4
“Wild swings in . . . perspective.”
As was becoming a common occurrence, Jim awoke to multiple sensations of pain.
Both shoulder blades: damn near dislocated.
Skull: throbbing from 1920’s blunt force trauma.
Wrists: starting to bleed from needlessly-tight Zip Ties that affixed them to a pipe on the ceiling.
Jim stood on his tippy toes to relieve some of the pressure. “Who said that?” he asked.
A fuzzy purple spider, so bright it bordered on fluorescent, floated along the ceiling, kicking off surfaces it came in contact with like a cute arachnid astronaut in zero-g. Jim easily guessed it was a jinn from its two huge, pearl eyes. Lest it be confused for normal, the talking, gem-eyed, floating spider wore a mini fedora with an extra mini PRESS tag tucked into the band. “Not so loud,” the spider slurred as it corkscrewed lazily toward the heating pipe Jim was married to. “You’ll wake the dogs. They haven’t been quiet for some time, and I’m enjoying the . . . silence.”
The space beyond the spider came into focus. Dozens of cement cubbyholes stacked floor to ceiling, each with a wire door and a dog inside. The dogs were of every size, breed, and disposition, the only commonality being a look of starvation and fear.
Mars was not among them.
“As I was saying, what is true this morning may not be so by the afternoon. It may even be . . . unthinkable. The vagabond wishes for the life of the businessman and vice versa. The last thing we feel on our deathbed is undeniably and eternally . . . gypped.”
Fully awake now, Jim pulled on his plastic restraints, making no attempt to decode the spider’s inane sermon. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, okay? Are you with that redheaded dude?”
“Oh no no no no no. I’m . . . impartial. I keep my hands to myself.” His hands—there were eight—busily scribbled away in four notepads with four pencils. While the spider’s speech and external thought process were aggressively languid, his limbs hummed at blurring speed as he wrote, turned a page, wrote, turned a page . . .
“Who are you?” Jim asked, not really expecting a legitimate response.
“I document,” the spider said. “I keep records faithfully and completely. I am . . . Max. Normally I prefer to go unnoticed, but I’ve had a particularly good pipe-load of opium this fine day and thought it might be nice to . . . interact.” The words oozed out of the spider’s mouth like honey down a shallow decline, patiently distending before the plop of a last word. It was both oddly soothing and mildly irritating. “I cover Cryptofauna, for the JRN. Due to my aforementioned impartiality, any calls for aid will be noted but will go . . . unheeded.”
“The hell is JRN?”
“Ah. The Jinn Radio Network. Popular with jinn, High Rollers . . . ”
A heavy door scraped open down the hall and the dogs went wild, barking and howling to a crescendo that made Jim envy those lucky bastards: the deaf.
Max closed his eyes and smiled serenely. “Alas, there goes the silence but . . . this should be good,” he purred as his body and writing materials faded from view. The eight legs floated independent from the body for a half second before burning down like dynamite wicks.
Jim blinked, wondering if the creature had been real or just a billy-club-inspired hallucination. Hard to say since Cryptofauna had pretty thoroughly neutered the word “plausible.”
The redhead sauntered down the corridor, raking his nightstick along the grid of cage doors, sending the jailed dogs into an even greater frenzy.
“Hi!” The annoying voice matched the mean face, not unlike two awful people getting married and their supposed friends grumbling that “the two deserve one another.” He jammed his club into Jim’s armpit. An explosion of pain was preceded by a moment of ticklishness, and Jim couldn’t suppress a giggle. “Wanted to make sure I didn’t break ya. Bossman said not yet.” He pulled a pair of dainty rose pruners from a pocket and stretched to clip the Zip Ties. Jim noticed a U of bite marks on the man’s freckled arm that he guessed would match pretty neatly to Mars.
The redhead stood relaxed, unafraid of any retaliation from his freed prisoner. “Start walking,” he said.
“You’re my Rival, aren’t you?”
“Start walking or I’ll club your head again.”
The hopeful note in his captor’s voice inspired Jim to walk. He made a mental note to grill Oz on what the damn teams were. A reliable manifest of who’s who would have certainly come in handy when Cassandra came knocking at his door.
Boyd hummed cheerily as they walked. Jim recognized the tune.
“You like James Bond?”
Good lord, could they actually connect on something? Jim was a huge 007 fan. A suave British superspy was just about as far as you could get from a thin-eyebrowed janitor at an Idahoan hospice/sanitarium.
“Great movies,” Boyd said to himself.
“What’s your favorite?” Jim gently blew on the delicate tinder of possible common ground. He had meant, what’s your favorite movie, but Boyd had apparently taken it as, what’s your favorite character.
“All of ‘em. Dr. No, Captain Nash, Goldfinger, Largo, Blofeld, Kananga, Scaramanga, Stromberg, Drax. How about you?”
Jim hadn’t quite expected a laundry list of the films’ villains. “Er . . . probably Bond.”
“Bond’s a shit head.”
And there you had it. The common ground flame, nurtured by Jim, had come and gone, pissed on by Boyd.
They exited the dog pound and walked onto an Olympic-sized outdoor track, overgrown with grass and weeds in some places, but otherwise in fairly good shape. The redhead kicked Jim in the ass, spilling him onto the track where a man was performing calisthenics.
“Boyd,” the man on the track said, fingers reaching far under the tips of his toes in an impressive hamstring stretch, “I told you not to hurt him.”
Just like that, Jim’s headache had a name: Boyd.
Put simply, Boyd was that guy. He burped during a moment of silence at a candlelight vigil; he stole the only ball at a charity baseball game (to raise money for more baseballs) and threw it down a storm drain; he spray-painted “Santa ain’t real” outside a children’s burn ward then pulled the fire alarm.
In life, Jim had found the fewer enemies you had, the better. Anyone he didn’t get along with could usually be won over with a bottle of domestic beer or a self-deprecating joke. This agreeability was essential for survival at St. Mili’s, where getting on the good side of a new arrival could make the difference between an ally and someone who would put thumb tacks in your meatloaf (Mrs. Phillips was never proven guilty). There was always a certain kind of person though, that rubbed you the wrong way no matter what, and no amount of communication, consideration, or coercion would change the fact that certain people were never, ever, going to play nice.
“You can leave us,” the stretching man said. “Why don’t you wash the Yorkies this afternoon? Use the pool.”
Whatever this all meant, Boyd appeared pleased. He grinned and walked back into the building without a word.
The limber man held out his hand. “My name is Nero.”
He was tall and athletic, with stark black hair gelled flat on a head too big for his body, and flared nostrils the size of bowling ball holes on a nose too big for his head. He wore a parachute fabric jogging suit, black with a fuchsia stripe down the middle. Like his denim protégé, it made for a very unapologetic appearance.
Jim didn’t shake the offered hand. Nero shrugged and dropped it.
“Please don’t let Boyd’s personality turn you off to me. I assure you, he and I are quite different. Welcome to Texas. Mind a slow jog?”
“Where’s my dog? Black and red. And Barney? Peg leg, green glasses, super nice.” Jim indicated Barney’s height with his hand in case there were multiple men of Barney’s description walking around.
“They are free from harm and in better condition than you.” Nero clucked with disappointment at Jim’s bleeding wrists. “That was Boyd’s doing. Competition between Rivals is healthy though, so I suppose it’s alright. Let’s go.”
“No,” Jim said. “Not until I see my friends.”
Nero had started jogging in place. “Don’t mistake my kindness to suggest you have any power in this situation and don’t make me into a jerk. Jog or I’ll hurt you. If that doesn’t work, I’ll hurt your friends instead.”
Excusal from violence in exchange for locomotion seemed to be the rule of thumb around here. Jim jogged, the thuds of his heavy work boots a flat contrast to Nero’s feather-light gate.
“Let’s talk about your training. How’s that going?” Nero moved and spoke as if he wasn’t even aware they were running (at a pace much quicker than the “slow” one he’d promised).
“I’m not going to say anything unless Oz is here,” Jim said, unsuccessfully trying to mask his heavy breathing. “I have . . . no clue . . . who you are.”
“I’m a friend of Oz's—“
“You’re his Rival.”
“Rivals can be friends.”
“I was sent here against my will . . . I’m being held captive . . . I don’t particularly like the people you employ . . . and I sure as shit don’t . . . don’t . . . ”
Nero stopped running and Jim gladly did the same. The athlete patted Jim on the back. “Take your time, champ.”
“ . . . don’t trust you . . . asshole.”
Nero sighed. “Alright. Follow me.”
They entered a huge building that housed a mostly empty Olympic-size swimming pool. The rectangular cavity was set deep into the concrete floor of the cavernous room, lit by a grimy skylight the same length as the pool. Gray water sloshed in the deep end as Boyd climbed the ladder with something white in his hand. Jim’s stomach twisted as he realized the white thing was the only kind of dog he didn’t like. A dead dog. Boyd tossed the drowned Yorkie aside and walked over to a cage of still living ones.
Jim moved to stop him but Nero clamped a hand on his shoulder.
“Boyd, what are you doing?”
“Well, I was washin’ em like you said, dunkin’ em in the water. Then I realized it was even more fun to leave them under the water ‘till they stopped movin.’”
“This isn’t about fun and it’s definitely not about drowning fucking dogs. So now I want you to do as I ask, and go get the other guests.”
“Sure,” Boyd said with a saccharine smile. “No problem.” He pushed through two swinging doors and returned a minute later with Barney and Mars.
Jim moved to join them, but Nero kept his hand on his shoulder. “In time.”
Barney waved nervously at Jim as they were brought closer to the pool. Mars was busy snapping at Boyd in defiance of the muzzle cinched around his snout.
“We can find something to talk about,” Jim said to Nero.
“Put ‘em in,” Nero said.
Boyd shoved Barney, and the terrified man flew forward into the pool. Luckily the shallow end wasn’t a misnomer, and the painter hit bottom before too much of a fall, groaning as he rolled over in a puddle of gray water. Boyd picked up Mars, who kicked and scratched more wildly than ever, and chucked him into the pool where Barney caught him, spilling them both back to the ground.
Enough was enough. Jim shrugged the hand from his shoulder and bolted toward the pool. Nero arrested Jim’s progress embarrassingly quick, slamming him to the ground with an impressive reverse crescent kick. He slid his gym shoe to Jim’s neck, splaying the janitor’s head at a painfully obtuse angle. Sweet, naïve Jim grabbed the man’s leg and tried to wrench free but was wildly unsuccessful, managing only to be astounded at the rigid-as-stone musculature of the limb pinning him. It was safe to assume Nero had done a squat or two (million) in his time.
“Get the pack,” Nero told Boyd then looked down at Jim. “I told you not to make me a jerk, remember that? This could have been avoided.”
Jim squirmed with all the effectiveness of an eagle-caught worm. His face changed color as Nero’s foot encroached on his windpipe.
Jim heard the double doors open again. Deep growls from big throats echoed above the sound of heavy nails scratching frantically on tile. Nero let up enough that Jim could look and behold. Boyd held a tangle of chains that ran to collars around the necks of a dozen large dogs. Pit Bulls, Rottweilers, German Shepherds, and an alpha that almost certainly had wolf blood. The thrashing heads of crazed eyes and foam-crested mouths pulled in the direction of the pool captives and even with his beefcake arms, Boyd was having difficulty holding on. Not knowing what else to do, Barney knelt down and removed Mars’s muzzle. The liberated dog ran from one side of the pool to the other, unsure of where best to deploy himself. On one side, the almost certain death that was gaining ground, on the other, his slowly suffocating Companion.
“Last chance before they’re ripped apart. Five . . . four . . . ” Nero said.
Jim’s face had turned a spotty purple color, the exact shade of a ripe eggplant. Stars exploded in his shadowing vision. He could only think of Barney and Mars in that death hole. He would tell Nero anything he asked if it meant saving them, like how his favorite color was pink even though he said it was red, or how his favorite movie was Wizard of Oz even though he said it was Jaws, or how he didn’t know the difference between shampoo and conditioner even though he’d told people he definitely did on several different occasions. Hopefully none of this would come up.
But Nero had underestimated the power of his hold. Jim couldn’t say yes or nod or even blink Morse code. He and his friends were going to die because of a miscalculation of leg strength.
“Three-two-one!” Boyd finished with auctioneer speed as he tossed the chains in the air. The pack tore forward and Mars ran to meet them, a black mohawk of spiked fur down his spine.
Just as the pack reached the edge of the pool, the skylight above exploded downward in a hail of snowy glass. Falling in the middle of the glass was a very large, very long, very alive snake skeleton. The creature landed with a crushing thud, shattering the cement next to Barney and Mars in a cloud of dust and debris.
The murderous pack of dogs froze, understandably confused by the sky-born snake monster.
The giant creature rose within the settling dust, a massive train of vertebrae capped on one end with a toothy head, all coated in translucent white cartilage. The vertebrae clicked across the ground as the monster reared to full height, towering twenty feet above the shattered floor. The head had no eyes, just a leathery black tongue that constantly flicked out for information.
Jim’s eyes and mouth had a contest to see which could open wider in shock but Nero just looked pissed. A tinkling of glass drew Jim’s attention from the snake back to the ceiling. Oz dropped from the remodeled skylight like a bonafide superhero, his hand grasped firmly around a pink elastic cord. As he reached the pool, the cord tightened with bungee springiness, depositing Oz lightly in the pool near Barney. With a flick of his wrist, the cord released above and returned obediently to Oz.
The skeleton raked its huge tail across the poolside, keeping the pack of dogs at bay as their confidence began to return. Oz tossed Barney and Mars out of the pool before nimbly vaulting out himself.
“Ossie. Put ‘em in the hole,” Oz said in an exasperated tone. The snake swooped its tail into the dogs, sending them careening into the water-filled end of the pool. Boyd, glaring up at the towering beast, backed against a wall.
“Take your foot off my man there,” Oz said cordially to Nero. Nero did so with a hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar smile. Oz was satisfied. “Good to see you, Nero. How’s ‘bout a sit down.”
* * *
Barney drank heartily from a teacup stamped with the Olympic rings, a blanket embroidered with Olympic rings laid neatly across his lap. Jim shared his own Olympic cup of tea with Mars. Boyd, having brought them these comforts at Nero’s insistence—and Jim’s dust sack at Oz's insistence—slammed the door as he left, leaving a resounding echo in the huge velodrome they sat in.
“Right. You boys all set?” Oz ruffled Mars’s head.
“Yeah, we’re alright,” Jim said.
“I’m gonna pow wow with that Disciple-thieving bastard down there, then we’re off. Just sit tight a minute or two.”
Oz thundered down the bleachers, then slid down the banked cycling ring below, bare butt stuttering down the wood as his robe bunched up behind.
Jim, Barney, and Mars watched from the cheap seats Oz had left them in. Close enough so he could make sure there was no “funny business” from Boyd, but far enough that his conversation with Nero couldn’t be heard.
Oz joined his Rival at a tiny table in the middle of the arena and pulled three objects from his robe pocket. Jim leaned in and saw what looked like two brown stones and a knife. Oz said something to Nero, who nodded. Oz slid the objects over to him. Nero picked up the knife and pierced one of the rocks. He traced a radial incision around the diameter of the oblong stone, and it split in two. The inside was green with a brown ball in the middle.
“Avocados?” Jim said. He looked at Barney, who shrugged.
Nero slid the opened avocado back to Oz then opened his own. The two men ate the green flesh from their fruits without chewing, swallowing the halves whole. Then, in almost perfect unison, they popped the pits into their mouths and chewed.
“What the hell?” Jim whispered. Even after seeing a gargantuan skeleton-monster fall from the sky minutes earlier, eating an avocado pit still registered as strange. The men swallowed their chewed pits, then Oz pulled a pack of cigarettes and a blue lighter from his pocket.
Green sunglasses on top of his head, Barney experienced only the slightest of twitches upon seeing the blue lighter. He’d been getting steadily better, dosing bits of blue in controlled quantities. Surprises like this still got to him, but the embarrassing tics were so minor that only Mars ever noticed, and the dog was no squealer.
Oz lit a cigarette, passed it to Nero, and lit another for himself. The discourse appeared to be calm, but Oz was clearly on the offensive. They spoke for several minutes, occasionally ashing into the gutted avocado husks. Max the jinn floated in the darkness above, getting down every word and nuanced gesture he could pick up on.
* * *
JRN transcript of “The Avocado Summit” 30 September, Year of the Monkey. Outside Galveston, Texas. 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Medium cloud cover.
NERO: Don't suppose you had the forethought to bring any Avocados?
[Dull thuds.]
N: I'm impressed.
OZ: Your eczema looks good.
N: Yes thank you, I’ve been taking magnesium baths like you recommended.
O: That was ten years ago we last spoke.
N: That’s why my skin looks so good.
O: What’s all this about stealing my man? The High Rollers won’t like it.
[Unmistakable avocado swallowing sounds.]
N: They haven't said anything, and if they were going to, they would’ve by now.
O: (Reluctant grumbles of agreement.)
N: Cheers.
O: Right. Cheers.
[Gravely mastication and gulping.]
N: Cassandra?
O: Dead.
N: Fair.
O: My man’s not the one we should be worried about. What are you doing with yours? Having him kill dogs?
N: That was an accident. He’s good at it though, killing. People said he had nothing to offer. I was thinking of showing him off a little, maybe taking him to see Carmine.
O: You wouldn’t dare. That has to be earned.
N: Eh, maybe you’re right.
O: He’s not a good pick, Nero. The boy’s sick in the head. I’ll give you the time to find a replacement.
N: Boyd is my choice. If you have concerns about being outmatched, they’re yours alone to deal with.
O: I told you about the magnesium baths! Look at your terrific skin! You owe me.
N: I probably would have found out about the baths eventually.
O: At least tell the prick to put the traffic lights back in order. High Rollers won’t like that either.
Contributing reporter note: Oz refers to the curiosity of yellow lights getting shorter. Boyd tortured a particularly gifted public works engineer into exploiting a weakness in two-thirds of the national grid of stoplights. In addition to shortening the length of the yellow light by at least half, Boyd had also forced the pinky-less father of four to randomize the order of green-yellow-red, both adjustments causing a real headache for the U.S.D.O.T.
N: You noticed that, huh? Yes I’ll right it. Like I said though, maybe he’s not so dumb?
O: No, he’s dumb. He’s cruel, Nero. The time limit’s coming soon. Make the change.
N: He’s got your hair in a muss so I must be doing something right. I just hope your man’s up to task otherwise the next few centuries could be pretty boring. Especially following the show we gave them. Boyd stays. Thanks for making the trip, Oz.
[Cigarette extinguishes with finality.]
* * *
Oz found an abandoned school bus in one of the facility’s huge hangars and declared it their transportation. He insisted they leave as soon as possible to avoid any further altercations with scheming Nero or the unwieldy Boyd, and tried to whip the bus’s engine into running shape while Mars evicted a family of squatting raccoons from the back seat.
“Hand me a wrench,” he yelled out to his assistants, Jim and Barney.
Barney was distracted, grinning at a squirrel family in the rafters, so Jim handed Oz the tool, looking at the surrounding buildings as he did so. “Oz, what is this place?”
“Huh? Oh. This, is the Galveston Olympic Supercomplex. Operators generally move around quite a bit, but most will pick a base of operations for Disciple training. Like I did with St. Militrude’s.”
“Why would anyone pick St. Militrude’s?”
“Elvis was discovered in an insane asylum.” Oz dove deeper into the engine.
“He wasn’t. That’s not true.”
“It’s not? Well shit! That’s what I heard. Anyway, I’d been making my little nest at St. Mili’s, and Nero, he’s an insecure guy. Hunkered down in the first place he found. The area around this place,” the wrench emerged and gestured to the derelict town beyond, “used to be kinda thriving. They had a respectable high school, a halfway decent barber shop, and there were even rumors flying around about a potential Arby’s franchise. Then Nero rolled in. Decided he wanted the place to himself. He’d call bomb threats into the local businesses, swapped fluoride for diuretics in the water supply, lobbied town hall into getting those neon yellow fire hydrants. People hate all that shit. Just before the mass exodus, he went back to town hall, and got them to dump the town’s reserve fund into this Olympic Supercomplex with visions of a Galveston Summer Olympics. Nero didn’t even put a bid in to the Committee! Moscow already had it locked up, but I guess the town hall wasn’t up to speed news-wise.” Oz’s chuckles echoed up from the bus’s guts. “You met the fit bastard, he wanted a place that could handle his workouts. Now it’s a training ground for that cupcake, Boyd.”
A family of ornery raccoons ran from the bus, Mars woofing at their heels. Jim decided he had one thing to do before they left.
“Barney, help Oz for a sec will ya?” Jim pulled the painter from his friendly staring contest with the squirrels above and pushed him next to Oz, bottom half sticking out of the engine.
Even in the double-digit buildings of the Supercomplex, it wasn’t too difficult to find the right way back to the kennels, as the cries of captive dogs made for a great homing beacon. Jim sprinted down halls that flickered with the funhouse strobe of dying bulbs, peeking around corners for any sign of tracksuit or denim.
He entered the kennel, also home to a surplus of javelins and the mini cannon balls of shot put. Jim tried to use the sports equipment to bust doors off the cages, but only succeeded in sending the noisy dogs into a greater furor.
The Asset seemed to swing extra hard on his wrist in “Pick me! Pick me!” fashion. Wasting no time, Jim dumped some Asset powder into his hand and clamped it on the bars of one of the cages. The bars began to glow orange and squish under his grip. Lava hands, baby.
Jim ran along the rows of cages, his steamy mitts melting locks and smearing hinges. Yelps of excitement came from each dog as they were freed by the handy dust, and in almost no time the prison break was in full effect. Jim made to leave, then saw he’d only freed the gen pop. Farther down the line, was maximum security. Still wet and smelly from the pool, the pack of huge dogs growled at Jim, their bulky chains at full extension.
Probably, it wasn’t their fault they were like this.
Probably, Boyd had tortured the animals until they’d become monsters.
Probably, they deserved freedom just like the others.
Jim slipped off his work boots and prepared for some anaerobic exercise.
* * *
Barney listened eagerly for more tool requests from Oz, wanting to do a great job. He heard instead a series of pinball clanks as the wrench Oz was using fell through the twists of engine and onto the floor below.
“Damn stupid shitty wrench!” boomed Oz. “Actually, that mighta done the trick. Give it a try, will ya Barn?”
Barney hustled onto the bus where Mars was scouring the seats for any more would-be raccoon stowaways. With a turn of the key, the bus roared to life. Barney applauded excitedly. Through the windshield, Oz took a generous bow and was almost immediately knocked flat by the flood of emaciated dogs that surged from inside the Supercomplex.
A frenzied human floated amid the canine exodus. “Get in the bus!” Jim shrieked as the current carried him toward Oz. The two men managed to swim for the bus and pull their way inside, but only after Oz’s head had collided with the massive side mirror. “Shut the door!” Jim’s voice cracked.
Barney searched frantically for the lever and pulled it just in time as a dozen snarling snouts slammed against the closed door. The pack of huge dogs stepped around the bus in frustration. Their chains clanked on the ground, tips still smoldering from the Asset.
The alpha stepped forward and nudged the door with his snout. Having been built to withstand only the strength of a child, the bus’s frail folding door yielded. The alpha pushed again, and the door accordioned open. Jim pushed Barney into the aisle behind him where Oz was busy rubbing the welt on his head.
The alpha stalked inside, head low and growling.
Mars shoved his way in front of Jim and mirrored the wolf’s attack stance with his much smaller frame. Barney huddled in a seat and closed his eyes. Oz continued to rub his head, oblivious to anything deadly that might be happening three feet away.
The alpha lunged at Mars, expecting to lock down on furry neck, but instead clamped onto fleshy arm.
Jim had dived on top of Mars with Secret Service speed.
The alpha released its bite and backed off, surprise in its wild eyes. It stared for a moment at Jim, who lay prone and bleeding atop a riled-up Mars struggling to get free. Confused, the alpha turned tail and ran, disappearing with the rest of the pack before Mars could wriggle free from Jim’s bloody stranglehold.
* * *
The bus headed northeast with Barney behind the wheel. He had instructions from Oz to “aim for the upper right of the country” and was actually doing a pretty good job in spite of the expansive directions.
Jim, arm bandaged with supplies they’d taken from an abandoned pharmacy in town, sat with Oz in the middle of the bus. Mars, furious with Jim since the alpha dog’s attack, sat in the rear of the bus like one of the cool kids, despondent to any calls to join the others.
“I was trying to save his damn