA to be a forgery! And Tessie's not dumb enough to give one out to someone who'd betray her. Jesus!" He guffawed. "You are seriously going to try and arrest me!? All by your little ol' lonesome?"
Her expression didn't falter one bit. "I can do anything I damn well want. Or did you not notice what happened to your boy back there?"
The qilin got sharply quiet. He glanced to Nollacero. He'd personally watched the hare kill over a thousand people. Now he lay limp as a dishrag. He chewed his lip slightly and looked back to Junella. "Okay, okay..."
He let his hands trace down along his arms, feeling for any need of fine tuning. Nope. Everything inside was running smooth as chocolate. He responded nonchalantly. "You sure are a spunky li'l firebrand, aren't you? I should be smart, then, and not underestimate you. Fine. But I'll give you some free advice: Understand what a wasp's nest you have just poked. You came into my home. My home. You broke my toys and tracked in mud. I'm not going to forgive you for that. You have violated the sanctity of what these two hands have built. For me. Do you understand the full consequences of that?"
She narrowed her eyes. "What I understand is that, for someone who snatches up travelers on the regular and shakes 'em down for nickels, you sure as hell do a lot of pissin' and moanin' when the tables turn."
His jade lips pulled back in a sneer.
Hers became a smartassed smirk. "You think the people of Coryza might have the same feelings about their homes, if your flunkies came barging in?"
"It's about strength," he spat at her. "If you can't defend what you have, then whoever can take it deserves to."
She shrugged. "Better defend yourself then."
He stood up straighter. Crossed his arms in front of his chest. "You put a hole in my suit earlier. I think I'll break your hips for that. You poor dumb bitch."
"Poor? Yeah," she admitted. "A bitch? Ha. Double true." Her thumb spun the barrel of her revolver. "But one thing I ain't ever been is dumb."
He grinned condescendingly. "'Ain't' isn't a word."
"After today," her eyes darkened to a scowl, "Sulilong ain't gonna be a name."
And just like that, they both knew. Trading witty insults was over. It was time to shut up and put up. Junella filled her other hand with sword. She and the qilin stood in silence, onyx and emerald, scanning one another to see who would make the first move.
This was as much of a fight as the fight itself. The chess game beforehand. Seeing who would blink first. Who would show the first hint of weakness.
Sulilong looked down the bridge of his nose at Junella, supremely confident that his win was predetermined. This had been an annoying evening, but it was about to come to a decisive end. In his business, you didn't waste time being surprised when someone wanted to take you out. You dealt with them. It is an unpleasant task, but garbage must be carried out or else it will begin to stink.
Junella was in a more defensive position, but only because her opponent was so much freakin' bigger. He stood before her, immovable as a statue. A comparison enhanced by the artificiality of his body. She thought about how much effort it had taken for her to remain conscious despite losing nearly all her blood to Nollacero. From everything she'd read, there was nothing alive in Sulilong's body below his neck. How had anyone managed to do that to themselves? Uncountable surgeries. Doctors hacking away at him, chunk by chunk. Forcing himself to remain alive as his body was slowly subtracted to nothing. 'Maybe that's what drew him and the rabbit together,' she thought. 'Raw, narrow, infinite bullheadedness.'
It occurred to her to wonder if she might have finally met a will superior to her own.
Nollacero's was, sure. But only in one very specific area. That left plenty of room to maneuver around it once she'd figured him out. Sulilong though... For starters, she had no idea how he fought, and that was worrisome. All she did know was that he wanted to make himself perfect, and had gone to unfathomable lengths to accomplish that goal. How much had a body like that cost? How was he operating it? 'Probly bloodpowered, like Zinc's wrenches.' That made the most sense. But still, unless he had crafted it himself by hand, amassing enough grit to have it commissioned would have been a monumental undertaking.
He could see where her attention was directed. She was admiring his body. And while, yes, there was a bit of sophomoric delight in that, there was even more satisfaction to be had in watching her come to realize that he possessed no weaknesses. He wasn't going to bother making the first move. Let her try first, if she could figure out how. 'Yes, honey, the iron does go all the way down to the floor. All of me. What's your sword going to do against that? And bullets? Oh no! Look how scared I am!' He wondered if squeezing the life out of her would be like crushing candle wax. And if he lifted her up and punched her open like a piñata, would candy spill out?
He'd read her like a book. After acknowledging the maniacal drive that had created his form, she'd gone to work trying to visualize a way to dismantle it. But no obvious strategy emerged. There were gaps between the armored plates, yet they were always shifting. And from the scant peeks she got, it looked like it was 100% iron all the way in. Jabbing her sword in there would just get it chewed up. She'd already bounced a bullet off him. He'd barely reacted. And her tail shards? Yeah, that'd work about as well as bashing them against concrete.
That left only one option. It was actually obvious, once she came around to it.
In a flash, Junella raised her revolver and shot a single bullet straight at his big stupid head.
It struck him above the right temple. Within its circular mount, his head actually spun backwards 120°. He didn't keel over, but she hoped it was just his golem body keeping him upright.
A chuckle.
She felt her ink chill when his head came ratcheting back around again. From the wound beside his eye, she could see blood dripping down.
But also, where bone ought to have been, the gleam of more iron plating.
He grinned broadly, pleased as punch. "That's the best thing about having a bullseye on yourself. Morons always take the same shot."
'Aw fuck,' Junella thought.
Sulilong reached out his clasping hands towards her and broke into a floor-shuddering run.
Junella fled.
His cloven iron hooves made the carpet ripple with every stomping step. Photos fell from the walls like snowflakes. Junella aimed a few more revolver shots behind her back, but it was pure desperation. She put all of her will into her legs. She'd fucked up royally. But she didn't waste time kicking her ass over it. It was a fair mistake. Now she needed to put enough distance between her and him to re-strategize.
He was not going to allow that. The qilin reached out and grasped the end of her tail, scattering record shards like potato chips. With a grinding squeal from the gears in his shoulder, he snatched her clean off the ground and whipped her sideways into the wall, obliterating two paintings and leaving a huge splintered dent.
Junella saw stars. The impact nearly burst her like a water balloon. It had inverted her shoulder deep into her ribs. Dropping to the floor, she felt splintered wood and broken glass embedded in her flesh all over.
"DID YOU DARE THINK THIS WOULD BE EASY!?" Sulilong roared at her.
She had one eye left. The other had a thick triangle of glass wedged deep in the socket. Ichor drained out in more places than she could count. She was facing away, but saw a dozen reflections of Sulilong reaching down to pick her up by the scruff of her neck and do god-knows-what to her.
Only one way out. It was more reflex than thought. She jammed her gun in her mouth and blew her brains across the wall.
When the body he was reaching for suddenly stopped existing, Sulilong stumbled. "Oh ha ha ha! Cute trick. Where are you!?"
She popped back into awareness about four feet away, and jumped to her feet. Then immediately jumped again, barely avoiding a punch that craterd the floor where she'd just been standing.
The hall seemed to stretch on for miles longer than she'd remembered it a moment ago. Sprinting, she tripped on the carpet, went down, somersaulted, and sprung back up. Better than sprawling on her face, but it had cost precious seconds. She could hear from the thunderous footfalls that Sulilong was already catching up.
She whirled around, gun out, and fired six times so quickly she nearly broke her finger. Aiming for his feet. If she couldn't nick his armor, bullets still had force. Maybe enough to trip him and send him down like falling timber.
He felt the impacts. Saw the sparks. He stumbled very briefly, but held on to his speed. She was dead in his crosshairs. Nothing could save her now.
Relishing the trapped, preyish look on his victim's face, he swung his arms overhead like an alligator slamming its jaws shut. His hands landed on her shoulders. He dug in tight with all ten fingers.
Junella's head snapped back in a noiseless shriek of agony.
He mushed the vinyl in his grip: slightly more resilient than he'd expected. Then he began to push. Forcing his full weight upon her. "What's this? You said you weren't stupid, but look where you are now!"
Junella felt like two skyscrapers had landed on her shoulders. The pain almost drove her unconscious. Her mind's eye saw red fireworks. Both legs trembled, struggling in inevitable futility to keep her upright.
"MY house, remember!?" he screamed in her face. "Home field advantage! Do you think I just stumbled onto this castle by accident!? You naive bitch!! I WORKED for this!! I KILLED for this!! You thought you could stand up to ME!?"
Her cries of agony were silent. Spiderweb cracks sizzled down her arms and torso. Blood was not yet oozing out, but she'd burst like a fire hydrant soon enough. The weight of his arms was tremendous. She knew in her flesh that if she pushed back too rigidly, she'd shatter like an egg. And if she didn't push back hard enough, he'd mash her into a pile of clay.
"I am a man without limits or restrictions!" Sulilong bellowed. "I take what I want, and I break whoever tries to stop me! I am stronger than you can fucking DREAM OF! I AM POWER!!!"
Thinking was so goddamned hard while every single part of her begged for death. There was no way to reach up and shoot herself again. Her shoulders were gunked and her arms were dead weight. There was only one thing left. It wasn't something she liked having to do. There was backspatter every time, and always hearing the same dumb jokes afterwards. But it was just the two of them now. She was in intergalactic levels of pain. And this motherfucker didn't deserve anything but her worst.
Junella let her legs collapse. The sudden slack in what he was pushing against surprised the qilin enough to make his grip slip. A little. She hadn't expected to get off easy. Since the pain was blinding already, what difference did more make? She whipped herself around with all her remaining strength, demolishing both her shoulders, but freeing her fully from his clutch.
He had only enough time to be impressed at the depths of her masochism.
Junella slammed to the floor facefirst, splitting her upper lip. But that was fine, fine, superfine. Because she was on her stomach. Facing away from him. With her tail raised up.
'Make it rain.'
She blasted him with a stinking, burning thunderstorm of skunk musk.
Sulilong tore his vocal chords screaming. This was not like in the cartoons; a little green fart cloud. The odor was only part of it. Skunk musk was clingy stuff. Oily and caustic, if any of it reached one's sensitive mucous membranes, it burned as bad as acid. Sulilong did the absolute dumbest thing possible and tried to wipe his face clean. He only succeeded in smearing the acrid liquid directly in his eyes. He squealed even louder, an indistinct tornado of every curse word he knew.
Junella didn't waste time savoring his suffering. He was kicking up a tantrum and his clumsily-stomping iron hooves were inches away from pancaking her ankles. With arms like wet noodles, the only way to get away was to kick against the floor and scoot backwards on her ass. Thankfully, the high-quality carpet was easy to glide on.
His voice had gone up an octave. "MY EYES!!! FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU!!! I'LL TEAR YOU INSIDE OUT FOR THIS!!! FUCK!!! AAAAAAAGHHHH!!!!"
No way to taunt him out loud, but she could think it in her head. 'Forgot what I was, didn't ya? Everyone always sees my blade and gun and forgets about my tail. Your strength don't mean nothin' if you can't stand your own body! Drink that shit like soda pop, Mister Motherfucker!' Her tail wasn't prehensile, but it was heavy enough to be a counterweight as she thrust herself forward, caught her balance, and managed to stand.
She immediately had to duck a blind punch that came plowing through the air like a wrecking ball. In feral rage, her enemy lashed out with grasping fingers. She knew If he caught hold of her, he'd wad her up like chewed gum.
Spittle flying from his lips, Sulilong spun and lunged, tearing gouges in the walls and floor, scattering photographs everywhere. "I'LL GET YOU!!! I'LL SHOVE YOUR FACE DOWN YOUR THROAT!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THE SHIT I HAVE TO GO THROUGH!? MY EYES ARE ON FIRE!!!"
Junella backed away but didn't run. This wasn't enough. This was humiliation, not defeat. If she left him like this, he'd redouble his efforts to crack open Coryza, if only to get to her. 'I've got to end him,' she knew. But how? The only weapon she had that wasn't useless against him only made him mad.
First things first, she had to die. All she could do in her current condition was retreat, and not with any grace. With her sword or her gun, she could dispatch herself in an instant. She'd done it hundreds of times to get out of hot scrapes. But her arms were party streamers now. Barely attached. Her hands were rubber gloves. And thus she found herself in quite a briny pickle.
It wasn't too hard to keep dodging Sulilong's flailing, but now she had to scan her surroundings for deadly implements as well. This was a palace, but there were no suits of armor with handy axes she could fling herself onto. Plenty of broken glass lying on the floor, but she'd look ridiculous trying to get down and thrust her neck into it. Her tail was too bulbous to get under her jaw and slash her throat either. 'My best hope is to get back to the ballroom. Assuming Zinc ain't eaten everyone already, maybe one of the goons'll put a bullet in me.' She hated any plan that relied on luck, but it was all she could come up with on the fly. She turned and sprinted off.
Sulilong was blinded, not deafened. He hadn't heard her gentle, sneaking footfalls, but her running steps were clear. She was NOT going to get away. He bent low and sunk his fingers into the carpet. Yanking upward with a growl, he pulled the entire length off its tacks and gave it a whipcrack.
The ripple shot towards Junella and launched her a foot in the air. She was caught completely off-guard. An awkward crash landing: dead center on her left shoulder. It was already so damaged there was no more pain, but her arm was now held on by a tatter.
That gave her an idea.
She looked up to see Sulilong barreling towards her in a bull rush. He had his arms spread low and wide, sweeping the hallways. Anything he caught, he would keep and torture.
Junella stomped hard on her left hand, pinning it to the floor, then stood up with a violent yank. Her arm popped loose in a geyser of blood.
The qilin drew near, fast and loud as a subway train. Junella prepared one hell of a risky move. Keeping her eye on his outstretched hand, she flattened herself against the wall. When her foe was a breath away from her, she arched her back, sending her other arm flopping up through the air, right into his grasp. A perfect handshake. He clamped down reflexively, and Junella tugged with a devil's strength.
Sulilong stumbled to a stop. He had her!! Wait... No! What the hell? What he'd managed to grab didn't weigh enough to be all of her. He felt around with his other hand. An arm!? "Real funny, bitch!! If I have to take you apart in pieces, that's A-OK with me!!" He spun back and forth, ears cocked, trying to catch her again on his radar.
Junella leaned back against the wall and let gallons spill out of her shoulders. She was keenly aware of what a perfect reversal this was. Back in the ring, she'd been trying to keep herself alive despite massive exsanguination. Now, she was trying to bleed out at mach speed. 'C'mon, c'mon!' She shimmied back and forth, impersonating a lawn sprinkler. Sparkles of asphyxiation burst into bloom, letting her know it was working.
Sulilong was fed up. His eyes were staring into supernovas. His nostrils burned like a lava flow. Waxy droplets of musk oozed into his gears, getting ground deeper and deeper inside of him. He'd never get the smell out. He'd have to be completely disassembled and scrubbed clean with a blowtorch. It would take MONTHS. But for now, while the pain did not recede, he was acclimating to it. He could think straight again. He was going to catch this skunk and keep her in a box and kill her in the worst ways he could dream up every hour on the hour forever. He heard a sloshing sound.
Junella dodged, barely, as he pounced straight at her and went headfirst through the wall.
It was comically clumsy, but didn't phase him. He pulled himself out in a cloud of plaster dust, laughing insanely and wiping off debris. "I can HEAR you! Still can't see, but that's not gonna stop me from finding you!!"
Cold panic gripped Junella's chest. She was still on her feet, even though hopping out of his path had nearly made her faceplant again. And adrenaline was keeping her mind wide awake, despite the fact that her torso was halfway to empty. 'Die faster, dammit!'. She could feel her heart beating frantically in her pelvis somewhere. 'Wait! That's an idea!'
Sulilong's head swiveled towards the sound of spilling blood. He was in front of her now, blocking her only exit. Fantastic! "You're mine now! Every scrap of your joke of a body belongs to me! Maybe I'll brand you, like a cow! That sound nice?"
To an outside observer, it looked as though Junella was surrendering, suddenly bowing so low towards Sulilong that her forehead scraped the carpet. But her real plan came clear a moment later, when her jet-colored heart came tumbling out of her gushing right shoulder.
She stood back up, seeing triple. On the carpet was a blurry black ruby. That alone was almost enough to put her down, but she never liked to do things halfway. She raised her foot. Nearly lost her balance and toppled over. Just before Sulilong's iron fingers raked into her scalp, she stomped down hard like crushing a bug.
She felt the death of her heart in every remaining cell. A concussive flash of alarm, signaling terminal shutdown. Her consciousness was vacuumed backwards down a tunnel of stars. Just before she vanished, she felt a massive metal tarantula land on her head.
"GOTCHA!!!" Sulilong howled. He bore down and jerked her off her feet, straight skyward. He felt something dislocate in her neck. Exactly his intent. He'd do to her exactly what she'd done to Nollacero.
Junella came back to life in midair. That was a first.
It's amazing the sort of things that go through your mind when you're falling upwards, directly above the head of someone who wants nothing more in life than to make you suffer forever. Junella noticed Sulilong was still holding the ragdoll remains of her previous body, and mused, not for the first time, on why exactly fursons in Phobiopolis would sometimes drop a cadaver, and sometimes they didn't. Was it merely random chance? Sometimes it seemed as though necessity dictated. Or maybe a familiarity and expectation of death? Whatever the reason, it was a question that would have to be studied further some other day when she wasn't currently in immortal peril.
Sulilong cackled triumphant laughter in his captive's face, but only for a moment. She seemed a bit too floppy. His head jerked ceilingward when he heard something above him thunk against it.
Junella hit the arch above and pushed off with her tail. She dumbfounded a gun into her newly-reborn hand. It felt like coming home. She aimed herself carefully. She would only get one chance at this.
"What the-!?" Sulilong barked.
Her other arm darted out and caught an antler. She locked her grip to it with all her might. And before her feet had time to land on his back, she fired her revolver twice, the barrel pressed each time against a jade-scaled ear.
Sulilong's mind exploded with a single high-pitched tone that eradicated all other sound.
Junella swung her legs around and double-kicked the back of his head. It both launched her away from his revenge-seeking hands, and gave her the pleasure of seeing him lurch forwards and fall like a clown on the carpet.
She alighted with the grace a gymnast would have killed for. Sulilong was screaming his throat raw again. She smiled. There was probably something more worthwhile she could do right now, but damn, sometimes it was nice to just take a moment to smell the schadenfreude.
Three of Sulilong's five senses were toast. The double gunshots had driven lightning bolts of tinnitus into his echoing iron skull. He pounded on the floor with both fists, as if trying to burrow away from that mindkilling noise. The stench was still in his nose. His vision was nothing but a watery mess. He was so goddamned angry, he wondered why he hadn't burst into mile-high flames already.
Junella lingered a moment more to watch, the way an artist would regard a masterpiece. She flinched when something snow-white moved near her foot. She'd traveled up and down the hallway, and ended up right back where she'd deactivated Nollacero.
Still floorbound, the arctic hare craned his neck towards her.
She saw in his eyes that his emotions had all frozen into a perfect icicle of obsessive pinpoint hatred.
"I will hunt you," he said, in a voice without life or sanity. "You will never be safe from me, no matter how far you run. I will make you pay in terror for what you've taken from me."
She looked down at him in pity. Honestly, she knew where he was coming from. She'd heard many similar vows. "You'll probably have to wait in line."
He made no reply, but continued to stare with his cold glass eyes.
Junella mentally jotted his name down on her long list of enemies.
But right now Sulilong was her top priority. Was this enough? Robbed of his senses and screeching like a baby? Could she leave him like this and call it mission accomplished? She shook her head. Not hardly. She had to bring him back to Coryza with her to face justice. Somehow.
One moment the kneeling qilin was pounding the floorboards into popsicle sticks, then with eerie abruptness, he popped upright and went silent.
Junella froze too. She flashed her weapons out. Her quarry looked like he'd just gotten an idea on the same level of craven desperation as hers.
He assumed she could hear him, though he couldn't hear himself. "I didn't want to do this," he said with perfect, calm clarity.
She backed up a step. Her danger alarms were going off.
Without warning or hesitation, Sulilong flattened his hand into the shape of a garden spade, then drove it straight through his face and out the back of his skull.
Junella's jaw dropped as she beheld green scales and grey matter arc through the air.
The qilin collapsed. Reflexively, the body's arms cranked forward and caught itself. It rested on all fours like a man bowed in prayer. Loose contents of its destroyed controller spilled out onto the floor before it.
Sulilong's back was to Junella. She could only see the curve of his iron spine and the tips of his antlers.
Then the two prongs suddenly tilted, like a dog cocking his head towards a strange sound.
They began to move in an erratic, lurching, twitch. They quivered. They clattered.
Iron fingers began crawling their way across the carpet, rotating the body to face the one who had forced this action upon it. The metal was not alive, but it retained enough of its master's blood to follow through autonomously on the last commands it had been given. And he'd wanted her to see what he was truly capable of. How much his will towered over hers. How much more he was willing to endure than her, to secure victory.
Sulilong's head was a shipwreck. The ears and antlers were still in place but the rest was utterly gone. Nothing but a crater dripping chum on the floor like an overturned pumpkin. She could see the gleaming iron inside (and couldn't begin to fathom how he'd managed to replace his own skull). The head kept flinching around within its mount. And then something was moving in its center. Glimpses of bubbling meat, or a reflection overlaid upon the original. Flashes of a mouth pulled open in cosmic agony. In awestruck horror, Junella beheld something she had never before seen in all her fearsome years in Phobiopolis.
'Oh, god... He killed the only part of him alive, and now it's trying to come back.'
Except the corpse was still in its way. Yet the living head was forcing a return to existence nonetheless.
Junella saw multiple lips flapping like batwings. She saw eyes splayed open, seeing nothing. She saw gold and green and red and grey. White teeth spinning in their sockets. It was a sight so unspeakable that it froze her to the spot.
Finally, her rationality smacked her in the face. 'When this horror flick gets to the end of its reel, he's gonna be good as new again!'
Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. Shaking, she stiffly backed away. Her inner voice was dead on. Despite her enemy's head looking like a whirlpool of iron and meat, it could coalesce into a brand new noggin at any second. And when it did, he would have his senses fully restored. Her stink would still be on his body, but that wouldn't slow him down enough to stop him from grinding her to dust.
She took off running.
As she turned the corner, she heard a voice calling out to her from a shifting wet tunnel that wasn't yet a throat. "COme baAAACK! We'LL Have FUN!!!"
Junella's mind tried frantically to remember the route back to the ballroom. She could not do this again by herself. She'd already given her everything, and her enemy had taken it and reset to normal. She couldn't even be upset at him for it. She was awfully fond of the same trick after all. But her tank had run dry. Her bag of tricks was upended and empty. She followed the bloody footsteps and chunks of canine meat, back to where this fight had begun.
A part of her rebelled. A part of her screeched in outrage that Junella Fucking Brox was a superstar of murder who needed no help from anyone, ever. But she socked that voice in the jaw. People too vain to learn got killed. Necessity was the mother of epiphany sometimes, and something very important had finally drilled its way through her thick skull after years of trying to keep it out. And despite paying lip service to it for the past day and a half. She'd said it with her mouth but not her actions. Not yet. Not fully. But now, in this moment, with her bare feet pounding on carpet and her breath scorching hot in her lungs, she accepted humility. This had always been a two-man job.
She reached the ballroom entrance and screamed out desperately, "ZIIINC!!!"
She saw only a crimson blur, more bodies and blood than any sane mind could make sense of, before an iron hand clutched around her neck.
Sulilong whirled with his catch and slammed her, spine-first, into the nearest wall. He saw her head jerk back and her mouth spray saliva. No scream, which was a bit disappointing. Though he'd made a big black stain on the grey concrete behind her though, so that was nice.
Her hands pried uselessly at his fingers, like trying to unlock a shackle with no key. Her back was a shattered pane again. Ink ran down her legs. But she could feel the restraint in his grip. He was being much more careful now. He had aimed to hurt, not kill. Death would not save her this time.
The qilin's emerald scales gleamed as he scraped her body up along the wall until her eyes were even with his. Gold irises drilled into her soul, the same glinting color as his mane. His lips drew back so wide they seemed to split his skull. His teeth were pearls. His face was immaculately symmetrical.
"I am perfect," he said to her.
Then he drew his arm back like a pinball machine's plunger. She flopped limply forward, and could only hold on tight as he pistoned her again against the concrete wall.
Her skull rebounded off of it. Galaxies danced in her vision. She bit her tongue hard enough to fill her mouth with the taste of copper.
His other hand snaked in to hold her dangling head up, eye to eye. He didn't want her to miss an instant of this. "Do you see now, little firebrand? You didn't listen to me. I told you, I told you, that this would happen. You have no idea how many enemies I've buried in the sands out there. I've killed legends. I've backstabbed friends. There is nothing I wouldn't do, and have not already done, to claw my way to where I am standing right now. And you thought you could take that from me?" He shook her roughly, like a terrier with a rat in its mouth. "HUH!? YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE BETTER!? ANSWER ME!!!"
Her eyes rolled loosely in their sockets. She'd returned in a brand new body not long ago, but had still endured a nearly-unprecedented amount of physical trauma for a single night. It was beginning to take its toll mentally. And yet she had to dig beneath her limit and find willpower enough to hold on.
She knew: you didn't win your battles if you dreamed you could walk through them unscathed. Sometimes you had to trade pain for triumph. Like before at the ramp, when the goons had pointed their painlaunchers at her. She knew she had to take a jolt. It was an acceptable trade-off for getting inside.
Pain faded. Wounds healed. But when you failed your mission, it lasted as long as your memory. Any other consequence was worth it.
Her shaking hand brushed across her thigh. "You ain't nothin' but another assignment to me. Ain't nobody knows the troubles I seen, bitch."
"THEN HAVE MORE!!!" He flexed his grip tighter and bounced her skull off the concrete like a tennis ball. "Keep it up!! I've got forever to break you! Pile on the sassy quips! Talk back! Run your mouth! It's MY hand around your skinny neck! Your life is OVER!!" He dragged her close, till their muzzles were nearly touching. "But I won't let you die. Even though you'll beg for it, I'll keep you alive and suffering for as long as I goddamn choose to. And I'll keep you on display. Wheel you out as an example to anyone else DUMB ENOUGH to set foot in my house thinking they can take me on!!"
A shadow fell over the doorway.
Junella tried with all her remaining strength not to look. She had to keep her attention on Sulilong. Let him rant. Let him get deep in it. And trust in her partner.
The qilin pressed the ball of his thumb against the space between her eyes. He savored her squirming. "What'm I doing now? I said I'd brand you. I'm putting my thumbprint right HERE. Right on the bullseye! I'm digging it in! Deep! Permanent! Indelible! So whenever you look in the mirror again for the rest of your hellish life, you'll SEE who really OWNS YOU!!!"
From behind him came a voice like a cauldron of boiling bones.
"Yoink."
Two massive metal paws, shot through with bloody strips of sinew and extra fingers, clamped down on either side of the qilin's head. Before he could even manage a single scream, they wrenched it clean off his neck.
The iron body spasmed for a moment. Its master had given it no further instructions. It leaned, then tilted, then crashed to the floor in an ear-bleeding racket.
Junella had gone down with it. She landed sideways, still in its grip. It was not painless. She was worried she'd be stuck until she could manage to reach her gun and pop her balloon again, but thankfully the iron fingers went limp a moment later. She jerked herself away from them, clutching at her throat and gasping.
The shadow loomed over her.
She took only a second for basic inventory of her bodily state. Nothing life-threatening. Good. Now to assess if she'd just jumped from the fire to the frying pan. She dared to look, already seeing tree-trunk legs with half a dozen gnarled feet growing out of them in random directions.
Raising her eyes, they traveled upwards across the ugliest road in Hell. The beast in the doorway barely cleared its height to fit inside. Vestigial arms and faces protruded from its heaving, lopsided chest. Its arms were an entire scrapyard's worth of twisted, melting metal, intertwined with pulsating muscle; every horrid chunk in squirming motion. The shoulders were broad as a boat hull. The muzzle had more teeth than a chainsaw. Instead of a cluster of yellow eyes, they were back down to two. But a skin-crawlingly bloated pair, full of clover-shaped pupils and throbbing red veins.
Junella eased backwards till her heels hit the wall. Her fingers quivered, making her stutter. "Z-zinc? Izzat you i-in there? C-can you speak?"
The black, mottled lips drew up in a puppydog grin. "Oh sure, Junebug. Whaddaya want? Habla español? Sprechen sie Deutsch?"
An involuntary bray of laughter escaped her. She nearly collapsed from relief.
Sulilong's eyes were rolling around. The pain had been monumental for a few moments there. His flesh was deeply incorporated with the inner workings of his ironworks, and separating him from them was not like doffing a hat. He gulped in air and felt it whistle out of his exposed esophagus. "Let go of me! Goddammit, put me down! I'll-"
Zinc made a motion like a baseball catcher punching his glove. Except he was still holding a head. The THWACK of metal on teeth was wince-inducing. "You can shut the fuck up, kemosabe. You bore me." He wrapped his mutated mitt around the qilin's bruised jaws just for insurance. Then looked back at Junella and beamed. "So, how was your night? I had a blast! God only knows how many people I killed! Plus I just found out, the more of me I eat, the more I get my smarts back!"
The skunk arched her back and ran her paws along her curves. She did not feel rosy, but she didn't think her injuries were bad enough to require another death. And to be honest, three in an evening was pushing it. What she wanted more than anything right now was a lungful of fresh air. "Glad to hear it. I suggest you getcher mitts on as many other yous as you can and let's book it. You're holding exactly what we came here for."
Zinc saluted. One of his fingers sloughed off. He turned towards the ballroom, then glanced back and noticed her wince of pain when she tried to follow. "You, uh... need any help down there?"
She waved a hand at him. "I'll walk it off. Let's motor. I wanna get the smell of blood outta my nose before I urk."
The eldritch abomination nodded in understanding, and turned back the way he'd come.
To say the ballroom lay in ruins would have been putting it charitably. Junella and Zinc's footsteps made ripples in the inch-deep lake of blood the floor had become. Plenty of Zincs still scurried around, committing fiendish deeds and giggling. Tearing off scalps and guzzling down intestines. Half-dead bodies abounded. They laid with unseeing eyes, begging for release from their nightmare. Tripping hazards. A few dozen henchmen were huddled in a pileup at the west corner, defending themselves with any poky implement they'd managed to get their hands on, while a pack of Zincs circled around, gnashing their teeth. Luckily for the survivors they were spared. The main Zinc gave no outward signal, but all at once, all the rest of him turned their heads and pricked up their ears. They dropped the ribcages they'd been chewing on. Let go of whoever they'd been dismembering. On feet or hands or flabby pseudopods, they all converged towards their alpha.
Junella tried hard not to freak the fuck out and run very far away from all this. Despite the main mutt seemingly back to his usual happy-go-lucky self, all the rest looked indiscernible from the nightmare constructs that roamed the wasteland. No light behind the eyes. Groaning gurgles instead of speech. And they seemed... loose now. Sagging. As if maybe the magic potion was wearing off.
As he ran, the central Zinc snatched up whatever malformed duplicates were closest and crammed them down his maw. He didn't seem to really chew them, so much as they reverted quickly to a slime-like state and commingled down any available orifice. The others were cannibalizing themselves too. Junella held her mouth closed as she watched leg-Zincs and mouth-Zincs and dick-Zincs all slam themselves together in gleeful mutual devourment. By the time she'd crossed half the ballroom, Zinc1A had grown to thirteen feet tall, with hordes of his bloodspawn trying to catch up. Several blobs of melded random parts rolled alongside like flesh boulders.
Junella could feel the fissures in her back starting to seal. Running felt good. And especially with the knowledge that they'd actually won. Sulilong was still blaring mumbled curses into Zinc's steel palm, but was otherwise wrapped up in a bow. They had their goal in-hand. Literally. They'd succeeded. It seemed impossible to believe.
'Don't get too bubbly too soon,' she warned herself, remembering one of her most reliable mottos: 'You haven't gotten away with it until you're safe at home.'
Zinc was talking a mile a minute, even with his mouth full. Like a kid on a sugar rush, he described the frenzied carnival of slaughter he'd been enjoying while she was elsewhere. He didn't even pause when he shoved slabs of him-meat into his mouth and reincorporated it.
More Zincs merged together till a rolling tidal wave of grinning faces and writhing limbs met them at the opposite end of the ballroom. Zinc Prime gave a happy yelp and leapt headlong into it, like diving into a pile of Fall leaves. Junella turned away and continued trying not to ralph. The sounds were unspeakable. Like someone trying to jam nine hundred pounds of lard into a single trash can. She tried to feel useful by sweeping her revolver around, keeping an eye out for any of Sulilong's crew who might try to stop their escape. But it was crystal clear at a glance: the one thing the survivors wanted was for her and Zinc to leave and never come back.
That was an issue though. Junella glanced back at Zinc as he inflated with meat to the size of a post office. From his window-rattling giggles, he was definitely having a good time. But the doorway leading back to the car was only ten feet high. No way in hell he was gonna squeeze through.
Whether he'd planned it, or was coasting on pure luck as usual, the problem soon enough solved itself.
The vast wobbling waterbed of Zincflesh consumed more and more straggling clones. Littler Zincs just ran straight at it and jumped into its jiggling mass, swallowed up instantly like disappearing in quicksand. There wasn't time to gather every last one of his scattered selves, so when he felt himself reach critical mass, he quietly closed his hundreds of eyes and let it happen.
Though he did retain enough final awareness to shoo away Junella with every assorted limb close to her. She caught the message just in time to start running, but not quickly enough to avoid the ensuing tsunami.
As if gearing up to win the Universe's Biggest Belch competition, Omega Zinc engorged to his widest diameter, held steady for a moment in trembling tension, then RELEASED. His skin tore open and unleashed a tidal wave of guts, tall enough to accommodate surfers. It rolled out and deluged everything within five hundred feet.
Junella ended up petrified in revulsion, covered head to toe in slithering red jam.
This was so much worse than Conrad's place. Hell, she woulda gotten on all fours and drank that slime of his rather than be where she was now.
Thankfully for her already-peaking stress levels, the blood soon began to shrivel. Like water in a skillet, it jittered and dried, then all of it began turning into dust. Junella watched the goop fall away from her arms, leaving them black and clean once again. The stuff falling to her feet was like coarse red sand. 'Maybe it's the drybleed reverting to what it started out as,' she guessed. And maybe that meant she'd be leaving behind a few thousand pounds of the stuff for anyone to lick up and turn into a monster too. 'Oh well.' She'd bomb that bridge when she came to it.
Turning around, she saw one final Zinc stepping out from a towering mound of crimson sand, smiling like it was just another sunny afternoon. He shook himself off and gave his legs a stretch, almost entirely back to normal. Almost.
Junella tried to look stern but failed. "Will you stop clowning around?"
Zinc looked at her with bulging eyes as big as cauliflowers. His body was back to its usual proportions. His wrenches were steel, not fur-infused. He'd even somehow reacquired his leather jacket and jeans. But his head was quadruple its normal size, with a mouth he could have scooped up watermelons with. He giggled. "Nah. I'm keepin' this for now. You'll see why in a moment."
She rolled her eyes and groaned. "Fine. At least one of us is having fun tonight." She swept her arm towards the exit. "I think I remember the way back to the car. If not, I guess you can chew a path through the walls."
"Probably!" he agreed. He started for the door, then abruptly skidded to a halt. "Oops! Damn near forgot, didn't I?"
He ran back to the hill of dried marrow. Scanning around, he saw a slight indentation. He plunked in his wrench and pulled out a prize.
Dangling by his mustache, Sulilong sucked in an absolutely enormous breath, then coughed it back out with a mouthful of red. "You RAT BASTARDS!!! I nearly asphyxiated under there! Do you have ANY idea what I'm going to do to you!? Both of you! Just for starters-"
Junella sauntered over to make direct eye-contact with the dangling head. She let him see the severity of her 100%-done-with-your-bullshit expression.
"You lost, Jack. Take it like a man. We're hauling you back to Coryza, and I'm sorely tired of your voice. So lemme make it clear. I can either carry you by the antlers..."
Then she held up a paw full of fingerneedles. They took positions directly in front of his eyeballs and nostrils.
"...or like a bowling ball. Savvy?"
The qilin clamped his jaw shut, physically holding back all the hellacious threats he wanted to hurl at her.
She patted him on the head. Then gave Zinc a nod, snatched their prisoner by the handles, and headed out.
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
Some realms within Phobiopolis are eternal night. Residents, in time, develop a feel for which is 'day' night and which is deep night. Zinc kicked open the hatch and Junella closed her eyes to draw in a long, soothing, cleansing, lovely lungful of outside air. She let it out in a sigh. No more aroma of body parts. Just rolling dunes as far as the nose could smell. There were also the increased patrols of constructs, the much-smaller moon, and the shifting tides of the dark sky's living constellations. Round about midnight, she guessed.
There was also, not forty feet away, five assholes with shovels and painlaunchers digging a living grave for a certain male mouse.
"Hey!! You!!" one of them articulated intelligently.
The skunk and mutt looked at one another.
Zinc raised his wrenches and made a crablike 'pinching off necks' gesture.
Junella shook her head. "Nah. You go find the car. Start 'er up." She scowled towards the gravediggers. "I think a massively unfair fight would suit my mood beautifully right about now." She tossed Sulilong roughly back to Zinc, not caring if he caught him. She filled her hands with weaponry and headed towards the henchmen.
Zinc hopped down to the sand as well, mindful that the castle was still turtling along on its treads. He idly wondered if it had a driver or it was just wired up to doodle aimlessly. He hadn't exited via the same hatch they'd entered by, but it was close enough. He caught a flash of chrome not far off and felt his heart swell with love. He headed off, not worried about Junella. When she'd said 'unfair', it had not meant towards herself.
The dead ground felt pleasant beneath her bare feet, mostly because it was dry. She absorbed the tableau in front of her while wiping scarlet off her soles. Three minions were nipple-deep in a trench, holding shovels and looking befuddled. Painlaunchers holstered. Two more guys had their weapons primed and glowing, standing outside the hole, probably keeping watch for constructs. The mouse was perched on the ground beside the dirt pile, bound, gagged, and begging for her help with his red-tinged eyes.
The two guys with painlaunchers had them aimed squarely at Junella. "Hey!!" the lynx repeated. "What the hell happened in there? We heard a lot of screaming, but no one came out and told us to stop!"
Junella sheathed her sword to respond, but kept her finger tight on the revolver's trigger. "My bobble-headed friend and I killed your entire crew, including the bunny with no sword, and now we're kidnapping your boss. How's that sound?"
The lynx was struck dumb for a second. Then he aimed his painlauncher between her eyes and repeated his favorite word. "Hey!!"
Junella's expression did not change. Her stride did not break.
BLAM
BLAM
BLAM
BLAM
BLAM
Three lung shots and two gut shots. Four seconds total. All five men hit the dirt, rolling around and screaming. Junella let a smirk flow over her muzzle. It was nice to win a fight with barely more effort than it took to raise her arm.
The mouse looked up at his guardian angel. He wriggled his ropes, as if she needed to be told he wanted to be freed.
"Yeah, yeah. Just a second."
She'd barely begun to shred at the knots when a gurgling shout came from behind her.
"THERE'S ONE!!"
She whirled around. It turned out that the sound of five gunshots, followed by five ongoing wails of agony, are quite good at drawing the attention of someone who is hunting to find you. Three someones, actually. And they took the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place trophies for the ugliest sonsofbitches she'd seen all night.
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
We briefly rewind. No more than a minute.
Nollacero is still lying prone in the carpeted hallway with a shattered spine. He has been trying to meditate, to temper the unbearable frustration, without much success. Now he hears footsteps running towards him. Finally!
"Kill me!! Whoever you are, get over here and kill me! My back is broken!"
The figure comes into view. A fat capybara with sweat on his brow. He sees the hare's predicament and slows a bit, but doesn't stop. "I... I can't!"
Nollacero's eyes bulge. "What!? Why!?"
"They got the boss!" he yells back, quaking from nervousness. "There's gonna be hell to pay if we don't get him back! All I can think of is to let the muties loose!"
"NO!" the hare orders. "I can handle it! I can make everything right! Get over here and kill me!!"
The capybara stutters, runs in place, and makes his decision based purely on whose wrath he fears more. He continues down the hall to the holding pen. "I'm sorry!!"
Nollacero shakes his head violently back and forth. "NO! GET BACK HERE! KILL ME! KILL ME!!!"
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
The original drybleed three. The trio that Eagsyne had watched trying to punch their way through the wall. They'd shrunk a bit shorter than his description, but they all still crested ten feet tall. A jaguar, a yak, and a chameleon. Purple, brown, and green. They had gangly scarecrow limbs. Grotesque, asymmetrical bodies. Elongated heads like Mardi Gras costumes brought to life. And more pimples and boils than you could squeeze in a week.
"GET HER!!!" the jaguar roared. He took off in a cumbersome but terrifyingly fast gait, straight at Junella. His gruesome companions charged alongside him.
Junella felt her heartbeat pounding in her ears, but reminded herself that she'd expected this. She knew from the start that these three were bound to show up. And from their bleary, squinting eyes, maybe she'd woken them from a nap. Awww.
She turned back to the captive mouse and, forgoing subtlety, whipped out her cutlass and slashed through his ropes in a single motion. It drew a bit of blood but worked like a charm.
The mouse jumped to his feet and pulled down his gag. Grabbing Junella's paw, he pumped it up and down vigorously. "Thank you! Oh my god, they were going to bury me!! You have no idea how grateful I am!"
She shoved him away. "Don't stand there thanking me, stupid! Start running!!"
From his seated position, he hadn't seen what was chasing her. He sure did now. Squealing in terror, he took off as fast as a marathon runner, in whatever direction was farthest away.
She watched him kick up dust and disappear into the night. He'd be eaten by constructs within five minutes, she knew. Probably repeatedly. But still, any chance at of freedom was better than suffering under the weight of a tyrant's thumb. She wasn't standing still either. She detoured around the dirt pile and pointed herself in the direction she'd last seen Zinc.
Behind her, colossal malformed feet drove twisted monsters towards her. Claws like sickles. Teeth like knives.
Then came the sound of an engine exploding to life.
Twin plumes of plasma exhaust scoured the darkness, followed by the blinding flash of headlights.
The drybleed goons all turned to look. They raised their hands against the glare, and a moment later, were all sliced to ribbons by a sun-powered rolling scimitar.
Zinc cocked back his cartoonishly huge head and clamped his paw on the shift rod. "YEEEEE-HAWWWW!!! GET OUTTA MY WAY, JERKS! I'M BIG DADDY ROTH!!!"
'If this ain't the coolest moment of my life, I can't remember it,' he thought.
Junella didn't have much farther to run before the Killcanoe pulled up beside her. Zinc grinned like a kid on Christmas. "Beep beep! Cab service! Need a ride, toots?"
"That would be excellent," she sang. Hooking an arm over the side, she vaulted into the awaiting leather seat. She shivered in bliss at how good it felt to sit down and rest. "Coryza, please. And mash that gas pedal!"
He 'hmmph'ed. "As if you hadda tell me."
The Killcanoe blasted a roar of pure joy as Zinc sent her into the red. Nothing could make a car happier than a flat, unbroken stretch of desert to chase her top speed in. The shocks made the chassis feel like a magic carpet ride. The tires spun like tornadoes. The core at their feet purred with life and radiated heat. The wind pushed their ears flat and velocity churned their stomachs.
Junella swiveled her seat around to keep an eye on the drybleed trio. While they weren't all mutating into smaller, even-uglier versions like Zinc had, they sure weren't staying down either. Clearly pissed off, they were hopping around on their remaining limbs, snatching up parts and trying to figure out whose was whose to slap 'em back on. The yak was first to puzzle himself back together. He took off running immediately.
She reached back and tapped Zinc's shoulder. "Here they come again. Of course it's never easy."
The canine's head was slowly shrinking back to normal, as he'd already lived his perfect moment of hot rod heaven. A fine stream of red dust trailed out of his ears. "Do I look worried? This is just like you planned. And by the way, I owe you a beer. I actually thought we'd gotten lucky and they wouldn't show up at all."
"If they don't chew our brains out, I'll take you up on that."
Zinc checked the rear view mirror. A stampede of three was thundering towards them, faster than he would've thought possible. Even with his own exposure to the nearly-limitless nightmare energy of the drybleed, their speed was surprising. 'Guess they've had more practice.' He carefully measured the shifter and accelerator. The trick now was to stay far enough ahead to avoid getting caught, but not so fast they'd lose their pursuers. A surprise was waiting at the end of the line.
The Killcanoe settled into a groove. Exactly the right speed, not an MPH more or less. Behind them, the slavering stooges shook their twisted fists and cried out all manner of blood-curdling threats. Zinc turned on the radio. With a little bit of tuning, he found a surf rock station. 'The gods must be smiling on me tonight,' he thought. He was sure of it a moment later when he drove through a herd of pigthings, shearing them all into cutlets without getting even a splotch on the windshield. He howled at the moon and kissed the dashboard.
Junella noticed Zinc's head was only slightly balloonish now. "Hey. Whydja get smaller again when those three back there are still jeepers creepers?"
"Wanted to," he tossed back with a shrug. "You oughtta know: any transformation you say yes to, you can shake off just as easy. I let the stuff in. We had some fun. We parted amicably."
She nodded and gave him a 'that makes sense' sound, then ducked so she wouldn't get smacked with any remains from the bonecuddy the car had just cleaved. "By the way, where's Sulilong?"
He pointed a wrench behind him. "See that bag at your feet?"
She hadn't, actually. It was a burlap lump wedged way down into the storage space. She gave it a little kick and heard a muffled tirade.
"I used to catch pigeons in it. Guy's gotta eat, right? Now it's filled to the brim with one grade-A dipshit. Horns ripped off and a muzzle fulla duct tape."
"Oooch," she hissed, impressed. "He give you trouble?"
A glint of uncharacteristic sadism shone in his eyes. "Nope. Just felt like it."
Junella cackled.
It was a long drive back to Coryza. For Zinc, the hardest part of the journey was exercising restraint on the gas pedal. It would've felt velvet 'n cream to go all out and bury the speedometer needle. But they had to keep their enemies visible in the side mirrors. Whenever the pack showed signs of exhaustion, Zinc faked engine troubles or diverted course to annihilate more nightmares. He had to be careful not to let them figure out they were being led.
Junella didn't have much to do in the backseat besides occasionally missing a shot at their pursuers, or target practice on constructs. She spotted a weird-looking one up ahead, then realized with a bit of astonishment that it wasn't a construct at all. "Zinc! Pull up alongside that little pink dot!"
His eyes bulged. "Is that who I think it is!?"
If the hot pink leotard hadn't given it away, the catcher's mitt antlers sure did. Jaziezal was hot-footing it across the wasteland with nothing but a travel valise and a construct-repellent soundbox. It was astonishing he'd made it this far without becoming a midnight snack. He heard the Killcanoe coming and shrieked out a high-pitched gobble. The headlights stretched his shadow across the sand.
Zinc angled the car alongside the fleeing moose just as smooth as you please, and Junella leaned way out of her seat to snag his collar.
She dragged him close. Kissing distance. "Hi."
Jaziezal's scream of panic nearly exploded her head.
Junella kindly retrieved his belongings before they fell to the sand and disappeared. Then she swung him up onto the back-end hood and let him cling on. Half the scrawny weirdo's weight was his antlers. She sat back down and pinned him in place with her eyes.
He stared back, trembling.
"You've had a rough night," she sang soothingly. "Don't ask me how I know. All I can say is, I'm impressed you managed to get your head symmetrical again."
His frozen dread became intrigued puzzlement.
"You were working for my target. So right now, I don't know whose side you're on. I'd like to be nice and offer my hand in peace, but I need some assurance first." She leaned slightly closer. "What would you say if I told you I had your boss' head in a burlap sack right at my feet?"
He cocked his head, mouth agape and eyes bulging. "B-bullshit?" he squeaked.
She nodded. An understandable reaction. She reached between her legs, held up the bag, and peeled it back just enough for the qilin's golden eyes to drill into the moose's.
"JESUS CHRIST, MANG!!" Jaziezal squealed.
Junella nodded. Sulilong struggled quite a bit, but she managed to get him secured again. She stomped him deep under the hood. Then raised an eyebrow to Jaziezal: "And how do you feel now?"
"Ho-lee fuckatitty city," he said.
"Exactly. So lemme put it to you simply. I am acting on direct orders from the deputy mayor of Coryza to annihilate Sulilong's operation. You were a crucial part of it. But you seem like a harmless l'il schmuck, so I'm offering you asylum."
He seemed receptive.
"Do you know what Lady Crynight will pay you to never brew up another bottle of that drybleed stuff ever again?"
Hopefully, with a quaver in his voice, he guessed, "P-p-pussy?"
She facepalmed. "Yeah, fine, probably."
The moose's hand shot out like an arrow. "O-KAY, boss!"
Junella shook on the deal, wondering if the little spaz had cooties.
Zinc reached back a wrench. "By the way! Name's Zinc. Sorry you gotta hug the hood. There's only two seats."
Jaziezal shook, then shrugged. "Beats running."
"And my compliments to the chef!" The mutt licked his lips. "If that was the last-ever batch of your concoction, I'm glad I'm the one who gulped it! More fun than Disneyworld!"
Jaziezal lit up at the appreciation for his work, then went cross-eyed trying to figure out how the canine had gotten his wrenches on it.
The Killcanoe continued to spew up twin trails of dust behind its churning wheels. Constructs were still getting bisected by its hood. The goons were still pursuing. The moon was still shining. "How much farther to Coryza?" Junella called out.
They had closed up their walls for the night. Normally that would be a traveler's worst nightmare, as it meant there was no safe haven until morning from the ravenous beasts of the wastes. But Zinc tried not to worry. Though the city's lights had been doused, he could still see a rectangular patch of darkness on the horizon with no stars inside it. "Just a hop, skip, and a jump," he reported.
"Good." Time to antagonize their antagonists.
The drybleed trio had never dropped their pace, but their rage had smoldered down to mere annoyance. They looked like they wanted to go back home and get back to bed more than they wanted to rip their prey limb from limb.
Junella aimed to change that. She pushed Jaziezal's head down and used one of his antlers as a handy tripod. (He moaned a bit, but allowed it once he realized what part of her anatomy he was close to.) Squinting down the barrel, the skunk lined up her shot and put a nick in the jaguar's ear.
The big cat flinched as if a bee had stung him. His nine-fingered hand shot to the side of his head and came back bloody. "You piece of shit!!"
She grinned. Shot number two shattered the yak's left hand.
He howled, snorted, and doubled his speed.
Shot number three blinded one of the chameleon's eyes. It didn't hurt his depth perception though, as he had a couple extra on that side already. "I'll peel your skin off!!" he shrieked.
"Gotta catch me first, boys!" Junella sang back with a flirty wave of her scarf.
Jaziezal meekly peeked up at her. "Was that w-wise?"
She patted him on the head. "Shut up and trust me." Swiveling around, she gave Zinc a rustle. "The hive has been poked. You ready to do your part?"
They were traveling at almost seventy miles per hour. Coryza was a starless black void looming ahead. Zinc shifted his grip to the middle of the steering bar and clamped his right wrench around the pinball piston. "Ready steady, cap'n. But, ah, I can't see any trace of what I'm aiming us at."
She gave the back of his neck a gentle massaging squeeze. "Mia said she would. That's good enough for me."
The mutt exhaled and tried to have the same amount of faith. "Awright then. Full speed ahead." He pushed down the gas pedal. Not too much. Just enough to make the already-maddened gargoyles behind them freak out and push themselves harder to keep up. It was vital to keep them focused on the car, not its path.
Soon Zinc could see the seams in Coryza's mighty wall, the rivets outlining each titanic panel. He scanned for the place where the goons had made their dent before. There. He was slightly off-course, and corrected. He was aiming for a very particular spot. 'The panel on the LEFT. The LEFT. The LEFT,' he chanted to himself. The whole night's adventure would go straight to hell in an eyeblink if he missed his mark.
He couldn't see what he was driving towards, but he knew where it would be. When Coryza's petals opened up, morning after morning for generations, they left a permanent imprint in the soil around the city. Each panel was shaped the way a child draws a house: a triangle atop a square. Zinc was aiming for the panel to the left of the dent. The spot where its indentation made a humongous arrow straight towards.
He yanked back on the pinball handle, dropping the car's suspension an inch above the ground. Their speed slowed considerably.
The drybleed goons saw this and rejoiced. Yowling in bloodthirsty glee, they surged forward.
Junella kept her eyes peeled and her aim steady. She couldn't hope to defeat them with just a cutlass and a revolver, but goddammit, she'd try if she had to.
Zinc held steady on the handle. Too late and they'd be fucked. Too soon and they'd be fucked. He had to hit this right smack dab in the Goldilocks zone.
Jaziezal screamed a lot.
The Killcanoe's headlights passed over a patch of ground where the color was ever so slightly wrong.
"NOW OR NEVER!" Zinc hollered. He released the piston.
The suspension uncoiled. High-powered springs punched the car four feet straight off the ground.
On liftoff, Junella's heart skipped a beat. It was a brief but intense feeling of liberation. Like maybe they'd just keep going and drift off into space, leaving this whole crumbling, rabid world behind.
The drybleed trio's mouths fell agape. They saw the car they were chasing put on a burst of magic and learn to fly. And because they were all looking up, none of them were looking down.
Gravity punched the yak and the jaguar in the stomach as their feet went from solid dirt to a wide canvas blanket with a bit of soil sprinkled on top, stretched taut over a 10' by 14' hole.
The tiger pit was the oldest trick in the book. But sometimes tricks get old because they work.
The Killcanoe slammed back down on the opposite side with plenty of room to spare. Zinc damn near drove the handbrake through the floor. They skidded into a 180° spin. This put them at the perfect angle to catch a fleeting glimpse of the yak and jaguar flailing helplessly in empty air for an instant before dropping out of sight.
Two screams, two thuds. But there should have been three.
On pure luck alone, the chameleon had managed to stop himself right at the edge of the pit. He was gibbering mindlessly as he desperately pinwheeled his arms, trying to keep himself from going over.
A withered but vengeful voice rang out from high above, "Not a second time, peckerhead!"
A rifle bullet exploded the dirt directly beneath the chameleon's feet. Down he went, like a sack of stones.
Another scream, another thud.
Junella craned her neck to look up, way up, at the tiny dot of a guardsman's balcony high on the wall above.
An owl's wing waved down at her.
She smiled.
Panting, jittering, and staring, Zinc hopped out of the car. His eyes were glued to the huge rectangular divot Coryza's citizens had managed to dig and conceal in the brief span of his absence. An amazing achievement for such a short time. (He wondered where they'd put all the dirt. Maybe just piled up in the street?) Now all three of their last remaining problems were far at the bottom of it, knocked out cold. He jumped up and punched the air. "YESSS!!! Holy sweet chrome-plated Jesus, we did it! We fuckin' did it, you guys!!"
Junella wasn't out of the car two seconds before a pair of wrenches picked her up and spun her around in a hug. She wobbled for a second afterwards, not sure if she'd been hit by a truck.
Zinc danced over to Jaziezal, kissed the moose on the snoot, and crowbarred him off the hood to join in a jig. Jaziezal screamed a lot.
Junella walked over to the edge of the pit and peeked in. Whatever was down there, it was too dark to see. She regarded the width of it and whistled. She couldn't believe the Killcanoe had jumped it so easily. So much of tonight had come down to chance and luck. But it was over, she told herself. She could finally shut off the alarm bells in her heart. It was over.
She padded back to where Zinc was still giving Jaziezal a nervous breakdown through overwhelming good cheer. She chucked the mutt's left wrench. "Simmer down. No partying yet. Chores ain't finished."
He blinked and came to his senses. "Oh, right." He skimmed the surroundings and could already spot quite a few ravenous nightmares turning in the darkness towards them. "You already thunk up a way for us to not end up being dessert, I assume?"
"I forgot to tell you?" She gave him a 'watch this' smirk. The skunk held out her hand, showing it empty. Then she tucked it behind her thigh and returned it holding a coil of As-Much-Rope-As-You-Need. "Ta-da."
Zinc and Jaziezal both clapped.
Junella started unspooling it. She'd had it for years and it really did seem as infinite as the box had promised. She tossed the end to Zinc. "Here. Pop off one of your wrenches and tie it on. You ever been a grappling hook before?"
He glanced up high at the guardsman's balcony. "Not yet, but it shouldn't be too hard. Gimme a couple seconds first, mammacita." He jumped back in the car and started her up.
Junella glanced at the ring of nightmare constructs that were beginning to pick up their pace towards them. "How many seconds?"
"Enough to park her someplace where she won't get pancaked in the morning," he replied sensibly.
"Fair enough. Good thinking." She bade him drive off and went back to Jaziezal, who was looking a bit petrified. She showed off her revolver. "Nothings gettin' close to us, don't worry."
He nodded several times and clutched her arm, grateful for the reassurance. "I l-like p-pizza, boss."
She blinked at the non sequitur. "Sure."
Zinc took a little longer to park than she would have liked, ensuring the car was angled just so. He gave it a hug and murmured babytalk to it for a bit, before jogging back to rejoin the others. To Junella's approval, the mutt wasted no time in slipping off a wrench and getting to work with the rope. Plus she spotted the burlap sack, tied shut and hanging off his belt. "Help him," she ordered Jaziezal, then took a defending position in front, gun raised and ready.
As it turned out, she didn't actually have to shoot anything. Sometimes constructs charged right in with tooth and claw, other times they circled around to season their meals with fear. Or maybe the Killcanoe spooked them, who knew? She didn't mind fewer problems, whatever the reason. In less than a minute, she heard the swish and clang of Zinc's flying wrench hitting its mark.
He tested the grip. Couldn't ask for better. "You guys climb up first, then reel me in?"
Junella jumped onto his shoulders. "Nope. It's As-Much-Rope-As-You-Need. So need less of it." She glanced behind her. "And it couldn't hurt to hurry."
Zinc looked up at the rope and wanted it to be shorter. And it was. His paws were now danging a few inches off the ground "Neat." He reached out with his other wrench and scooped Jaziezal closer. "Over here, hatrack. We're ascending to the heavens." The moose gibbered and sweated but didn't struggle.
And so, with ample time to spare, our heroes rose up from the blighted soil towards the balcony and safety. Zinc didn't have to do anything but ask and the rope obeyed, smooth as an elevator. He looked back down at the pit behind them. A brief worry shivered through. Was it deep enough? The gruesome threesome were pretty tall. They might get the idea to stand on each other's shoulders and climb out. But it turned out there was nothing to fear after all. The nightmares that had been scenting around for him and Junella smelled something new to eat. Zinc watched herds of them converge around the pit and dive in, claws bared. Muffled by the wind, sounds of chewing and terror floated up to his ears.
Junella guessed what he was thinking. "They ain't going nowhere. They're occupied for the evening."
"Whaddaya think'll happen to 'em? I mean, eventually?"
She returned a cold little smile. "You can always count on Coryza's community spirit. I imagine tomorrow morning they'll all come out with their shovels and fill in the hole. And that will be that."
Zinc winced. Grim, but fitting.
As they were getting closer to the hole in the wall, a beaked head leaned over the edge. "Yah. Good work tonight, you down dere."
Zinc gave a nod. "Eagsyne! Fancy meeting you here."
"As if I'd be anywhere else?" He squinted gravely at the trio getting devoured in the pit below. "Lookin' back, I felt kinda like a coward for not doin' more to stop dem shitlickers the night before. Glad you led 'em here. Gave me a shot at redemption, eh?" He rattled his rifle: pun definitely intended.
Seeing that Jaziezal was definitely eager to get off this ride, Junella gave the moose a hand climbing up to safety. He mumbled various stuttering sounds of gratitude.
Eagsyne looked up and down at this total stranger that had just invaded his perch. "Who's this clown?"
"Sulilong's chemist," Junella replied, leaning on the rail. "We liberated 'im. And that reminds me; there's a hell of a lot of people buried out there in the wasteland. You should request a team head out with bone detectors."
He nodded. A sensible suggestion. "Yah."
"And maybe a few more to poke around the palace. I don't think you'll find a lot of resistance there, but I'm sure we left behind some prisoners."
He arched a feathery eyebrow. "You didn't take the time to let 'em loose?"
She winced, feeling acutely selfish.
Eagsyne patted her arm. "Well, we can't expect everything from ya."
She nodded.
"To be fair," Zinc interjected, "we were busy stealin' this." He tossed over the burlap bag.
Eagsyne caught it, but the weight made the old owl stumble back. "Heavy as hell!! Whatcha got innit?"
Zinc just smiled.
Eagsyne poked his head in.
Two golden eyes filled with all the hatred of Satan blazed back at him.
The owl pulled the sack shut quick. "Well fuck my grandparents!"
Jaziezal nodded that he'd had a similar reaction.
"Actually..." Junella got an idea. "Hey, moose."
He pointed at himself. "Me?"
"I'm remanding that coconut into your custody for the night. Keep an eye on him."
Jaziezal looked utterly gobsmacked to be given such a responsibility. "What'll I do with him!?"
"Eagsyne, doesn't the guardhouse have a basketball hoop somewhere?" Junella responded blithely.
A dark chuckle from the owl. "I believe we do."
It took a couple of seconds for the idea to penetrate Jaziezal's cranium, but once it did, maniacal glee spread across his face. "YAISSS, boss!!"
The bag began to scream, muffled by the duct tape.
Zinc cocked an eyebrow at Junella. "I'd kinda been hoping for some playtime with our new chum."
A pat on the head. "We've got elsewhere to be. Now getcher butt over the rail and get ready to throw your wrench again."
"We're not going inside!?" he shouted, bewildered.
She smiled serenely. "Just trust me for a moment, okay?"
\t\t\t~~*-*-*~~
At the lip of Coryza, a wrench appeared.
It popped up like a prairie dog, then vanished back down. A few seconds later it reappeared again, making it all the way over and landing with a CLANG. The jaws scrabbled to find anything to clamp onto. They chanced upon a rivet big enough to grip.
A moment later, the wrench's twin appeared, followed by a pleasantly stunned canine wearing a skunk for a backpack. "Say hey! We did it! Just about knocked our heads off on that first throw, but here we are! Top floor!"
Junella swung herself up and off him with a ballerina's grace. Her landing didn't make a sound. She tipped him a "C'mon," and headed towards the center.
Very few souls in Phobiopolis had ever seen, much less set foot upon, the summit of Coryza. From this vantage, the city was a monolithic grey plateau. A circular mesa with the seams of its panels converging in the middle. Junella thought of a sliced birthday cake. She also appreciated how small her imagination of this moment had been. From ground level, there was no way to see across the city from one edge to the other. The buildings were too densely clustered. But up here, Coryza's vast diameter was humbling. Like the dark side of the moon. And while thousands below slept or fought or watched TV, she and Zinc were the only living souls inhabiting this hidden world. They had it all to themselves.
What a view. Junella looked upward and felt chills running down her arms. Not just from the midnight breeze, but the nearness of the stars. She was seeing them as if they'd appeared only now, just for her. The living constellations in the Veil Of Tears sedately strolled across their limitless dark territory. An inverted ocean. The blue-white lights of their bodies sparkled. They looked as if they'd found a paradise free from worry. And from so high above, it was easy to forget, for a moment, about the rest of the cruel and violent world below. Past the great disc of the city, the only other bit of Phobiopolis Junella could see was the distant pointing peak of Anasarca, always on the horizon.
She wrapped her arms gently around herself. 'Maybe I'll make it there someday too.'
By now Zinc had struggled his way up onto the surface. He spent a few minutes agape as well, then remembered that one of his arms was still basically a giant fishing line. He chewed off the knot, mounted his wrench, gave it a flex, and nodded approval. Back to normal.
Approaching the shadowed skunk from behind, he could see she was having a quiet moment. Maybe even a profound one. He didn't want to intrude, but was awfully curious why they were up here. He coughed very lightly. "Erm... Here's your rope back?"
She accepted it with a nod of thanks. She didn't seem perturbed at all. His presence was not unwelcome. Junella turned her gaze back to the stars.
Zinc shuffled up beside her and looked at them too. The night air was slightly chilly, but after their breakneck escape, it felt kinda nice. And the metal had a dim rusty odor that reminded him of the ocean. "So, ah, what part of the plan is this?"
She smirked, then bopped him gently on the shoulder and took off in a frisky run.
It was clear she wanted him to follow, so he did.
Her heart wanted to sprint all the way to the middle. Lie down on her back right above the capitol dome. Perched just right to drop in on Tessie first thing in the morning. 'And probably piss Angelbull off real good having to scrape us off the skylight,' she thought with a chortle. But the center was a long way off, and she was already feeling tired. So she gauged about where she thought the Tatterdemalion was, and settled down beside one of the canyon-sized seams between panels. Plenty of room to dangle her legs down into it, but not so much there was any fear of falling in. When Zinc's footfalls came close, she patted the space beside her.
He plonked himself down, puffing a bit.
She reclined with her tail as a pillow, so she could keep on letting the stars take her troubles away.
The canine got his breathing slowed down. In a straight run, she was a lot faster than him. Probably because she wasn't lugging a couple hundred pounds of steel everywhere. He noticed her supine position and mirrored it. He rested a wrench across his tummy and crossed one leg over the other. "You wanna maybe finally tell me what the hell we're doing up here?" he pled.
She giggled. "We're unwinding, Zinc. Don't you think we've earned it? And can you think of a nicer place to spend the night?"
He let go of the tension in his posture. "Okay. Cool. I'm not the type to ever say no to R&R. Of course, you realize we're gonna fall a couple hunnert feet to the asphalt at daybreak, right?"
She shrugged. "Lookit this view and tell me it isn't worth it."
For the first time, he really noticed the constellations amongst the starfield. He felt goosebumps on his neck. "A very good point," he replied soberly. "And hey, we might get lucky. Just land on a rooftop: no harm done."
"We might."
They were quiet for several moments then. Junella hadn't managed to entirely relax yet. Some whirring cells in the back of her mind refused to believe this night of crescendoing mayhem had finally reached its fade. 'But it has,' she reassured herself. The mission was done. They'd made it out alive. The hard part was over.
But she couldn't stop a troubled frown from coming to her lips at realizing what the end of this mission also meant. She glanced over to Zinc.
He was lost in the stars, not noticing her thoughts at all.
She feigned a smile. "Hey, mutt... Now that it's all over, what do you think you'll wanna do tomorrow? Same old same old?"
He shook his head straightaway. "The way I figure it is, both of us are gonna get filthy stinking famous pretty quick. Maybe even before lunchtime. Lady Crynight's gonna wanna see us. Probly reporters too. We'll get our pitchers taken about a hundred thousand times." He grinned. "And then the cash is gonna start rollin' in."
"Oh." She was surprised that was the first thing on his mind. "What do you think you'll spend it on?"
Still gazing upward, he tapped his foot on the air as he talked. "Nothin' fancy. First thing, I'm gonna get myself chromed. Head to toe. Till I'm dazzling like liquid moonlight. Then I'm gonna yank all my teeth out and replace 'em with diamonds."
She was shocked. He didn't seem like the type to care about such ostentatious- 'Wait.' He was screwing with her, wasn't he?
Zinc kept up a flawless poker face as he continued. "Then I'm gonna buy up all the cars in the world. Not one of each, mind you. All of 'em. Drive a different one every hour. After that, the next logical step is my own private island."
"Naturally." She tried not to smile.
"I'm thinkin' a flying one. 'Bout three times the size of Coryza. Coast around the clouds all day. Park it on the moon at night. Import the Taj Mahal for my livingroom. Get indoor waterfalls to piss in and a fridge in every corner. Have a swimming pool fulla imaginite, and a mountain of it in the backyard that I can climb to the top of every morning and eat breakfast."
"And what'll be for breakfast?" she asked, voice cracking a little.
No change at all in his nonchalant tone. "Waffles."
That slayed her for some reason. She doubled over, giggling helplessly into her hands.
He glanced at her, and smiled broadly at finally seeing her laugh. Not a sardonic little chuckle, but the way a kid laughs. Loose and free.
"So what're you gonna do tomorrow?" he eventually asked.
Junella wiped tears from her eyes. "You almost killed me there, mutt. I thought my ribs were gonna bust." She sighed happily. She had literally forgotten how good a solid laugh could feel. "And to be perfectly honest, I don't have a god damn idea anymore. I'm sure you're right about us gettin' all famous, but as for how I'm gonna make use of it? Not a clue. I been a loser so long, I don't really know what to do with myself when I win."
His smile slipped away instantly at hearing that. He thought for a bit, then rolled over on his side to face her. "You ever notice you really don't like yourself much?"
She turned and gawked at him. Speechless. That felt like it had come out of nowhere. "W-what!? The hell are you talking about?"
He frowned. "Don't play dumb."
She felt a flare of anger at him. She pouted and snorted. "I just don't bullshit myself, is all. I acknowledge where I need to do better. Like tonight. I was just thinking a moment ago that I can't all-the-way believe we actually pulled it off. And that's mostly because, the more I look back on it, YOU were the one that did all the work! What did I do? Mouth off a lot? Get in a fight with that rabbit, take it too far, and get us caught? I went toe to toe with Sulilong, but you were the one who took him out. You drove the car. You got all big 'n hairy 'n grody to wipe out the mooks. I repeat: what the hell did I contribute!?"
Her outburst didn't put a single ripple in his expression. Zinc looked directly in her eyes, sternly. "For one, you're not responsible for bad luck. So don't make yourself be. And for two, none a' that stuff I did would've happened if you hadn't given me the ideas."
She got quiet.
"Nothing would've fuckin' happened tonight without you. You took big risks. Some of 'em panned out. Some of 'em didn't. But you kept fighting back when it got bad. And every time I didn't know what the hell to do next, you had an answer for me-" he clinked his wrenches "-that quick. So don't tell me you did nothing."
Zinc looked at her with a seriousness she hadn't expected he was capable of. "You're a good leader."
Junella felt like he'd just knocked all the wind out of her. She stared at him, absolutely dumbstruck. Completely in disbelief at what she'd just heard. "You... really mean that?"
He looked away, down at where he was scraping some rust away from the metal. "Yeah. And don't try to deny it or I'll slug ya," he muttered.
Junella put a hand to her heart. She was tingling. "I know it's a helluva lame cliché to say, 'That's the nicest thing anyone's ever told me'. But... it is. Thank you."
He nodded.
"What brought that out?"
The canine chewed his lip a little. He hesitated to reply, and when he did, she heard a trace of bitterness. "I jus' don't like seeing people treat themselves bad, that's all."
The night wind rustled between them. Junella thought she understood what his words hadn't said. "Thank you again. And I meant what I said. You were phenomenal. I wish you coulda seen the look on Sulilong's face when you snatched his attic."
That broke up the somber mood. Zinc couldn't keep a grin from his muzzle. "Yeh. I bet it was priceless. And like I was saying about not gettin' too down on yourself, you musta done something right to get him so righteously steamed that he didn't even hear my twelve-foot, two-ton, Frankenwolf ass sneakin' up on him."
She hissed a laugh. "That I did! If there's one thing I'm an artíste at, it's makin' people mad." She lit up with evil glee. "Did I tell you I sprayed him in the face?"
"For real!?"
"Like a firehose! Genuine undertail vintage! The sonofabitch was down for the count, and only got himself back to fightin' by suiciding."
Zinc 'tut-tut'ed at that unfortunate turnaround, but greatly appreciated the visual of the mustachioed dictator yowling and holding his nose. "Y'know, I did actually notice you smelled a little... skunkier. I wasn't gonna say nothing though."
She pointed a finger in his face. "You better not. I've heard all the jokes before and if I hear any again I'll castrate you with a Coke bottle."
He bit his lip. His cheeks puffed up and got red. He tried intensely hard to keep the smile off his face.
"You're thinking 'em!!" She poked him all over with her fingerneedles in a merciless tickle attack.
They chortled like idiots for a minute or so, with Junella jabbing at his weak spots and Zinc trying to block her lightning-quick hands with his wrenches. Soon they were both rolling over on their backs, exhausted.
Zinc puffed out a huge exhale and a string of uncontrolled 'tee hee's.
Junella felt her sides ache with every giggly aftershock. But she liked the feeling. She'd been away from it too long. Abruptly, she remembered something she'd decided earlier, when she was renegotiating her fee with Lady Crynight. She sat up straight. "Hey, Zinc?"
He tried to reply, but couldn't manage anything but snickers.
She gave him a last poke. "Let's get serious again. Only for a bit though, I promise."
It took a few deep breaths to get himself under control. Then he sat up too and tried to present a calm, professional demeanor.
She jostled his leg. "You make me grin too much, mutt. However..." she looked down at her lap, pushing away the tiny greedy part of herself rebelling at the idea, "seeing as you saved my life about eighteen zillion times tonight, there's something I have to give you. I'm honor bound."
He arched an eyebrow.
The skunk shook her head. "When Tessie pays us tomorrow..." She sighed. "...You get half."
He chuckled. As if he'd ever cared about that in the first place. "That's awful generous. But tell ya what, I got a better deal in mind."
She cocked an ear. "Hm?"
"Don't split it at all," he suggested serenely.
She did a double take. "You mean... I keep everything!?"
His grin expressed a great many things. "No. I mean, we keep everything."
Junella went still as a statue. Then shivered head to toe, as she was hit with a wave of intense emotion. Suddenly realizing just how much she'd wanted him to say that, without having dared to consider the possibility herself. She actually felt a tear come to her eye. "You... and me?" Her pessimism tried to ruin the moment by insisting he couldn't be serious. "Tell me you're not just tryna flirt your way into the sack or something."
He shook his head, though the idea was not unpleasant. "I was thinkin' more like, we took down one evil asshole tonight. Why not go rustle up another?"
She blinked.
"Might be a steady line of work for us. Get a roof over our head. With our names painted on the door, like in them detective movies."
Her eyes widened. A world of possibilities spread open before her like a beautiful rainbow of violence and assassinations. But then she looked back at herself. At her black vinyl grooves and record shard tail.
She chuckled awkwardly. "You can actually stand being around me?"
Zinc smiled easily. "Funny, I was just about to say the same thing."
She turned to look at him then, and had never felt so vulnerable. But she didn't see a single hint of insincerity in his eyes. No intent to backstab. Just a genuinely fun knucklehead in jeans and a leather jacket, with wrenches for arms and half his head missing. And that damn charming, goofy-ass grin of his.
Zinc leaned closer. "How about it? Pilot and co-pilot?"
"More like witch and familiar," she teased.
He took it in stride. "That's fine too. I've always been a hepcat. I could learn to ride a broom."
That was an amusing mental image. She chuckled again and shook her head. Hesitantly, she reached a vinyl paw towards him. "I hope you know what this means, mutt." Her song was thin, nearly a whisper. "I can't guarantee I won't be a pain to you sometimes."
He just shrugged, as if to say, 'Can anyone make such a promise?'
She looked at his wrench as he lifted it towards her. She draped her fingers across it, noticing for the first time all the microscopic pits and scratches it had accumulated over the years. And that it was actually a little bit warm, unlike the metal they were sitting on.
She had a feeling this would be a night she'd look back on in the future. The moment when her old life died and a new one began.
"I think I'd like to spend tomorrow with you, partner," she sang.
She slipped her hand into his, and they shook on the deal.
Zinc's eyes lit up like Christmas morning. He suddenly slammed her arm sideways, touching it to the metal. "HA! Finally got you back for last night!"
Her jaw dropped at realizing what he'd just done. "Oh, you bastard!!"
Delighted by his wicked streak, she fell on top of him in a hug. And they laughed.
\t\tTHE END
\t\tfor now...
Alex Reynard's
~~P~H~O~B~I~O~P~O~L~I~S~~
Killing Machines
Featuring, our cast, in order of appearance:
Junella Brox – Cree Summer
Zinc – Christian Slater
Mia Xenoiko – Youki Kudoh
Eagsyne – Dave Thomas
Sgt. Angelbull – Michael Dorn
Deputy Mayor Tesseract "Tessie" Crynight – Annie Potts
Bungalow Doodaddy – Garret Morris
Conrad Glen – Gaten Matarazzo
Jaziezal – Pink Guy
Sulilong – Russel Wong
the tortoise – Sam Elliott
Nollacero – Bill Skarsgård
~***~
-SOUNDTRACK-
\tTom Waits – Ice Cream Man (Ceno Limit Remix) [Skid Row]
\tDuane Eddy – 40 Miles Of Bad Road [Good Morning]
\tliltommyj – Enraptured (Bioshock Remix) [Downtown Coryza]
\tBrook Benton – Hotel Happiness (JPOD Remix) [The CTR]
\tHanggai – The Rising Sun [Sulilong's Entrance]
\tGramatik – Damage Intended [Driving Off]
\tChinese Man – Step Back [Palace Ballroom]
\tCranky – Libera Me [Nollacero Fight]
\tSlacktone – Coffin Closer [The Drink]
\tChris Barker – Gremlins Theme Guitar Cover [Berzink]
\tChinese Man & Tha Trickaz – Operaz [Vs. Sulilong]
\tDick Dale – Nitro [DRIVE!!!]
\tProleteR – The Missing Piece [Moonset]
\tJack White & Alicia Keys – Another Way To Die [End Credits]
~***~
SINCERE GRATITUDE TO MY PATRONS OF UNPARALLELED GOOD TASTE
Robert Darling
Chris
Pseudos Muhthotohsin
Vanyel Stargazer
Angelwuff
Sen Grisane
Shadow Panther
Relee Squirrel
Trashycoon
D Kenmason
~***~
GOLD-PLATED EXECUTIVE-LEVEL DOUBLE CHOCOLATE THANKS TO MY PROOFREADING TEAM
Alfador Fox: Master of typos
Kanada: Master of art
Relee Squirrel: Master of continuity
Robby Rourke: Master of voice
Zephon Fox: Master of theming
~***~
Particular thanks go to Kanada for the idea of the Happiness Hotel
and to Kalloon White, for putting Conrad in my head.
Lastly, very special thanks are due to Grace Jones,
because I'm damn sure her character in Conan The Destroyer
planed a little seed of Junella Brox in my mind.
~***~
\t\tI like me better when I'm with you.
\t\t\t\t-Lauv, "I Like Me Better"
After the trial, but before sentencing, Junella and Zinc asked for special dispensation to have the prisoner transferred to their custody for an afternoon. When the judge asked why, they told him. He found it highly unorthodox, obviously constituting cruel and unusual punishment, and refused.
Tessie Crynight spoke up from her videomnibus. "Overruled. It sounds hilarious and I wanna watch."
And so the mutt and skunk had journeyed to find the absolute grungiest, dirtiest, most poorly-maintained laundromat in the city.
Zinc was leaning on a tumbledryer with one leg crossed over the other, appreciating the centerfold in a titty magazine. The machine was rumbling in obvious overloaded distress.
Finally it dinged and sputtered to a stop.
Junella stopped filing her nails and hopped up from her rickety plastic chair. She walked over to the dryer and opened the door.
"FUCK YOU WITH THE SPLINTERED COLLARBONES OF ALL YOUR ANCESTORS!!!" screamed Sulilong's bruised and blistered head.
Junella's eyebrows went up. "Ooh. He's been workin' on that one for a while, don't you think?"
Zinc nodded, appreciating its pungency.
The skunk leaned into the round porthole. "Ready to apologize yet?"
"EAT SHIT!!! WHEN I GET OUT OF THIS I WILL SHOVE MY HOOVES DOWN BOTH YOUR THROATS AND KICK YOUR ASSES INTERNALLY!!"
Junella shrugged. "As you wish." She looked to Zinc. "How much longer you wanna leave him in for?"
The mutt tapped a wrench to his lips. "I ain't gotta be anywhere till lunchtime and that's-" he glanced at his wrist, which did not have a watch. "-three hours from now."
"Three hours it is." With a cheerful smile, she tossed in another sheet of fabric softener and began to slowwwly shut the dryer door.
"Wait! WAIT!!!"
"Phobiopolis: Killing Machines"
Started: 8/31/2018 Finished: 11/30/2018 Editing completed: 2/13/2019
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