Ceramic DM - Spring 2005 (Late Bloomer) - We have a winner.
RangerWickett
Legend
Me? I'm doing fine. I keep it real, y'know?
Rodrigo Istalindir
Explorer
Round 2, Match 1 Berandor v Speaker, judgement sent.
Looks like I'm going to have a 'BSF-style' weekend, so I'll get to the next match as soon as I can.
Looks like I'm going to have a 'BSF-style' weekend, so I'll get to the next match as soon as I can.
RangerWickett
Legend
Ceramic DM – Summer 2005
Round 2, Match 2
By RangerWickett
The drugs kept me from really grasping my situation.
A year earlier I had been arrested for internet piracy. I had pled insanity, figuring a brief stint in an asylum would be easier than spending my life behind bars for pirating every song ever. But I didn’t remember this now. I just knew that work is good. I had to pay my way in life, y’know, and people needed to buy groceries. And skin mags. And electrical appliances. And dry ice.
Two weeks ago I could have escaped, could have joined up with my roommates El-Hadje the Nigerian internet scam artist and Robert the geeky comatose guy to slip out in the confusion of when El-Hadje hacked the netnet and convinced all the weather sites an icestorm was going to hit Atlanta. I had stayed behind, and actually tried to stop them, because I had figured good behavior still counted for something in this world.
But I didn’t remember this either. I just knew that the dry ice I was holding, trying to scan for a guy who was rambling on about what he’s going to do for his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, was burning my palms.
It took a while for the pain to make it through the cloud the meds surrounded me with, and when I finally cried out in pain, I was blissfully too injured to keep working. My supervisors checked me for hidden weapons, wrapped my hands in too-sterile bandages, and sent me to my room to rest. I have the day off, they said, which made me happy, even though I also knew that work was good. Gotta pay my way, y’know?
I slept alone in a room intended for three inmates – the blood stains marked where poor Robert had taken his life, right next to the chair he had sat silently in for years; there was no reminder of El-Hadje’s presence, though.
The door opened while my mind was wandering through vague memories, hollow without music. I smelled the sweet scent of roses, which stirred me from my dreaming. I had never liked the smell of roses; people said they were sweet, but I simply never noticed any smell from them. But I was quite aware that I was smelling roses, and that worried me.
A thorny hand pressed over my face, forcing something into my mouth, and then I felt a woman’s weight on me, pressing me down and pulling something over my eyes. I mumbled, then winced at the pain of the woman’s skin cutting into mine. A switch flicked audibly next to my ear, and light flashed into my retinas, digitized beams trying to focus into my drug-blearied eyes. The sound keyed on with a tremble, and I heard a laugh.
“Chou! A pleasure to see you. Can you spare a favor for a fellow grocer?”
I mumbled in Korean, asking what he wanted.
The visor finally got a lock on my eyes, and the image rasterized into solidity. Two men sat before me, rendered in black and white. One, glum in his crumpled top hat, was silent. The other, grinning like the madman he clinically was, answered me.
“Well, old Chou-y bud,” he said, “we at Red Market are convinced that our boss is the ultimate incarnation of evil. We’d like you to kill him.”
Part Two: Supermarket Assassin
It was disconcerting, feeling the woman holding me down while my ears and eyes were a half-mile to the east, inside the warehouse of our competitor, Red Market. Whatever the woman had slipped me must have been organic – it was clearing my mind of the drugs – but I felt an awkward tingling from having the prickly woman so close.
I shook my head. Disconcertingly, the image did not move. They really were using primitive equipment – non-tracking, not even in color. I was so used to the virtual experience, I was getting nauseous. I groaned.
“Sounds sick,” the hatted one said.
“Aye, so he does. Chou-y bud? You doing alright? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of killing a man.”
I asked, “Who again? Cut me some slack. I’ve been drugged for . . . well hell, when is it?”
“He like music,” the hatted one said. “Jack, I sing?”
“Not now, Walter old boy,” said Jack, the grinning one. He slapped his companion on the back. “Sorry Chou. It’s mid-Feburary. The thirteenth, in truth. Lucky day, lucky day, I say. So, will you do it?”
“Your boss?” I asked. “Why do I care what goes on at your store?”
Jack leaned close to the camera and snarled at me, “Because he’s the devil! Don’t you understand, Chou? He’s the devil, and he’s getting married! We cannot allow the devil to have a son!”
I considered, unfazed by the outburst. In fact, the biggest distraction was the woman. I personally was irritated, but my body seemed to be quite enjoying her presence. But I focused on the immediate concern.
“Why do you think he’s the devil?”
“You know how, on a phone, there are letters on each number. Well if you dial our manager’s initials – Mickey O’Malley – M.O.M. It’s 666, the mark of the devil!”
I nodded. I could see why they’d think that.
“How’d you clear my head?” I asked. “They’ve kept me thoroughly dosed since the ice storm. Which I saved the city from, by the way.”
Jack slapped his knee. “Exactly why we thought of you in our time of need! You’re the man for the job. And don’t think we’re asking you to do this out of the goodness of your heart, old chap. No no, we’re willing to clear your credit history and give you these $5,000 limit credit cards.”
I snorted. “Like hell. Thanks for wasting my time.”
“Good pill,” Walter said.
“Yes indeed,” Jack said. “What my slightly addled friend here wants to tell you is that you drive a hard bargain, Chou-y boy. You see, we have come into possession of some products.”
He stepped aside to reveal a huge stack of cases behind him in the warehouse, marked HERB-ALIVE. Above the crates was a massive globe and numerous other display items. I felt brief sympathy for them. Setting up displays was always a pain in the ass.
“Red Market has become Look on it, Chou: one hundred thousand dollars worth of medicinal herbal products. We’ll pay you half if you can eliminate our problem with the prince of lies.”
“Why me?” I asked. “How am I supposed to kill ‘the devil?’” I chuckled, unafraid of the lunatic on the other end of the conference visor.
“Boom boom,” Walter said.
“Indeed,” Jack said slyly. “Look, old chum, we’ve got a bomb, and we need someone he won’t suspect to put this in his car. A bit bland of a plan, but it was Walter’s turn to plan a murder.”
“Look,” I said, grimacing, “I don’t kill people. How about I just break up his wedding?”
Jack smiled, showing teeth like a Cheshire cat. He laughed. “How about we just have our lady friend cut you into pieces? Don’t be so contrary, Chou.”
Then he grew coldly serious. “That’ll get you killed. Or at least maimed.”
From the real world I felt something slice me near my kidney, and then I felt a pressure at my crotch.
I gulped and smiled. I’d had lots of experience faking enthusiasm at the supermarket.
“Two questions,” I said. “These pills? Are they organic? And, how much can I get in advance?”
We finished our negotiations, and I waited until long after the soft and thorny woman who had slipped me the herbal supplement left my room before I took off the visor. The woman, whoever she was, was apparently able to get between our store and Red Market, and she’d be bringing over a small case of pills in an hour. I couldn’t deny that organic pills would help me clear my head and hopefully get out of this asylum, but I had learned my lesson last time I’d tried to do a good thing. Trusting people – cops or lunatics – gets you screwed.
Which was ironic, I thought, because . . . well, I won’t mention that.
I could not trust Jack and Walter, and I had no idea why they thought I would be the best choice to kill their boss, but they seemed quite willing to kill me. I needed to know more about the situation, and to do that, I needed my netnet. Batwarden probably had my netnet locked up in his office, and I was more scared of him than of these two most current lunatics.
My implants would let me still access it wirelessly as long as it was in the building, but my connection would likely be limited to either visuals without tactile sensations, or simple text. I hadn’t enjoyed the detachment of being drugged, nor the schismed sensation of my little teleconference with Walter and Jack, so I chose text
I sat awkwardly against the wall, trying to get comfortable, but I guess I still rattled by the woman attacking me. With a few thoughts I was out of my body, trying to access any local wireless network. My various inboxes were clogged with requests for pirated music, but I had no way to listen to anything myself. Growing increasingly irritated, I sent a request to my father, hoping he could pull some strings and help me find out about the manager of the Red Market.
The reply was terse and as affectionless as I expected from my father. He was busy with his ambassadorial duties, but he had gotten his aides to do research. My target was Mickey O’Malley, a 26-year old senior manager of the Toco Hill branch of Red Market. He was getting married tomorrow, on that most disgusting of holidays – Valentine’s Day. My affections for Valentine’s Day had grown cold long ago when I realized that while love songs were sung year-round, there were almost no Valentine’s Day songs. It was a holiday that had contributed nothing to the improvement of humanity.
A little more research revealed O’Malley’s fiancee, one Jessica Kusanagi. She was a model, gorgeous, blonde, and voluptuous, renowned for swimsuit shoots and her mocked by the media for her uncharacteristic interest in acting in musicals. I had seen her before on the cover of magazines in the checkout line, but reports on the net suggested her career was dying. I felt sorry for her. In part because she was gorgeous, and I don’t like to see to see gorgeous people not getting the success they believe they deserve. And in part because I was going to have to kill the man she planned to marry.
I decided to track her down and talk to her. Perhaps with this information I could negotiate some help for myself. A good deal of snooping turned up that this evening she would be at Peachtree Street, a historical virtual construct where she was going to audition for a role in the stage show Aural Pleasure.
A knock at my door pulled me out of the net, but no one said anything, so after a moment I opened the door and pulled in the first payment for my services.
“HERB-ALIVE,” the case read, “Organic Health Supplements.” “Green Blossom” and “Faithful Natural Spring” were the names of the products. “Super Fast Acting,” they proclaimed. The descriptions of the pills effects were a bit unclear, mentioning things like ‘whole health improvement’ and ‘achieve the body you believe in,’ but they were certified organic. I swallowed two of each to clear my head, then hid a bottle of Green Blossom in my apron.
I waited.
I was even more aware of the disconnect between my netnet persona and my real body when I logged on that evening. Peachtree Street was an old-fashioned construct of red brick buildings and cobbled streets, full of deep mingling music from numerous bars and entertainment houses. I had no physical sensation and dulled hearing, but the music was music to my ears, sweet enough to distract me from the strange persistent lurch I had below my stomach.
I arrived early for her audition and sat amid throngs of people there to see a beautiful woman in a slender black dress, with no regard for her voice. Nevertheless, she was stunning, as beautiful or more than what I had seen on the covers of Sports Illustrated. If I’d had my library of music, I would have found myself unconsciously accessing some old noir tracks. She was the kind of woman I would gladly suffer to be with. I’d even live in black and white.
And then she sang.
Most people don’t understand that the foremost measure of talent in music is enthusiasm. In that regard, Jessica Kusanagi was perhaps the greatest singer to ever lend her digitized voice to the netnet. Her voice, thick like Spute brand organic honey, rippled with desperation, and though the song she had chosen for her audition was Ecit Bangbang’s upbeat “See the Ouija,” I could feel that she was afraid.
The audience jeered her. I walked through them out of the theater in anger – one of the benefits of not sitting in my netnet was that I could, if needed, force myself through people’s virtual bodies. It was rude to do so, but so was their reaction to her bare-hearted virtuosity.
I waited outside in the back alley, hoping to speak with her before she logged off. The road was empty, and the air was filled with the stringy notes of Howling Wolf’s “Red Rooster.” It took me a while to notice that ice was beginning to creep across the cobbled stones, and snow was drifting down from the sky.
The back door of the theater opened, clanging dully, and Jessica stepped out. Her eyes were rimmed with tears – she must have been using the highest-end netnet to capture that level of detail – and she nervously shivered before ordering an umbrella to keep the snow off her. She had not seen me, but I was about to address her when her engagement ring flared with red light, and her body shimmered with the telltale pattern of turning off a filter.
Where before had been a curvaceous, tanned athlete, now stood a slender, crying woman. She looked down at herself and shook her head in despair. Her face was the same, but I realized that her body before had merely been a screen, an illusion to conceal her true form. Though I knew it was possible for people to wear fake skins in the netnet, for as long as I had been using it, it had been taboo to do so unless the skin was obviously not real, like the gryphon Robert had attacked me with. I wondered if every photo I had ever seen of the gorgeous Miss Kusanagi had also been a fake.
But that had been her real singing voice, I knew for certain. It had been too true to have been an illusion.
“Miss Kusanagi,” I called.
She turned to look for me, but just then the wind picked up. Snow cut viciously and pulled her umbrella from her hands, and every surface in the alley became glazed with a sheen of ice. Jessica tried to step toward me, but the virtual began to warp around her, twisting her body and spinning the buildings and ground in an undulating surge.
Jessica cried out in confusion, and her umbrella was torn from her hands. The wind carried up the umbrella to the roof of one of the alley buildings, and for a moment in the orange light of a street lamp I thought I saw a rooster, crowing into the storm.
“Help!” she cried, her voice now filled with a much more immediate pain.
Even though I knew I could not touch her because I was not solid, I ran to her and tried to pull her free from the effect that was distorting her body. To my surprise, I felt my hands wrap around her, and when I pulled, she moved. We stumbled away, and she and I briefly occupied the same space as the netnet corrected itself and made me intangible again.
I was on my back, and she pressed up onto her hands and knees, looking down at me.
“My god,” she whispered. “I thought I would die. You saved my life.”
Relief flashed across her face, and she smiled at me. My heart quickened.
“You sang beautifully,” I said. “And, call me crazy, but . . . you’re much skinnier in person.”
Pale fear crept across her face, and she staggered to her feet. She was about to run when the rooster on the roof called out again, and the distortion in the air ended with a loud snapping sound. The ice that had formed on the ground shattered and vanished into green wireframe, fading to null polygons.
“Wait,” I said. “You’re in danger.”
She nodded like what I had said was the most stupidly obvious thing in the world, and then she fled. I was about to follow her – which would be easy since I could run through walls – but it only took her a moment to remember where she was. She logged off, leaving me in an empty alley.
I sighed, then noticed the rooster. It was floating down from the roof, flying tail first without flapping its wings.
“You have a great task ahead of you,” the rooster said. “You alone can aid me.”
It landed, and I considered it for a moment, rubbing my chin both in person and on the netnet.
“And who are you?”
“A mighty magician,” the rooster boasted. That little fleshy flap under its beak waggled proudly.
“You know, I’ve already been asked to kill the devil.” As I said this, I had to wonder whether the organic nutritional supplements were actually helping stave off the medication. I certainly thought I sounded crazy. “I’m not really impressed by a talking rooster.”
“The devil? Oh, you mean Mickey?” The rooster chuckled. “Yes, he does need to be dealt with. It’s good to see you taking initiative.”
“Why’d you attack her?”
“I didn’t,” the rooster said. “Come, Chou. Walk with me. Let us discuss this some place private.”
I followed the rooster deeper down the alley, deeper than I remembered the alley being, until eventually we emerged in a forest. Peachtree Street had vanished behind us.
“Try anything and I log off,” I said. “What do you want?”
“I want your help. You’ve not been on the net for two weeks, so you’ve missed some of this, but the world is in peril. Since the dawn of civilization, from the moment the first note of music was banged out on a rock with another rock, madmen have had insight into dangers the sane do not perceive.”
“Are you saying I’m crazy?”
The rooster laughed deeply. “Not at all, young man. But those two jokers at Red Market sense something is amiss. Mickey O’Malley is about to spearhead a new social movement that will destroy life as we all know it. Let me ask you, Chou, have you ever been jealous?”
I thought back to a moment earlier, looking into the eyes of Jessica, who was certainly too beautiful to be marrying the devil.
“Yeah,” I said, “once or twice.”
“Good, it’s natural. Perhaps not healthy, and it causes a lot of conflict, but it is key to human nature that they be able to feel jealousy, and overcome it or fall victim to it. The scourge of communism came close to destroying the world because it sought to give everyone the same amount, so that no one would be jealous of anyone else. Thankfully, with the blessing of American consumerism, communism merely succeeded in making the Russians more jealous. You saved the world, son. You should be proud of your nation.”
“I’m Korean,” I said.
“Don’t sass the
,” the rooster clucked at me. “You know you like America!”
I rolled my eyes. “Who the hell are you?”
“Putting aside O’Malley’s vile plan,” the rooster said, “there is also the problem of the netnet. Your roommate the Nigerian pulled quite a scam last month. Convinced all the weather sites that Atlanta was going to be hit with an ice storm. Convinced ‘em so well that people believed it too, even though you knew it shouldn’t happen. In fact, he convinced so many people, not only did the netnet start to manifest ice, so did the real world. Belief is a powerful thing. Do you believe that?”
“No.”
The rooster hesitated, then nodded. “Fine. What I need to ask you is where this Nigerian is. He escaped, and left the netnet in tatters. I’ve been flying around virtual Atlanta trying to stop the ice, but it’s spreading. I’m only one mage, and if I can’t find my enemy, both worlds might slowly be consumed in glacial ice.”
“El-Hadje escaped,” I said.
“And no one left in the asylum knew where he was going,” the rooster said, cutting me off. “No one alive at least. I’m emailing you a ritual spell that will let you contact the ghost of poor, suicidal Robert by séance. You’ll need an item of his to make the spell work properly, but I’m sure you have something. Email me back what he tells you about this El-Hadje’s location, and I’ll make sure that when you confront O’Malley, you are prepared. The worlds are counting on you, Chou.”
I kicked at the chicken, and to my surprise my foot connected. It exploded into a burst of feathers. My connection alerted me to a newly arrived message with an attachment.
“Stupid,” I said to no one in particular. “I don’t have anything that belonged to Robert. And why the hell should I help you?”
I opened the email. It was from zorok@world.wrld. The text of it was brief:
Because Jessica doesn’t want to marry O’Malley, and you want to get a new job.
The attachment gave me what I needed most – the seventeen song fragments of heroic skald verse that, when played in the proper order, would call forth Robert’s spirit – but left it up to me to acquire the bricks for the binding circle, the fire to make the spirit visible, and the item of Robert’s to make sure no other spirit came instead. For the first two, I traded my hard copy of the War of the Worlds BBC musical to get the nurse to bring me Kingsford’s Charcoal, landscaping bricks, a Bic lighter, and a portable media player.
For the third, I had to sit and think a while. I popped two more pills, and the irritating problem was not going away. I shifted in the old wooden chair beside the door, wishing I owned looser pants. I’m not proud of how long it took me to realize that I was sitting in Robert’s old chair.
Ten minutes later, I had a small fire burning on the floor of my cell, Robert’s chair sitting in the middle of it. Shaking my head at my own insanity, I turned on the media player, and listened to old norse verse.
Smoke was clogging the ceiling when Robert’s spectral form appeared before me.
“No time to spare,” I said. “Where’s El-Hadje?”
“You killed me!”
“Yeah, and apparently people think I’m good at it, because now they want me to kill the devil. Too bad there wasn’t a Doom league back home. Now, where’s El-Hadje?”
Robert’s spirit glowered. “He’s in Savannah, working at the Wendy’s on Chatham.”
I choked with laughter. “That was his big plan? Get a job at Wendy’s?”
“He grew up in Nigeria,” Robert sneered. “He ain’t picky.”
And then he vanished. I shrugged, logged on to email a reply to the rooster, managing to send it off just in time before the sprinklers went off, and I was dragged away by asylum security to Batwarden’s office.
An ethereal Danny Elfman tune played in the Batwarden’s office, written by the composer’s ghost. Children wove fey laughter into the beating and strumming of drums and violins.
“Mr. Senwan,” said the Batwarden, his voice deep and fiery, “I’m not going to ask you how you got those implements. Nor shall I ask why you lit a fire in your room. You’re insane, so I should be more surprised with how normal you have been otherwise.”
He reached forward and opened a storebrand carton of eggs on his desk, his massive hands plucking up two and cracking them over a glass. Behind him, the sun was just starting to rise. I’d been in solitary all night, and I’d barely been able to hide my organic herbal supplements, or else my mind would be addled now by the medication.
The Batwarden leaned back, shaking his head. He looked up at an illustration of Batman on his wall, as if looking for strength. He sighed, then glared at me.
“No, Mr. Senwan. What I ask you is, what shall I do with you?”
I bit my lip.
He turned in his chair to look out the window as he drank his eggs, leaving his back to me. On the desk between us, one of the eggs popped out of the carton and cracked on the table. From inside the shell a tiny yellow chick emerged, holding a toy rifle, wearing a belt with toy bullets.
I knew I had gone insane, and I silently cursed the asylum for their medications. Then the chick glanced at me and cocked its head toward the Batwarden. I felt the latches on my straight jacket give way, and I knew that I could stand and likely crack the man on the head with one of his prized framed pages by Bob Kane before he knew I was free.
The Danny Elfman themed rose dramatically, and the chick eyed me, urging me to kill the warden and escape.
My lip began to bleed. I pulled my arm free from the straight jacket, wiped it, and put my arm back in. As I moved, I realized how tender I felt. I wondered if I’d been beaten last night.
“Um, sir?” I asked. “I could get you some songs, like Adam West’s lost vocal arrangement of the Batoosi. And then you could transfer me to Red Market?”
The Batwarden – I had always heard rumors of his obsession with Batman, and now I knew the truth – swiveled in his chair. His stare smoldered across me for a moment.
“Very well,” he said. “We’ll send you over tomorrow.”
“Um, I need to go today, sir.”
The Batwarden stood suddenly. “That place is a vile pit of communism, staffed by un-patriotic murderers. Why would you wish to go there any sooner than necessary?”
“Um.” I looked down at the chick with the rifle, only to see it had vanished. “Well, I am crazy.”
“You’re a model inmate.”
They let me take my media player, and even handed over my netnet, since I said I needed it to get the Batwarden his music. I knew I wasn’t a free man yet, and my entire body still felt like I was sitting at a load screen and hadn’t realized the system had crashed, but I was close to my goal – either to kill O’Malley and be rich, or buy my freedom from O’Malley by turning over Walter and Jack.
The asylum van had no windows, but we did not have to drive far.
I drowsed through the paperwork, discreetly taking another few pills to keep my head clear. The interior of Red Market was much uglier than that of my old supermarket, and the cashiers and baggers leered at me. They weren’t all insane, I had heard; it was just that Red Market was the bottom end of the minimum wage scale.
After half an hour I was ushered into the office of the store manager, Mickey O’Malley. His office was immaculate, as clean as his store was filthy. His smile was charming, and I almost found him handsome in his tuxedo. He was, of course, to wed the woman I had fallen in love with just last night. He lounged in his chair, unconcerned that he likely would be at the altar within an hour. He certainly did not look like Satan.
“Do you know what communism is, Chou?” asked my new manager.
I sighed. “Yes.”
“Then you know that communism is a glorious system intended to improve mankind and make us all equal. But, sadly, it didn’t go far enough.”
I looked down. My new uniform was tight around the chest.
“Chou,” he said, “I know you’re not crazy.”
That got my attention. I realized that I might be able to reason with him.
“You see, Chou, I want to talk to you because I think you’ll understand my concern. You’re smart. You’ve seen both sides, and you know how uneven things can be. So yes, communism was meant to better mankind, but it didn’t. That is why I have invented a new order. I call it . . . hyper-communism!”
The room suddenly seemed very hot. O’Malley stood and helped me up.
“Come with me, Chou. I’m taking over the wedding presents to the reception, and I want you to meet my fiancee. Oh, I mean my wife. She is so charming, and beautiful too. Or at least she will be soon.”
I glared at him, but nodded.
“Hurry up and get me a wedding present,” he said. “Pick anything from the store. It’s for dear Jessica. I’ll pay for it, but we can say it’s from you.”
We rode in a brown van to the reception, the back of it crammed with boxes of gifts from customers and employees of Red Market. O’Malley himself drove. A wire mesh separated us, keeping me from attacking him.
“In hyper-communism,” he said, “everything costs the same. You want a steak, it’s a dollar. You want a house, it’s a dollar.”
“If I want a chicken,” I said, “it’s a dollar.”
“Exactly,” O’Malley said. “Now the challenge is no longer to the consumer to make enough money to buy what they need. It is to the producer to make everything worth one dollar.”
“You’re as crazy as my roommates were,” I said. “Worse, even. Are you planning to start this at your store?”
“Yes. For the first week, everything will be a dollar. It will take a while for producers to adjust, but in that time, your poor supermarket will be driven out of business. And that’s not all. Not just goods will all be the same. When I control all stores in Atlanta, indeed all people will be the same as well. I believe you’re acquainted with our HERB-ALIVE line?”
I grew suddenly cold.
“Oh yes, Chou, I had know my employees gave you samples. I’ve been keeping close tabs, as those little pills are key to my plan for Atlanta domination. I can see by your discomfort that you’ve been taking these pills too.”
“What are they?!” I demanded.
“Hormone pills. Penis enlargement. Breast enhancement. With of course some minor side effects like dementia and heightened suggestibility. All natural, completely organic. The FDA loved ‘em. In small doses, they just make people feel healthier, smarter, a little sexier. But slowly, over several years – or in your case of insane pill popping, over a day or two – it transforms you in an easily molded puppet. People will take them to feel better about themselves, to look better, because they feel they have to.
“In a world where everything costs the same, all that matters anymore is who you are, and I will destroy that too. Oh, yes. It is all coming to fruition soon, my dear Chou.”
“You’re insane!” I screamed.
“Yes, likely. Oh, look, the chapel is coming up.”
“How does Jessica fit into this?” I shouted “She has dreams. She’s a beautiful singer. And when I saw her, she didn’t look like her pictures on the magazine covers.”
“The anti-herbal pill,” he said. “What can I say? Jessica’s hot. I threatened to turn her frumpy if she didn’t marry me.”
I gasped. “That’s why she was singing last night. She . . . she wanted to find something to be famous for other than her looks.”
O’Malley laughed. “Fat chance. Ooh, that’s an idea. A fat pill.”
I growled, “You are the devil.”
Earlier that morning, I had checked my email and found one file – a song. The email had merely said that it would defeat O’Malley. I knew I had no chance of working with this madman. I simply had to defeat him, then destroy those pills. And for God’s sake, stop taking them myself.
I reached into my pocket and activated the media player, and it belted out a live recording of the actual fiddle competition that inspired “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
O’Malley cried out in dismay and clutched his ears, and the van spun out of control. The divine fiddle playing of the legendary Johnny of Georgia filled the van, and as we careened through the air and hurtled toward a hill, O’Malley’s skin began to sizzle from the purifying power of music.
“Well,” Satan said with a grin, “you beat me.”
The cops had pulled us out of the van, and I had given my testimony. The bride to be, despondent in her wedding gown, had supported my seemingly mad claims, and when they found the massive stockpile of herbal pills at Red Market, the cops finally believed me.
“I think I’ll keep your wedding gift,” Satan said, hoisting the tiny sewing machine.
Then the cops took him away. They told me I had to go back to the asylum, but they would give me at least a moment with Jessica.
We embraced, both of us knowing we owed so much to the other. When we pulled away, she looked down, embarrassed. “I promise I’ll get you out, Chou.”
“I just hope these pills wear off,” I muttered.
“You do look good,” she said, smirking.
She leaned forward and kissed me. Across my lips she whispered, “I know you’re not crazy.”
I nodded. “Neither are you. But I gotta go. I want to see you again, but I don’t feel comfortable with that giant hen watching us.”
She looked over her shoulder, confused, and by the time she turned back, the doctors were taking me away, and my last sight of the devil’s bride-to-be was obscured by a giant.
Round 2, Match 2
By RangerWickett
The drugs kept me from really grasping my situation.
A year earlier I had been arrested for internet piracy. I had pled insanity, figuring a brief stint in an asylum would be easier than spending my life behind bars for pirating every song ever. But I didn’t remember this now. I just knew that work is good. I had to pay my way in life, y’know, and people needed to buy groceries. And skin mags. And electrical appliances. And dry ice.
Two weeks ago I could have escaped, could have joined up with my roommates El-Hadje the Nigerian internet scam artist and Robert the geeky comatose guy to slip out in the confusion of when El-Hadje hacked the netnet and convinced all the weather sites an icestorm was going to hit Atlanta. I had stayed behind, and actually tried to stop them, because I had figured good behavior still counted for something in this world.
But I didn’t remember this either. I just knew that the dry ice I was holding, trying to scan for a guy who was rambling on about what he’s going to do for his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, was burning my palms.
It took a while for the pain to make it through the cloud the meds surrounded me with, and when I finally cried out in pain, I was blissfully too injured to keep working. My supervisors checked me for hidden weapons, wrapped my hands in too-sterile bandages, and sent me to my room to rest. I have the day off, they said, which made me happy, even though I also knew that work was good. Gotta pay my way, y’know?
I slept alone in a room intended for three inmates – the blood stains marked where poor Robert had taken his life, right next to the chair he had sat silently in for years; there was no reminder of El-Hadje’s presence, though.
The door opened while my mind was wandering through vague memories, hollow without music. I smelled the sweet scent of roses, which stirred me from my dreaming. I had never liked the smell of roses; people said they were sweet, but I simply never noticed any smell from them. But I was quite aware that I was smelling roses, and that worried me.
A thorny hand pressed over my face, forcing something into my mouth, and then I felt a woman’s weight on me, pressing me down and pulling something over my eyes. I mumbled, then winced at the pain of the woman’s skin cutting into mine. A switch flicked audibly next to my ear, and light flashed into my retinas, digitized beams trying to focus into my drug-blearied eyes. The sound keyed on with a tremble, and I heard a laugh.
“Chou! A pleasure to see you. Can you spare a favor for a fellow grocer?”
I mumbled in Korean, asking what he wanted.
The visor finally got a lock on my eyes, and the image rasterized into solidity. Two men sat before me, rendered in black and white. One, glum in his crumpled top hat, was silent. The other, grinning like the madman he clinically was, answered me.
“Well, old Chou-y bud,” he said, “we at Red Market are convinced that our boss is the ultimate incarnation of evil. We’d like you to kill him.”
Part Two: Supermarket Assassin
It was disconcerting, feeling the woman holding me down while my ears and eyes were a half-mile to the east, inside the warehouse of our competitor, Red Market. Whatever the woman had slipped me must have been organic – it was clearing my mind of the drugs – but I felt an awkward tingling from having the prickly woman so close.
I shook my head. Disconcertingly, the image did not move. They really were using primitive equipment – non-tracking, not even in color. I was so used to the virtual experience, I was getting nauseous. I groaned.
“Sounds sick,” the hatted one said.
“Aye, so he does. Chou-y bud? You doing alright? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of killing a man.”
I asked, “Who again? Cut me some slack. I’ve been drugged for . . . well hell, when is it?”
“He like music,” the hatted one said. “Jack, I sing?”
“Not now, Walter old boy,” said Jack, the grinning one. He slapped his companion on the back. “Sorry Chou. It’s mid-Feburary. The thirteenth, in truth. Lucky day, lucky day, I say. So, will you do it?”
“Your boss?” I asked. “Why do I care what goes on at your store?”
Jack leaned close to the camera and snarled at me, “Because he’s the devil! Don’t you understand, Chou? He’s the devil, and he’s getting married! We cannot allow the devil to have a son!”
I considered, unfazed by the outburst. In fact, the biggest distraction was the woman. I personally was irritated, but my body seemed to be quite enjoying her presence. But I focused on the immediate concern.
“Why do you think he’s the devil?”
“You know how, on a phone, there are letters on each number. Well if you dial our manager’s initials – Mickey O’Malley – M.O.M. It’s 666, the mark of the devil!”
I nodded. I could see why they’d think that.
“How’d you clear my head?” I asked. “They’ve kept me thoroughly dosed since the ice storm. Which I saved the city from, by the way.”
Jack slapped his knee. “Exactly why we thought of you in our time of need! You’re the man for the job. And don’t think we’re asking you to do this out of the goodness of your heart, old chap. No no, we’re willing to clear your credit history and give you these $5,000 limit credit cards.”
I snorted. “Like hell. Thanks for wasting my time.”
“Good pill,” Walter said.
“Yes indeed,” Jack said. “What my slightly addled friend here wants to tell you is that you drive a hard bargain, Chou-y boy. You see, we have come into possession of some products.”
He stepped aside to reveal a huge stack of cases behind him in the warehouse, marked HERB-ALIVE. Above the crates was a massive globe and numerous other display items. I felt brief sympathy for them. Setting up displays was always a pain in the ass.
“Red Market has become Look on it, Chou: one hundred thousand dollars worth of medicinal herbal products. We’ll pay you half if you can eliminate our problem with the prince of lies.”
“Why me?” I asked. “How am I supposed to kill ‘the devil?’” I chuckled, unafraid of the lunatic on the other end of the conference visor.
“Boom boom,” Walter said.
“Indeed,” Jack said slyly. “Look, old chum, we’ve got a bomb, and we need someone he won’t suspect to put this in his car. A bit bland of a plan, but it was Walter’s turn to plan a murder.”
“Look,” I said, grimacing, “I don’t kill people. How about I just break up his wedding?”
Jack smiled, showing teeth like a Cheshire cat. He laughed. “How about we just have our lady friend cut you into pieces? Don’t be so contrary, Chou.”
Then he grew coldly serious. “That’ll get you killed. Or at least maimed.”
From the real world I felt something slice me near my kidney, and then I felt a pressure at my crotch.
I gulped and smiled. I’d had lots of experience faking enthusiasm at the supermarket.
“Two questions,” I said. “These pills? Are they organic? And, how much can I get in advance?”
* * *
We finished our negotiations, and I waited until long after the soft and thorny woman who had slipped me the herbal supplement left my room before I took off the visor. The woman, whoever she was, was apparently able to get between our store and Red Market, and she’d be bringing over a small case of pills in an hour. I couldn’t deny that organic pills would help me clear my head and hopefully get out of this asylum, but I had learned my lesson last time I’d tried to do a good thing. Trusting people – cops or lunatics – gets you screwed.
Which was ironic, I thought, because . . . well, I won’t mention that.
I could not trust Jack and Walter, and I had no idea why they thought I would be the best choice to kill their boss, but they seemed quite willing to kill me. I needed to know more about the situation, and to do that, I needed my netnet. Batwarden probably had my netnet locked up in his office, and I was more scared of him than of these two most current lunatics.
My implants would let me still access it wirelessly as long as it was in the building, but my connection would likely be limited to either visuals without tactile sensations, or simple text. I hadn’t enjoyed the detachment of being drugged, nor the schismed sensation of my little teleconference with Walter and Jack, so I chose text
I sat awkwardly against the wall, trying to get comfortable, but I guess I still rattled by the woman attacking me. With a few thoughts I was out of my body, trying to access any local wireless network. My various inboxes were clogged with requests for pirated music, but I had no way to listen to anything myself. Growing increasingly irritated, I sent a request to my father, hoping he could pull some strings and help me find out about the manager of the Red Market.
The reply was terse and as affectionless as I expected from my father. He was busy with his ambassadorial duties, but he had gotten his aides to do research. My target was Mickey O’Malley, a 26-year old senior manager of the Toco Hill branch of Red Market. He was getting married tomorrow, on that most disgusting of holidays – Valentine’s Day. My affections for Valentine’s Day had grown cold long ago when I realized that while love songs were sung year-round, there were almost no Valentine’s Day songs. It was a holiday that had contributed nothing to the improvement of humanity.
A little more research revealed O’Malley’s fiancee, one Jessica Kusanagi. She was a model, gorgeous, blonde, and voluptuous, renowned for swimsuit shoots and her mocked by the media for her uncharacteristic interest in acting in musicals. I had seen her before on the cover of magazines in the checkout line, but reports on the net suggested her career was dying. I felt sorry for her. In part because she was gorgeous, and I don’t like to see to see gorgeous people not getting the success they believe they deserve. And in part because I was going to have to kill the man she planned to marry.
I decided to track her down and talk to her. Perhaps with this information I could negotiate some help for myself. A good deal of snooping turned up that this evening she would be at Peachtree Street, a historical virtual construct where she was going to audition for a role in the stage show Aural Pleasure.
A knock at my door pulled me out of the net, but no one said anything, so after a moment I opened the door and pulled in the first payment for my services.
“HERB-ALIVE,” the case read, “Organic Health Supplements.” “Green Blossom” and “Faithful Natural Spring” were the names of the products. “Super Fast Acting,” they proclaimed. The descriptions of the pills effects were a bit unclear, mentioning things like ‘whole health improvement’ and ‘achieve the body you believe in,’ but they were certified organic. I swallowed two of each to clear my head, then hid a bottle of Green Blossom in my apron.
I waited.
* * *
I was even more aware of the disconnect between my netnet persona and my real body when I logged on that evening. Peachtree Street was an old-fashioned construct of red brick buildings and cobbled streets, full of deep mingling music from numerous bars and entertainment houses. I had no physical sensation and dulled hearing, but the music was music to my ears, sweet enough to distract me from the strange persistent lurch I had below my stomach.
I arrived early for her audition and sat amid throngs of people there to see a beautiful woman in a slender black dress, with no regard for her voice. Nevertheless, she was stunning, as beautiful or more than what I had seen on the covers of Sports Illustrated. If I’d had my library of music, I would have found myself unconsciously accessing some old noir tracks. She was the kind of woman I would gladly suffer to be with. I’d even live in black and white.
And then she sang.
Most people don’t understand that the foremost measure of talent in music is enthusiasm. In that regard, Jessica Kusanagi was perhaps the greatest singer to ever lend her digitized voice to the netnet. Her voice, thick like Spute brand organic honey, rippled with desperation, and though the song she had chosen for her audition was Ecit Bangbang’s upbeat “See the Ouija,” I could feel that she was afraid.
The audience jeered her. I walked through them out of the theater in anger – one of the benefits of not sitting in my netnet was that I could, if needed, force myself through people’s virtual bodies. It was rude to do so, but so was their reaction to her bare-hearted virtuosity.
I waited outside in the back alley, hoping to speak with her before she logged off. The road was empty, and the air was filled with the stringy notes of Howling Wolf’s “Red Rooster.” It took me a while to notice that ice was beginning to creep across the cobbled stones, and snow was drifting down from the sky.
The back door of the theater opened, clanging dully, and Jessica stepped out. Her eyes were rimmed with tears – she must have been using the highest-end netnet to capture that level of detail – and she nervously shivered before ordering an umbrella to keep the snow off her. She had not seen me, but I was about to address her when her engagement ring flared with red light, and her body shimmered with the telltale pattern of turning off a filter.
Where before had been a curvaceous, tanned athlete, now stood a slender, crying woman. She looked down at herself and shook her head in despair. Her face was the same, but I realized that her body before had merely been a screen, an illusion to conceal her true form. Though I knew it was possible for people to wear fake skins in the netnet, for as long as I had been using it, it had been taboo to do so unless the skin was obviously not real, like the gryphon Robert had attacked me with. I wondered if every photo I had ever seen of the gorgeous Miss Kusanagi had also been a fake.
But that had been her real singing voice, I knew for certain. It had been too true to have been an illusion.
“Miss Kusanagi,” I called.
She turned to look for me, but just then the wind picked up. Snow cut viciously and pulled her umbrella from her hands, and every surface in the alley became glazed with a sheen of ice. Jessica tried to step toward me, but the virtual began to warp around her, twisting her body and spinning the buildings and ground in an undulating surge.
Jessica cried out in confusion, and her umbrella was torn from her hands. The wind carried up the umbrella to the roof of one of the alley buildings, and for a moment in the orange light of a street lamp I thought I saw a rooster, crowing into the storm.
“Help!” she cried, her voice now filled with a much more immediate pain.
Even though I knew I could not touch her because I was not solid, I ran to her and tried to pull her free from the effect that was distorting her body. To my surprise, I felt my hands wrap around her, and when I pulled, she moved. We stumbled away, and she and I briefly occupied the same space as the netnet corrected itself and made me intangible again.
I was on my back, and she pressed up onto her hands and knees, looking down at me.
“My god,” she whispered. “I thought I would die. You saved my life.”
Relief flashed across her face, and she smiled at me. My heart quickened.
“You sang beautifully,” I said. “And, call me crazy, but . . . you’re much skinnier in person.”
Pale fear crept across her face, and she staggered to her feet. She was about to run when the rooster on the roof called out again, and the distortion in the air ended with a loud snapping sound. The ice that had formed on the ground shattered and vanished into green wireframe, fading to null polygons.
“Wait,” I said. “You’re in danger.”
She nodded like what I had said was the most stupidly obvious thing in the world, and then she fled. I was about to follow her – which would be easy since I could run through walls – but it only took her a moment to remember where she was. She logged off, leaving me in an empty alley.
I sighed, then noticed the rooster. It was floating down from the roof, flying tail first without flapping its wings.
“You have a great task ahead of you,” the rooster said. “You alone can aid me.”
It landed, and I considered it for a moment, rubbing my chin both in person and on the netnet.
“And who are you?”
“A mighty magician,” the rooster boasted. That little fleshy flap under its beak waggled proudly.
“You know, I’ve already been asked to kill the devil.” As I said this, I had to wonder whether the organic nutritional supplements were actually helping stave off the medication. I certainly thought I sounded crazy. “I’m not really impressed by a talking rooster.”
“The devil? Oh, you mean Mickey?” The rooster chuckled. “Yes, he does need to be dealt with. It’s good to see you taking initiative.”
“Why’d you attack her?”
“I didn’t,” the rooster said. “Come, Chou. Walk with me. Let us discuss this some place private.”
I followed the rooster deeper down the alley, deeper than I remembered the alley being, until eventually we emerged in a forest. Peachtree Street had vanished behind us.
“Try anything and I log off,” I said. “What do you want?”
“I want your help. You’ve not been on the net for two weeks, so you’ve missed some of this, but the world is in peril. Since the dawn of civilization, from the moment the first note of music was banged out on a rock with another rock, madmen have had insight into dangers the sane do not perceive.”
“Are you saying I’m crazy?”
The rooster laughed deeply. “Not at all, young man. But those two jokers at Red Market sense something is amiss. Mickey O’Malley is about to spearhead a new social movement that will destroy life as we all know it. Let me ask you, Chou, have you ever been jealous?”
I thought back to a moment earlier, looking into the eyes of Jessica, who was certainly too beautiful to be marrying the devil.
“Yeah,” I said, “once or twice.”
“Good, it’s natural. Perhaps not healthy, and it causes a lot of conflict, but it is key to human nature that they be able to feel jealousy, and overcome it or fall victim to it. The scourge of communism came close to destroying the world because it sought to give everyone the same amount, so that no one would be jealous of anyone else. Thankfully, with the blessing of American consumerism, communism merely succeeded in making the Russians more jealous. You saved the world, son. You should be proud of your nation.”
“I’m Korean,” I said.
“Don’t sass the
,” the rooster clucked at me. “You know you like America!”I rolled my eyes. “Who the hell are you?”
“Putting aside O’Malley’s vile plan,” the rooster said, “there is also the problem of the netnet. Your roommate the Nigerian pulled quite a scam last month. Convinced all the weather sites that Atlanta was going to be hit with an ice storm. Convinced ‘em so well that people believed it too, even though you knew it shouldn’t happen. In fact, he convinced so many people, not only did the netnet start to manifest ice, so did the real world. Belief is a powerful thing. Do you believe that?”
“No.”
The rooster hesitated, then nodded. “Fine. What I need to ask you is where this Nigerian is. He escaped, and left the netnet in tatters. I’ve been flying around virtual Atlanta trying to stop the ice, but it’s spreading. I’m only one mage, and if I can’t find my enemy, both worlds might slowly be consumed in glacial ice.”
“El-Hadje escaped,” I said.
“And no one left in the asylum knew where he was going,” the rooster said, cutting me off. “No one alive at least. I’m emailing you a ritual spell that will let you contact the ghost of poor, suicidal Robert by séance. You’ll need an item of his to make the spell work properly, but I’m sure you have something. Email me back what he tells you about this El-Hadje’s location, and I’ll make sure that when you confront O’Malley, you are prepared. The worlds are counting on you, Chou.”
I kicked at the chicken, and to my surprise my foot connected. It exploded into a burst of feathers. My connection alerted me to a newly arrived message with an attachment.
“Stupid,” I said to no one in particular. “I don’t have anything that belonged to Robert. And why the hell should I help you?”
I opened the email. It was from zorok@world.wrld. The text of it was brief:
Because Jessica doesn’t want to marry O’Malley, and you want to get a new job.
* * *
The attachment gave me what I needed most – the seventeen song fragments of heroic skald verse that, when played in the proper order, would call forth Robert’s spirit – but left it up to me to acquire the bricks for the binding circle, the fire to make the spirit visible, and the item of Robert’s to make sure no other spirit came instead. For the first two, I traded my hard copy of the War of the Worlds BBC musical to get the nurse to bring me Kingsford’s Charcoal, landscaping bricks, a Bic lighter, and a portable media player.
For the third, I had to sit and think a while. I popped two more pills, and the irritating problem was not going away. I shifted in the old wooden chair beside the door, wishing I owned looser pants. I’m not proud of how long it took me to realize that I was sitting in Robert’s old chair.
Ten minutes later, I had a small fire burning on the floor of my cell, Robert’s chair sitting in the middle of it. Shaking my head at my own insanity, I turned on the media player, and listened to old norse verse.
Smoke was clogging the ceiling when Robert’s spectral form appeared before me.
“No time to spare,” I said. “Where’s El-Hadje?”
“You killed me!”
“Yeah, and apparently people think I’m good at it, because now they want me to kill the devil. Too bad there wasn’t a Doom league back home. Now, where’s El-Hadje?”
Robert’s spirit glowered. “He’s in Savannah, working at the Wendy’s on Chatham.”
I choked with laughter. “That was his big plan? Get a job at Wendy’s?”
“He grew up in Nigeria,” Robert sneered. “He ain’t picky.”
And then he vanished. I shrugged, logged on to email a reply to the rooster, managing to send it off just in time before the sprinklers went off, and I was dragged away by asylum security to Batwarden’s office.
* * *
An ethereal Danny Elfman tune played in the Batwarden’s office, written by the composer’s ghost. Children wove fey laughter into the beating and strumming of drums and violins.
“Mr. Senwan,” said the Batwarden, his voice deep and fiery, “I’m not going to ask you how you got those implements. Nor shall I ask why you lit a fire in your room. You’re insane, so I should be more surprised with how normal you have been otherwise.”
He reached forward and opened a storebrand carton of eggs on his desk, his massive hands plucking up two and cracking them over a glass. Behind him, the sun was just starting to rise. I’d been in solitary all night, and I’d barely been able to hide my organic herbal supplements, or else my mind would be addled now by the medication.
The Batwarden leaned back, shaking his head. He looked up at an illustration of Batman on his wall, as if looking for strength. He sighed, then glared at me.
“No, Mr. Senwan. What I ask you is, what shall I do with you?”
I bit my lip.
He turned in his chair to look out the window as he drank his eggs, leaving his back to me. On the desk between us, one of the eggs popped out of the carton and cracked on the table. From inside the shell a tiny yellow chick emerged, holding a toy rifle, wearing a belt with toy bullets.
I knew I had gone insane, and I silently cursed the asylum for their medications. Then the chick glanced at me and cocked its head toward the Batwarden. I felt the latches on my straight jacket give way, and I knew that I could stand and likely crack the man on the head with one of his prized framed pages by Bob Kane before he knew I was free.
The Danny Elfman themed rose dramatically, and the chick eyed me, urging me to kill the warden and escape.
My lip began to bleed. I pulled my arm free from the straight jacket, wiped it, and put my arm back in. As I moved, I realized how tender I felt. I wondered if I’d been beaten last night.
“Um, sir?” I asked. “I could get you some songs, like Adam West’s lost vocal arrangement of the Batoosi. And then you could transfer me to Red Market?”
The Batwarden – I had always heard rumors of his obsession with Batman, and now I knew the truth – swiveled in his chair. His stare smoldered across me for a moment.
“Very well,” he said. “We’ll send you over tomorrow.”
“Um, I need to go today, sir.”
The Batwarden stood suddenly. “That place is a vile pit of communism, staffed by un-patriotic murderers. Why would you wish to go there any sooner than necessary?”
“Um.” I looked down at the chick with the rifle, only to see it had vanished. “Well, I am crazy.”
“You’re a model inmate.”
* * *
They let me take my media player, and even handed over my netnet, since I said I needed it to get the Batwarden his music. I knew I wasn’t a free man yet, and my entire body still felt like I was sitting at a load screen and hadn’t realized the system had crashed, but I was close to my goal – either to kill O’Malley and be rich, or buy my freedom from O’Malley by turning over Walter and Jack.
The asylum van had no windows, but we did not have to drive far.
I drowsed through the paperwork, discreetly taking another few pills to keep my head clear. The interior of Red Market was much uglier than that of my old supermarket, and the cashiers and baggers leered at me. They weren’t all insane, I had heard; it was just that Red Market was the bottom end of the minimum wage scale.
After half an hour I was ushered into the office of the store manager, Mickey O’Malley. His office was immaculate, as clean as his store was filthy. His smile was charming, and I almost found him handsome in his tuxedo. He was, of course, to wed the woman I had fallen in love with just last night. He lounged in his chair, unconcerned that he likely would be at the altar within an hour. He certainly did not look like Satan.
“Do you know what communism is, Chou?” asked my new manager.
I sighed. “Yes.”
“Then you know that communism is a glorious system intended to improve mankind and make us all equal. But, sadly, it didn’t go far enough.”
I looked down. My new uniform was tight around the chest.
“Chou,” he said, “I know you’re not crazy.”
That got my attention. I realized that I might be able to reason with him.
“You see, Chou, I want to talk to you because I think you’ll understand my concern. You’re smart. You’ve seen both sides, and you know how uneven things can be. So yes, communism was meant to better mankind, but it didn’t. That is why I have invented a new order. I call it . . . hyper-communism!”
The room suddenly seemed very hot. O’Malley stood and helped me up.
“Come with me, Chou. I’m taking over the wedding presents to the reception, and I want you to meet my fiancee. Oh, I mean my wife. She is so charming, and beautiful too. Or at least she will be soon.”
I glared at him, but nodded.
“Hurry up and get me a wedding present,” he said. “Pick anything from the store. It’s for dear Jessica. I’ll pay for it, but we can say it’s from you.”
We rode in a brown van to the reception, the back of it crammed with boxes of gifts from customers and employees of Red Market. O’Malley himself drove. A wire mesh separated us, keeping me from attacking him.
“In hyper-communism,” he said, “everything costs the same. You want a steak, it’s a dollar. You want a house, it’s a dollar.”
“If I want a chicken,” I said, “it’s a dollar.”
“Exactly,” O’Malley said. “Now the challenge is no longer to the consumer to make enough money to buy what they need. It is to the producer to make everything worth one dollar.”
“You’re as crazy as my roommates were,” I said. “Worse, even. Are you planning to start this at your store?”
“Yes. For the first week, everything will be a dollar. It will take a while for producers to adjust, but in that time, your poor supermarket will be driven out of business. And that’s not all. Not just goods will all be the same. When I control all stores in Atlanta, indeed all people will be the same as well. I believe you’re acquainted with our HERB-ALIVE line?”
I grew suddenly cold.
“Oh yes, Chou, I had know my employees gave you samples. I’ve been keeping close tabs, as those little pills are key to my plan for Atlanta domination. I can see by your discomfort that you’ve been taking these pills too.”
“What are they?!” I demanded.
“Hormone pills. Penis enlargement. Breast enhancement. With of course some minor side effects like dementia and heightened suggestibility. All natural, completely organic. The FDA loved ‘em. In small doses, they just make people feel healthier, smarter, a little sexier. But slowly, over several years – or in your case of insane pill popping, over a day or two – it transforms you in an easily molded puppet. People will take them to feel better about themselves, to look better, because they feel they have to.
“In a world where everything costs the same, all that matters anymore is who you are, and I will destroy that too. Oh, yes. It is all coming to fruition soon, my dear Chou.”
“You’re insane!” I screamed.
“Yes, likely. Oh, look, the chapel is coming up.”
“How does Jessica fit into this?” I shouted “She has dreams. She’s a beautiful singer. And when I saw her, she didn’t look like her pictures on the magazine covers.”
“The anti-herbal pill,” he said. “What can I say? Jessica’s hot. I threatened to turn her frumpy if she didn’t marry me.”
I gasped. “That’s why she was singing last night. She . . . she wanted to find something to be famous for other than her looks.”
O’Malley laughed. “Fat chance. Ooh, that’s an idea. A fat pill.”
I growled, “You are the devil.”
Earlier that morning, I had checked my email and found one file – a song. The email had merely said that it would defeat O’Malley. I knew I had no chance of working with this madman. I simply had to defeat him, then destroy those pills. And for God’s sake, stop taking them myself.
I reached into my pocket and activated the media player, and it belted out a live recording of the actual fiddle competition that inspired “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
O’Malley cried out in dismay and clutched his ears, and the van spun out of control. The divine fiddle playing of the legendary Johnny of Georgia filled the van, and as we careened through the air and hurtled toward a hill, O’Malley’s skin began to sizzle from the purifying power of music.
* * *
“Well,” Satan said with a grin, “you beat me.”
The cops had pulled us out of the van, and I had given my testimony. The bride to be, despondent in her wedding gown, had supported my seemingly mad claims, and when they found the massive stockpile of herbal pills at Red Market, the cops finally believed me.
“I think I’ll keep your wedding gift,” Satan said, hoisting the tiny sewing machine.
Then the cops took him away. They told me I had to go back to the asylum, but they would give me at least a moment with Jessica.
We embraced, both of us knowing we owed so much to the other. When we pulled away, she looked down, embarrassed. “I promise I’ll get you out, Chou.”
“I just hope these pills wear off,” I muttered.
“You do look good,” she said, smirking.
She leaned forward and kissed me. Across my lips she whispered, “I know you’re not crazy.”
I nodded. “Neither are you. But I gotta go. I want to see you again, but I don’t feel comfortable with that giant hen watching us.”
She looked over her shoulder, confused, and by the time she turned back, the doctors were taking me away, and my last sight of the devil’s bride-to-be was obscured by a giant
.
RangerWickett
Legend
Okay, for the record, those smilies are a synonym for rooster.
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