Roachkiller and Other Stories (15 page)

“It’s much easier to come in through the front door,” he said.

He went inside and Oonie followed him. The door quickly slid closed behind her.

He sat down on a bright blue coach. Soft music played in the air. “Daya will not be happy with what you did with her vehicle,” he said.

“Nice music,” Oonie said. “It sounds real.”

“Of course. Daya only gets the very best. Are you running an errand for her?”

Oonie walked around the room. It was the biggest room she had ever been in.

“She wanted me to check on the iguanas. And you. She said she would be gone for a day.”

“Why does she think I can’t take care of myself? That woman is ridiculous.”

Oonie turned to look at him for the first time since they’d come inside and saw that right behind him on the couch was a small blue iguana.

“Is that safe?” she said.

“Are you talking about Kimi here?” He reached up and pet the iguana. It stuck its tongue out and put it back in several times. “He is like a child to us.”

Oonie continued to stare.

“Have you never seen an iguana before?”

“I haven’t seen many live animals.” The truth was that she hadn’t seen any. Unless she counted roaches.

“Of course,” he said. “Would you like to touch it?”

She went around the couch and stood behind him. She touched the iguana. Its skin was tough, cold. She was very close to the man. He did not turn around.

“I’m Chandresh,” he said. “Please call me Chandresh.”

“Hello, Chandresh,” she said to the back of his head. The upside-down teardrop effect was much more pronounced from the back. It was the perfect opportunity to take out the gun and use it. Then she could eat.

“Are you hungry?” he said, getting up. “Of course, you must be. I will get you something.”

She started to follow him.

He turned and said, “Why don’t you freshen up? The shower is past the bedroom, which is right past the iguana den.”

“Okay, Manolo,” she said.

He didn’t seem to hear her.

*  *  *

The iguana den smelled wet, and there was something else, a kind of shit smell. She was in the room she had seen from outside. But from inside the window was a viewscreen that showed a jungle of thick, dense leaves, shivering with dew and a million shades of green Oonie had never seen.

She ignored the iguanas. They ignored her back.

She went through to the bedroom, which was even larger than the living room. The bed was up on a platform, almost up to Oonie’s shoulder. The room smelled sweet and soft, and suddenly Oonie realized how she must smell after weeks on the road. She quickly went into the bathroom.

In the large shower, she tapped the water pressure and temperature as high as she could take it—she had never had the luxury to before. The water beat on her skin, making her skin hot and red. She heard Manolo’s voice in her head,
If you leave me, you’ll never find a way back, you’ll never amount to anything, you’ll just die.
The water ran into her nose and mouth. It tasted like nothing. She watched a whirlpool of dirt disappear into the floor.

“You’re much more pleasant to look at wet,” she heard. She turned around and there in the doorway stood Chandresh, with a pile of clothes in his hands. “Put these on. I’m sure Daya won’t mind if you use her things.”

He was waiting for her inside the iguana den.

“Sit down,” he said, pushing an iguana off a chair made of something Oonie did not recognize.

“Sit in Daya’s prize wooden chair.”

Next to the chair, on a table, was a glass of white liquid and a plate of brown cubes. She had to step around and over three iguanas to get to the chair.

“There sure are a lot of these animals,” she said.

“Yes. They are actually very rare,” Chandresh said. “Very expensive.”

“I’d guess.” The chair was cool where the iguana had been sitting. She took the drink. “It’s sweet.”

“Yes,” he said. “Tell me something about yourself.” He changed the viewscreen to a scene of a beach. Blue water crashed against a pink beach. The red sunset colored the room and lit him from behind. The sleeping gown became almost transparent.

Oonie realized she should have gone after him in the kitchen, gotten things over with. Now, looking at him, she didn’t know if she’d be able to go through with it.

“I’m just like everybody else,” she said. “Trying to live.”

“There is so much more to life than merely living.”

She ate the food in three quick handfuls. “If you have the means.”

“If you have the means,” he said and laughed. “Of course.”

“Tell me about you,” she said.

“I’m just a prize. Like my wife’s iguanas.”

“Is that so bad?”

He laughed at that. “Come with me.” He held out his hand and she took it. “Bring your drink.”

She brought her rucksack with her. There might still be a chance.

He led her to the living room and sat her down. As she sat, she felt warm. She looked down and his hand was on her thighs.

He handed her a thin red disc. “Here,” he said, and she took it.

After a few seconds, the music in the room began to turn into colors and the colors began to float and make little explosions in her head.

“Amazing,” she said. In her mind, she saw the man called Chandresh and Manolo blending together, their dark bodies intertwining, becoming one. She realized she liked it. Realized she wanted to keep things that way.

“I hate being alone here with all these cold animals,” he was saying.

That was it.

That was a new plan.

Oonie would stay. She would keep this woman’s stuff. This woman’s pleasures. Everything she needed was here. Why go back? What was there for her that she could not have here?

“I like you even though I don’t know your name.”

She was about to tell him, but then he said, “I don’t want to know it.”

Then she felt his hand moving, caressing her. She wanted to say something, but his hands were doing wonderful and amazing things to her.

She thought about the gun.

She would wait for the vehicle to pick up the woman and bring her back and then she would shoot her.

“Mine,” she said in a whisper.

“Don’t talk,” he said. “That ruins everything.”

He put his mouth on hers. As he kissed her, she saw the blue iguana moving away and off the couch.

Her body moved and responded. She remembered moving back through the iguana den—all the iguanas seemed to turn their heads to follow her as she was being led—into a bedroom, and even in the haze she was in she had reached for her rucksack and brought it with her. It was a huge bed covered by a bright soft material. The gun made a soft thud in her rucksack as she threw it on the floor.

*  *  *

Oonie woke up alone, feeling sore and starving. Light blazed into the room from the unshaded windows. Her head hurt. And then she heard a sound. A muffled popping sound. She reached for her clothes on the floor. She slowly got dressed and picked up the rucksack. The blue iguana Kimi was on the bed, looking at her. Oonie picked it up in both hands and it wriggled its tail as she shoved it into the rucksack.

She realized then that the gun was gone.

Her plan was to go out the front door. But she had to pass the iguana den first. And there, on the floor, was the woman called Daya, on her back. She wore a full bodysuit, the kind people wore if they had to go outside. There was a red hole in the middle of her stomach, and blood leaking from behind her. Iguanas walked slowly through the blood, leaving small red clawprints.

Chandresh sat on the wooden chair with the gun in his hand. “This is a nasty little thing.”

He pointed it at her.

“A man always knows what his woman is up to,” he said. “Some men blind themselves to it, but I’m not that kind of man.”

Oonie smirked at him. “There is only one bullet.”

“Daya lied to you, child. There are two. I have inserted the other one. The authorities are on their way.”

“Why?”

“Because you killed my wife.”

“No. I—”

“You stole her vehicle, convinced me to let you into the house, and raped me. When my wife arrived to rescue me, you killed her.”

“But—”

“Then while you were resting from the vigor of your ardor, I recovered the gun and killed you.”

Oonie watched the way he held the gun. He knew how to use it. He held it firmly and with control.

“Before I do that, please tell me something. Who is this ‘Manolo’? I’d like to know, since you called me by his name a dozen times last night.”

Oonie stared at him with cold eyes. “He is dead,” she said. “He has been dead for years.”

“Sad,” he said. “Daya came back early, I suspect, to kill two birds with one stone.”

“What is a bird?”

“I don’t know. It’s just an expression,” he said, shrugging, and in that moment Oonie saw a chance and flung the rucksack with the wriggling iguana at him. He fired the gun—that popping sound again—but the recoil surprised him and the shot went wild. Frightened, he dropped the gun. Seeing that she was not bleeding from anywhere, Oonie pounced. She hit him in the face again and again, bloodying his mouth and nose. He shoved her back and she fell over him and onto her ass. He moved toward her, but she grabbed the gun and, from the floor, she held it at him.

“There are no more bullets,” he said, standing up. She watched his face. She saw the fear.

“Liar,” she said. Then Oonie fired the gun the way the woman had said.

She missed, but the bullet went behind him and through the viewscreen, cracking it.

“Bastard! That was mine,” he said. He began to move toward her. She fired again.

The impact sent him back into the window and pushed his body through it. A hole opened.  Through it she could see the dirty world outside.

*  *  *

The hole in the window was big enough for her to walk through. She stepped over the man’s body. She considered taking Daya’s bodysuit, but there wasn’t time.

She started walking fast, then running, feeling the weight of the iguana in her rucksack. She looked back and saw the house, not so far behind. The sky was gray, but she felt the sun blazing through, heating her shoulders, beginning to burn them.

She found a small dune. The authorities would find her. Or the sun would. It would not be long.

She sat on the warm sand and opened up the rucksack and took out the iguana. It blinked back at her, flicked its tail. Her mouth began to salivate.
Anything to survive.
She stroked the animal’s rough skin once, twice, then lifted it to her mouth and began eating.

Rough Night in Toronto

If I were a smart guy, I’d be at home with only a hangover to worry about.

Instead, I was at the midnight fights at Eaton Centre on Dundas Pier. Waiting for the right moment.

Inside the ring, two bare-geared bots circled and beat each other. Clangs. Pings. Sparks. I’d put money on the bot in the green trunks. If it was legal for me to bet.

I was way in the back, of course, and security was focused on the fight. I snuck forward until I got sight of PapaLovesBaby, the sleek droid with a polymer smile stuck on his face, in the front row. Next to him sat Molly. The reason I got into this mess.

In my pocket was the dingus. Which I could get executed just for carrying.

If this plan didn’t work, I would have traveled a long way, survived a crash, gotten detained, beaten up, and almost eviscerated, just to end up dead.

In the ring, the fighters pummeled each other. One said, “You’d better stop this fight! You ain’t nothin’ but a bum!”

Then he hit the other bot with a decisive uppercut.

The crowd roared.

The severed head hit the canvas. The head said, “Ain’t gonna be no rematch.”

The moment. I quickly put my shades on, almost poking myself in the eye. I took the dingus out of my pocket, clicked it, then ran toward the first row. I raised it and fired at PapaLovesBaby. It exploded in a brilliant light that burned for seconds. I grabbed for Molly, surprising her.

“Alex!”

The dingus was made to send a small EM pulse out, the purpose of which was to shut bots and artificials down. It hadn’t been fired in decades. So what happened next wasn’t really a surprise.

PapaLovesBaby held me in the air by my hair. “Nice try, meat,” he said.

He shocked me with his left hand, making my bowels flow like a river.

Like I said, if I were a smart guy . . .

*  *  *

Ten hours ago I was at home in Reno, planning on filling an afternoon with gin and nicotine. I caught the smell of the ocean coming in through my window. I rushed to find what must be another broken window. It was in the bathroom. I could just see the brown water lapping against the piers from here. I sealed the window with wadded teepee. Nasty ocean smell.

Then my wall beeped.

I let it beep.

After five times, it prompted, “Please leave a message.”

It was Roy Ricco: “Alex. I was thinking about what you said, about letting you work your problems out alone, what with you needing years to wallow. I understand and agree.”

I nodded at the wall. “Finally. Thank you, Roy.”

I poured myself a tall glass of gin, neat.

“So you know,” the message went on, “whenever you need to talk about stuff, I’m here for you, buddy.”

“Thank you, Roy,” I said to my wall.

And then my door was caved in. It was Ricco, his cyborg left arm extended in front of him like a battering ram. “My grandmother’s furry ass I understand.”

“Give me a break, Ricco. Doors are expensive.”

He ignored that. “Time to crawl out of your sinkhole, buddy,” he said.

*  *  *

We were two bottles in, the late afternoon light dancing red on the walls, when he told me, “You wanna know why she went back to him?”

“Stop it.”

“’Cause arties can go all week long.”

“Cut it.”

“Take as many pills as you want, you can’t do it for more than two days in a row. And you can’t change size and thickness and you can’t vibrate.”