Roachkiller and Other Stories (17 page)

“You say you lost your multiport in the crash, Mr. Ricco?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I would check our immigration database, but I can’t access it right now because of the power outage.”

“I see.”

He looked at me.

“I see, sir.”

“You here on vacation or business?”

“Yes, sir.”

He looked at me with piercing blue polymer eyes, then yelled, “Holding cell 7500.”

Another sergeant came to take me away, but as we were walking, another cop, a lieutenant, walked up.

“I’ll take the meat from here. I need to question him further.”

He was an older droid, with a large dent in his head that he either couldn’t afford to fix or didn’t want to. He sat me in an interrogation room and paced around me.

“Train bomb. Explosions all over. Power outage. Man, did you pick the wrong night to visit Toronto.”

“I see that, sir.”

“I’m Lieutenant Revs. Ricco had me looking for you all over town. Thought maybe you got blowed up—”

“Oh, shit.”

“—and then here you land in my lap. Why didn’t you come see me right away?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know. Sure. You want to tell me how you had the balls to walk into the house of one of the biggest android terrorists in the world?”

“What?”

“PapaLovesBaby. Makes most of his money selling drugs and stolen goods. But he’s moved into arms for about a year now. The terrorism has escalated since then.”

“So Molly is in trouble.”

“The woman you came here to get? She is in trouble.”

“I want to help her.”

“We got plans for PapaLovesBaby tonight, and if you want her out of it, we gotta act fast. I mean, you do. They’re going to be at the fights at Eaton Centre, just about now. You want your woman, go and get her there.”

“How?”

He told me to come with him. We went outside to his wagon. He reached behind his seat and took out a weapon. It was an old gun, silver, with a rubber handle and a full energy pack.

“You’re gonna need a little help. Take this dingus.”

“Looks like an EM pulse gun from the war.”

“Right. One shot disarms a typical arty for up to a minute. Unless he’s doubly insulated.”

“If a human gets caught carrying a weapon, it’s the death penalty.”

“Then don’t get caught, my man. Get into the arena. Get your girl. Go home.”

“You want me to shoot PapaLovesBaby?”

“Yup.”

“How about his bodyguards?”

“Shoot wide. This sucker’s old. Takes five minutes to recharge.”

“I sting the body electric.”

“What’s that now?”

“Poetry stuff. How do I get into the arena?”

He held up a blank high-clearance ticket and held it near my face. It flashed. He turned it to me—it now had my face on it. “You’re in.”

*  *  *

Inside the ring, two bots circled each other. Clangs. Pings. Sparks.

From where I stood in the back, I spotted Molly right away, and PapaLovesBaby right next to her. But I couldn’t see his bodyguards anywhere.  A lucky break, I guessed.

My heart pounded as I got close to them. I put on the shades like Revs had told me to. I fired the dingus, imagining grabbing Molly and running out of there, clean and free.

It stunned him for a moment. But he must’ve been doubly insulated. “Nice try, meat,” he said.

Me, I wasn’t insulated in the least.

I heard Molly screaming “No, no, no,” and then someone or something picked me up, and I was in the back of a cruiser on my back. Convulsing, drooling, crapped.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” I heard Molly saying.

“Saving you.”

“I don’t need saving.”

“You’re in trouble. I know you, too. I can tell.”

“Oh, Alex.”

“Do you love him?” I said.

She didn’t say anything. I figured she must’ve been thinking that over. Then I heard his voice.

“Of course she loves me.”

I cracked my eyes open. They were both looking at me.

“What did the police tell you? That I was a terrorist? They got it all wrong, meat.”

“Papa!”

“Sorry, darling. I just get angry.” Then he spoke to the driver. “Here.”

“What are you going to do, Papa?”

“No worries, my pet.”

The door opened. “Toronto is not your kind of town, my friend. Go home.”

I stumbled out. I was in front of the jet train depot. Just as the cruiser door closed, I heard Molly say, “Take care, Alex.”

I walked a few feet. Then I just kind of collapsed. I don’t know how long I lied there, and then I heard a voice that might’ve come from the big Upstairs.

“I told you to stay home and write a poem about this.”

It was Ricco. “First thing, we gotta get you cleaned up.”

*  *  *

I was clean and in new clothes, but I still felt shaky. Ricco was looking at Claire’s picture again. Without turning to look at me, he said, “There’s a big shipment of explosives and weapons being delivered tonight. We’re gonna raid the warehouse. PapaLovesBaby will be there. He always keeps Molly close by.”

“You have to catch him in the act, stop him.”

“Alex, buddy. He’s not our target.”

“What?”

“He’s just a cog in the wheel. Hey, that’s funny because he’s a machine.”

“Okay. But what do you mean though?”

“He’s just a dealer, dealing to both sides of the fence. Doesn’t care who gets killed. But for a while now he’s been manipulated by people in his crew. That train bomb—that was the anarchists. They just want to fuck everything up. We need his help to get them.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“It’s the upgraded droids. The ones who don’t care for anything human or resembling human. They don’t want to live in peace.”

“The bodyguards.”

“Exactly.”

“Wait, you knew this the whole time.”

“Kinda sorta.”

“Why?”

“We needed his boys to be distracted. We had him send them out looking for you. Your stunt at the arena has them on the alert for a single assassin. But now that you’re out of the way, they should be a little more relaxed and won’t be expecting a raid.”

“You set me up?”

“You said you wanted to see Molly. After tonight, she and her stud are gonna be under protection for a while.”

“You’re one fucked-up metalhead.”

“This I won’t argue.”

“I want to see Molly one more time. I need to talk to her.”

“Evs. You know you should just go home now.”

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

*  *  *

It was three in the morning. The lights of Toronto shone down so much on the dark water it didn’t seem like night at all. Ricco and I were offshore in a federal cruiser, watching the warehouse from quite a distance. A large tanker had pulled up to the pier, and we were waiting. Then their cruiser pulled up. I used binoculars, but Ricco could see just fine with his cyborg eyes.

“There she is,” I said, when I saw Molly get out of the cruiser. PapaLovesBaby came out next.

“She doesn’t love him, you know,” I said. “She’s just gonna get killed in this bloody mess.”

“It’s her choice, buddy.”

Just then, out of the tanker, coming out all at once like insects, were dozens of soldier droids. Big, metallic, some bipedal, some on wheels. Most had weapons on the ends of their arms instead of hands. The anarchists.

The two bodyguards approached them. They acted like they were in charge. PapaLovesBaby stood there, looking like the pawn they said he was.

“It’s happening,” Ricco said, and then out of the sky came police and government flyers.  The anarchists were told to surrender. They answered with high-charged ballistics. Ricco gunned the boat, almost making me fall back.

It was chaos on the pier. “Molly,” I said to myself. And then I saw PapaLovesBaby covering her. Shielding her with his body.

The freak of a tin man cared for her.

“Stay in the cruiser until I tell you,” Ricco was saying. “Stay in the fucking cruiser.”

The cruiser butted up against a lower pier. Ricco vaulted with such speed and power, I realized I envied him. What good could a normal, unenhanced human do here?

The night was lit up with gunfire. All I had was the old dingus.

Then I heard Molly—she was screaming.

It wasn’t easy to climb up the pier—my legs were still shaky.

I saw Papa was on the ground—Molly was under him. One of the bodyguards had turned on him, maybe had figured out the double-cross. The charge ballistics pelted him, making him jerk, doing obvious damage. How much more could he take?

I ran, trying to stay low. I heard Ricco yell my name from somewhere.

All I had was an old gun. But it was fully charged.

The bodyguard didn’t even notice me. Then I fired. Forgetting the shades.

It was like a flare. I had no delusions that it would hurt the droid, but if it distracted him enough . . . But I couldn’t tell. I was blinded.

I knelt on the ground, waiting to be split apart by a ballistic. “Good job, meat—Alex.” It was PapaLovesBaby’s voice. He dragged me behind the cruiser, where Molly was crouched.

“My stupid romantic poet,” she said.

*  *  *

When the raid was over, the remaining anarchists were rounded up for disassembly. My bout of heroism had distracted the bodyguard for a split second, like a mosquito, I guess—long enough so that both Ricco and Papa could destroy him. Ricco told me I should be proud. Then he called me an asshole and said he owed me a drink. PapaLovesBaby nodded at me. He was pretty battered. Some med droids led him away.

That left me and Molly finally alone. She was turned from me, staring at the wreckage, but I could still feel heat radiating off of her body. I took two steps, she turned, and just like that we were kissing. All the years fell away, the countless empty nights, the countless empty bottles, and it was like we were meant to be together like two humans in a myth. She was crying and the warmth and salt of her tears mixed in our mouths. Then we stopped. We both stopped.

“Alex,” she said. And just like that the years and the distance were between us again. But this time I think we both understood it. I mean: I understood it.

“I think I’ll take the slow way home.”

A little while later, I watched the lights of Toronto fade in the bleak distance. I never missed the stink of the Pacific more.

Zinger

Sergeant Backhaus smiles the whole time I’m walking my dead man walk. Who’s the sadist? He laughs when they
shave my head and legs. Who’s the monster?

“Midnight’s almost here, Max. Any last words?”

“I’d rather be in Philadelphia,” I say and start to laugh, when Backhaus shoves a piece of plastic in my mouth. To stop my tongue from melting down my chin.

“Very funny,” he says.

They put an electrode to my head and another to my leg. This way you get what they call a closed circuit. I was an electrician once, for about two months, before I had to strangle my moronic boss with an extension cord. What a look on his face.

Backhaus stands off to the side. Beyond the hood on my face, I could feel the people watching, could feel them tensing up, waiting for it . . .

I hear the switch.

Here it comes . . .

Wow, I remember how red and purple my boss’s face got.

Okay, here it is. It hurts—

Wait. . . . Something’s not right.

*  *  *

What a shock. Biggest night of my life and I have only one clean sock. Well, here’s the matching sock, but it’s filthy. One sock smells fine, the other smells like liverwurst left out on the counter for a week. Chinese food left in the trash for a week. A three-kitty catbox left alone for a week during a heat wave. Not bad. Gotta write that down.

Oh, look at these pants. What’s the deal with pants? If you put on a pair of pants, why not a pair of shirts? These smell clean, but I’m only going to soil them later anyway. Gotta iron them. Not every night you get a big-deal agent like Sammy Lazar in the audience.

“It’s almost nine o’clock, Daddy, do you need help?”

Apple. Sweet little Apple. My whole world. Nine years old and already a great TV addict like her old man. Loves the evening news and talk shows. Wants to be Oprah someday. Who doesn’t?

“No, honey, Daddy just needs to iron his pants. I may not be able to make a reuben the way your mother did but I can do this,” I tell her. “You stay watching TV until Cindy gets here.”

“Who’s the prettiest girl in the world, Daddy?”

She does a pirouette. This one loves to pirouette. Much better than she used to be at it. Doesn’t throw up as much.

“You are, sweetie, you are.”

This ironing board—what a creak—must be as old as my mother, and this iron, my grandmother. What was that?! Lightning? Oh, crap. I hate lightning.

“Honey, what do they say the weather’s going to be like?”

“Torrential downpours, Daddy.”

“Torrential downpours. Lovely.”

Look at this plug. The size of an Edsel. If this thing shorts the whole house will go up in flames. God, I’ve got five minutes before the babysitter gets here, and I should still go over my bits one more time. This thing is taking forever to heat up. I should go over the act.

Hey, how are ya? I’m a single dad. Any other single dads out there? Then you know what I mean when I say raising a daughter is like trying to raise a wild animal from another planet. Like, the other day . . .

“Fu—I mean, fudge!”

This thing got hot! Gotta line up this moronic seam. Wow, sounds like it’s raining in here. Is that window open?

WAIT!

OW!

*  *  *

Thunder. Sounds like thunder. And there’s water on my face. The sponge? But it’s splattering like rain.

I feel like I’ve just been sucked down a tunnel. I expected a light, but all I got is a headache. Someone’s screaming at me. Backhaus? Backhaus, you son of a bitch.

What is this? I’m not in the chair anymore. I’m flat on my back. My legs are free. My hands are free. What the hell?