Chapter 12
They cut her hair and shaved her head, locking her skull in a vice after she smashed up the first would-be barber’s chin with a head-butt. They stripped her down and sprayed her with a hose and tossed floury burning delousing powder. She got in a few good kicks and punches before they got the straight jacket on her. It took three zaps of a prod (the third was so high she pissed herself) to drag her to a cell and she got a solid crack in the ribs when she managed to squirt blood in the sergeant’s eye. She screamed and swore and tried to bite and kick, but none of the pigs would really touch her, really let loose and break something, give her a hard, satisfying pain that she could clutch and nurture and giggle with. Her cell had even been washed—no shit or spit or cum or blood anywhere—and then a medic had calmly shot her full of darts (a proud, high dose that turned her into a fish) while he bandaged her hands.
Then there was nothing to do but sit, so she screamed and then they gagged her, and then there really was nothing to do but lie on the cold cement and think. She didn’t want to do that, didn’t like that the drugs were wearing off, the tranqs and the booze, and the damping field shut down all her feeds so she was alone in her own mind with no news or chat or porn or comedy or foreign tragedy to distract her from her own. She tried to hum but the humming became a whimper and then tried screaming through the gag again but no one could hear her and no one reacted. She was alone, alone, alone, alone, and her thoughts were her own.
McCully was there, telling her to go back, but she was busy. Terry was there too, in less detail, except for the voice, which came through in agonizing clarity, the terror, the panic—how had she missed it before? It had gone right through her, right past her. But now she was stuck with it. Am I safe? What if he comes back? He won’t come back. I’m a detective. I know what I’m doing. You see, Terry, you fall into a gap, a wide gap, the gap that most people fall into—you aren’t important. You are powerless, and if someone wants to hurt you, they can and no one will stop them. Not the cops, because they don’t care. Not me, because I don’t care. Not McCully, he cares, he cared, enough to go back. What did he say, what did he even do? Her gun, the little six-shooter, hadn’t even been fired. They hadn’t even had a chance. Did they die together, two perps torturing them as a team? Or was it the one, the same man she’d dismissed? Had Terry heard McCully screaming from the living room? Had they been able to scream? She could never know. She wasn’t there.
And Friar, now you’re back, eh? Lecturing me again. What would you make of this? Would you have stayed? Of course, because you were good at this job. You had a method, a purpose, a skill other than cracking skulls and an easy association with filth. You bastard, why didn’t you take the case? Why did you leave it to amateur night? And Hemu, the peacenik. Let you down buddy. Just a big disappointment. Tell the Slow God to get her socks all paired and her panties packed cuz ain’t nobody finding that girl from inside a jail cell, and really, I think we both knew that I wasn’t going to bring her to you anyway, you, just a homeless man with a philosophy, versus ten million American dollars. I’d let that dozer crush you for fifty.
The cell door swung open and two pigs grabbed her by the feet and dragged her down the hall wheeeeee! They hefted her to her feet and made her hop through a door into a small interrogation room—cement floor, metal walls with a one-way mirror, hard metal chairs and a metal table. Ah, shit. There he was, the reason all these pigs had been pussyfooting around, afraid to break a few teeth, fuck her in the ass and let her bleed out on the floor—ElilE sitting calmly, so straight in the chair across from her. The cops undid the straight jacket, carefully, tasers at the ready, but she was out of fight. There was no point anymore. They left her in the paper hospital gown and slunk away, closing the door behind them. She smirked and leaned back in her chair, spreading her legs, casual, calm, fooling not even herself. ElilE said nothing. They stayed that way for a long time and then she broke.
“Well?” she said angrily. “Are you here to scold me? Dad? Go ahead, have at it.”
“Those deaths were not your fault.”
“Just shut the fuck up right now.”
He did. They sat in silence again. She felt very tired. She wanted to go back to the cell, to curl up and sleep, maybe get them to beat her again.
“Well, I guess you can take this as my resignation because—”
“Don’t be flippant,” he said, sharply, breaking his calm. She felt the words like a whip, felt herself rising, reaching for the prod that wasn’t there, bearing the steel nails they’d ripped out, hissing like some monster and then she was empty. She collapsed back into her chair and she felt a shiver like all her anger turning to poison, and she hated herself like she had never hated anything before. Then that too was gone and she was empty again, nothing.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and maybe she really was. “People…people are dead…it’s my fault.”
He said nothing.
“Anyway, I quit,” she said. “Find someone else.”
“You can’t quit.”
“Watch me.”
“Do you know the name Fanny Duvak?”
“I do, how do you?”
“We’ve been going over your evidence.”
“You mean you’ve been going through my shit, scanning my implants—hey can you do anything about this flower? It won’t go away. You can see it, can’t you, no one else can but I bet you can.”
“Yes. You have visited IlusithariusuirahtisulI.”
“Come again? Oh I get it, yes. Yeah, but they called her the Slow God. They call you guys the Sad Gods, do you know why that is?”
He blinked. “We found the list of girls. We believe it is accurate.”
“Good to hear. Why don’t you go find them, go protect them, so they don’t all get goddamn murdered!” She hadn’t meant to shout but that’s how she found herself, and standing too, slamming a fist into the table.
“We cannot.”
“Bullshit!”
She fell back into her chair and glowered at him. He just sat there like a fucking plant. It was amazing how much she disliked him.
“Oh…oh, I get it now.” She laughed. “I know why you can’t do this. You guys don’t like each other, do you? You and this other alien, the Blue God. If you go running around and do find this girl, he’s not going to be happy.” She took his silence as an admission. “But that still doesn’t explain why you can’t get the cops or mercs or some other people at arm’s length to go round up these women and ship ‘em off to Hawaii and then sort out which one is which later on.”
His silence was pissing her off. He had all the cards, all the options, all the information, and all the power—just as he’d had from the start.
“You don’t understand,” he said.
“You’re damn right I don’t.” Standing again, where did this anger come from, what was she? Why was he playing her like this, why couldn’t he give her a straight fucking answer? Was she looking in a mirror? He couldn’t help for the same reason that she couldn’t—he didn’t care. It wasn’t important enough.
Then ElilE smiled, the ugliest thing she’d ever seen, a smile with no warmth, no love, no joy, nothing that deserved a human smile—the smile of a cruel joke. And then he laughed, a laugh to match his smile, bitter, horrid laughter. It made her skin crawl.
“You’ve talked to the Slow God then, eh?” he said, the timbre of his voice completely changed, a hateful, vicious sound. “What did she tell you? Did you meet her servants, the ones you call hips, the ones that wear flowers in their hair? They were human, right?” He leaned forward eagerly, hands gripping the table, grinning, and she recoiled. “I am no different, no less human than you, except that I am touched by the Gods, I feel their presence and know their thoughts and guess what?” He laughed again, hysterical, and stood and threw up his hands. “I hate it! Hate! Hate, hate, hate, it’s all I can feel anymore. Do you know what it’s like,” his voice became a hiss, “to hear the Gods whispering in your ear, always whispering, and to see the things beyond this world, great things, that really, as a human, I couldn’t give a shit about, but I must know, and understand and always fight, fight, fight—it is a nightmare.”
His arm slashed down in a blur and the table crumpled into a V against the force. He grabbed his chair and slammed it against the wall and it flattened, smashed, pieces flying across the room. She scrambled back into a corner; it seemed like he grew and the light bent around him so he was a giant towering over her, surrounded in shadows.
“Do you think I want it this way? To tiptoe around, to take this power,” he held up his arms, “and use it to plant window gardens, and feed bureaucrats and businessmen, children and fools and shit scum like you, always coaxing and prodding and pleasing and asking—no!” He punched his fist into the wall up to the elbow and then drew it out and laughed again.
“I would rule you! Command you. Lay down the laws of my Gods and force humanity to join the fight, to step up and look past your narcissistic masochism and play a significant role in the universe! But no. No. Never that. Never direct action, never bold, never strong, never open. You see, Saru, you look at us and think that we have power, but you don’t know what power is—of course not or you would see your own. The truth is that we’re hiding, cowering here on this planet, terrified of the UausuaU, the Hungry God, terrified it will notice us and act. The horror it has wrought on you would be nothing, nothing, if for the briefest particle of time it were to focus its attention on this universe and actually perceive it as an object worthy of attention. We hide, and lurk, and plot, and plan because any time we act it must count; every blow must land, every strike find its target or the Hungry God will flick a hair of its tail and extinguish us all like fleas.
“Find the girl! Find all these girls! Sweep out across the city. Protect them. Do something; you must do something! Ha! You see now, we will not. We cannot. Because we are afraid. Afraid that these feasters, these servants of the UausuaU will see our actions, see our power, see that we are capable of thwarting a plan no matter how weak and tattered. And if their inconvenience is perceived as anything other than the retarded blundering of a sub-sentient life form then this planet will go from food source to threat, and if you dislike how they treat their food you cannot comprehend the doom that awaits their enemies. Then you would know why they call my Gods the Sad Gods.”
His face was twisted like some creature, a gargoyle on a cathedral, his skin warped and wrinkled, jutting out in hard lines, reptilian, demonic. She felt the hatred, the rage, more than emotion; it was energy, heat washing through her, hurting her, burning her insides. Her mouth was wet and her tracing finger came away with blood. ElilE hissed out a breath and then inhaled deeply. And then again, and again, and the rage sucked back, and the hate was drawn out of her, making her lighter, freer. She realized she’d been holding her breath and her heart was vibrating in her chest. The shadows fell away, back to the harsh white LED brightness. ElilE shrank down to his normal height, regaining his normal, impeccable, mannequin calm. He held out a hand to help her to her feet, but she scrambled away and stood on her own. They eyed each other, falling into another silence.
She heard Terry in her mind, the words that should have stuck the first time. Catch the bastard. Catch the bastard. Catch him. She’d been going about this wrong the whole time, searching and following. It was weak, reactionary, un-American. Forget the girl. She would find the people doing things, find where they lived, where they slept, where they kept their polished skulls and scalpels, and hunt them down one by one and open them, see how they liked having their intestines juggled. Then, when she had their dicks on a spit and their pleas for mercy as a su-tone, then she’d find the girl. She grinned, it bubbled, impossible to choke down. She’d had ElilE pegged wrong the whole time—the bastard was alright, relatable almost. She punched him in the arm, for solidarity, and he took it. Maybe he grinned back, gave her the flicker of a grin, or maybe she imagined it, fuck, who cared?
“Alright,” she said, still grinning, ah, she couldn’t help it. It was just so damn funny. She laughed, a little at first, and then a whole lot—ass-clenching, belly-aching laughter that bounced around the room and only made her laugh more. Oh my God she was gonna piss herself again. She laughed so hard she started to cry and had to lean against the wall for support. Then she sorted herself out, giggled and tried again. She looked ElilE in the eyes again, her grin spilling out, biting down on it. She thought what it would be like to fuck him, to see him unleash that power—that’s what he needed, a good lay—and swore she would make it happen if she ever got out of this mess tits-intact. Then she laughed all over again.
“Okay,” she said at last, gasping, grabbing her belly. “I buy what you’re selling. Let’s do it. Let’s find this bitch.”