The Empty Ones (21 page)

“Looks like only one exit, back through us. Nowhere for them to run, nowhere for reinforcements to come in. Still leaves us with an escape route if things go sour.”

He nodded at Meryll, and she was up and walking instantly. She hopped a bit as she did, loosening up. She cracked the knuckles of one hand, then the other.

She closed on the group quickly. “You boys lost?” she yelled.

Gus's arms shot out to his sides the second she made a sound. It looked like he was being drawn and quartered by invisible trains. His limbs strained so hard I could hear the joints pop and the muscles tear from a hundred feet away. They shook violently, then snapped through a series of wrong angles. The others followed suit. One guy—the bassist, I think—started looking up and just didn't stop. His neck bent all the way backward until he ended up looking at Meryll upside down over his own spine. The guitar player fell over sideways, thrashed on the ground, and started crawling around with his legs bent up like a grasshopper.

They were sleeping. And now they're waking up.

Even Meryll was pulled up short by the show. We all stood, frozen by the unexpected horror. Gus screamed, a long, high, juddering sound, like listening to a bottle rocket from the other side of an oscillating fan. He tested the scream again, stopped, grunted a few times. The other Talentless chattered meaninglessly, teeth clacking as their jaws worked. Slowly and with great effort, Gus seemed to take control of his movements. The limbs bent in more human directions, and his mechanical screeches started sounding more like a voice.

“Hk-hk-how—how are you guys doin'?” he finally said, his Iggy Pop drawl fading in and out.

“What the bloody hell was that?” Meryll said.

“It takes us a while,” Gus said, his voice now flat and toneless like a strong wind through an empty field, “to remember how you move. So small and limited.”

The rest of the Talentless had more or less put together their human costumes, except the bassist, whose left arm was helicoptering wildly around his head.

I laughed so hard I think I pulled something.

The rest of the situation was so alien and horrible, but here they were, finally looking more or less like a bunch of shitty punk rock posers, except for one guy who just couldn't get control of his own flailing arm. I think I'd done that once, while extremely high.

Gus's head adjusted quickly, spotting me.

“Hey, my man!” He grinned like a stoned donkey. “Didn't realize this chick was with you. What are you guys doing here?”

“W-we're here to kill you,” Meryll said, trying to get her moxie back up.

Gus laughed, big and rolling.

“I don't think that's gonna work,” he said, and gave her a shrug. “But you're welcome to try it.”

A loud scratch, boots scuffing concrete, and her fist was halfway through his face.

She was so fucking fast.

Meryll didn't wait to see how the blow landed. She kicked out the knees of the guitarist and used the momentum to hurl him into the drummer. I caught a glint of steel: brass knuckles reflecting light from the one dim streetlamp on the far side of the loading bay. She was a whirlwind. No hesitation, no awkward movements, no unnecessary effort. She was back to Gus now, nailing him with a goal-kicker crotch punt. He bent over, and she rocketed a knee up into his face that lifted him off the ground. She turned back to elbow the bassist. His head folded in on itself, but the rest of his body didn't follow. He latched onto her arm with both hands. She punched him in the kidneys, stomped on his foot, but he didn't seem to care. The drummer was back up now, and he wrapped himself around her legs. The guitarist followed suit, seizing her other arm, and they had her, mummified by a bunch of second-rate Stooges.

I got up to join the fight—like hell am I going to let Meryll think I'm a coward, hiding behind a metal box while she does all the heavy lifting. But Randall grabbed my arm. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

“What does it look like I'm doing?”

“It looks like you're going to kill yourself for a piece of ass,” he said.

I went cold inside.

He's right, of course. I knew it even with the fight kicking around in my belly and that anger bubbling in the back of my throat. I couldn't take Gus alone, much less four of him. But fucking Randall—he should know that's not the point. We don't do this because we can win. We don't do this because nobody else will. We don't do this because it's the right thing to do, or it's the only thing we can do. We do it because: Fuck them. Fuck people who use their power to dick over whoever they can get away with dicking over. It doesn't matter if that guy's a high school teacher, or a Wall Street broker, or a cop, or a demon inside the shell of a store-brand Iggy Pop. You have to punch him in the face because he deserves to be punched in the fucking face. End of story.

I shoved Randall back, spat on the ground, and turned away. I didn't have words for him. But I could see it on his face—he already understood how he'd fucked up.

I walked toward Meryll and the Talentless. She was struggling, but she could barely budge the grip of the Empty Ones.

I was maybe a dozen paces away when Gus held up a hand for me to stop. “We will pull her limbs off, like a child plucking the legs off of an ant.”

His human persona dropped. He stared at a point somewhere behind me, unwilling or unable to focus on me.

“Let her go,” I said.

“Or what.”

There was nothing to mark it as a question. Every word he spoke had the exact same weight and cadence.

“Or … I'll get blood all over your expensive leather pants,” I said.

He laughed, joyless and mechanical. It stopped abruptly, halfway through an exhalation.

“She is weak, like a coma patient waking to atrophied limbs. But she is stronger than the rest of your kind. She should not be this strong. What is she.”

“I'm the girl from Brixton who's gonna bash your bloody face in,” she said.

“I see it in you.”

“Who, me?” I said, having trouble following the flow of conversation.

“No, her. But you have it, too. There is an order to you, the both of you, that is so often lacking in people. People are a jumble. A mess. Apply order and you clean the mess. The mess disappears. But you and this girl … there is a thread within you that makes sense. It is small, hard to spot, but important. You are of use to the Mechanic. It can take what you are and make something out of it. You can help the machine. Like you did in New York.”

“I didn't fucking help you,” I said.

“Not willingly, but with our assistance the core of you helped birth a Tool of the Mechanic. That is vital work.”

“The angel? I helped you make more of them?”

I didn't even care about the answer. But I didn't have any ideas for how to get out of this with my bones intact, and any time I could buy was more time for my stupid brain to come up with a good idea. No matter how unlikely that prospect was.

“Yes. And we thank you for that. We love you for that, always. It is why you are not a stain on the pavement right now. But this girl, she has the thread, too. And unlike you, hers still has potential. It can be used. If a thing can be used, it must be used. Otherwise there is no meaning to the thing. We will use her. If there is something left when we are done, you may have it. That is out of gratitude, for what you have done for the Mechanic.”

“You're not taking her anywhere. Not as long as I'm sucking air.”

I hoped Tub and Randall were using the time to do something clever, like gather stuff to throw at Gus. That's about as clever as I could hope from them.

“You will have no say in it,” Gus said.

He stooped down, grabbed a hunk of loose asphalt, and lobbed it underhand at the shuttered metal door behind him. The sound bounced around the courtyard for a few seconds, then got swallowed by the silence of the big empty space. Then a single squeal, old metal on old metal. Others joined the chorus. The doors were rising. All of them, on every side.

Inside them was a thick darkness that boiled and churned. I caught the glint of brass, the one dim streetlamp reflecting light off of a thousand sets of gears.

 

SIXTEEN

2013. Tulancingo, Mexico. Marco.

“I guess I do it to feel like a man,” the skinny thing says. It blinks hard, sets its jaw. It would fight another thing, if that thing said the skinny thing's eyes were watering.

“You
are
a man,” this thing, wearing the shell of an actor called Marco says. It says this because it has been written down on a scrap of paper. The other things have insisted to this thing that this is the normal and expected way to behave. “Ain't nobody can take that away from you,
esse
.”

This thing overpronounces the last word, to emphasize that it is part of a mutual culture with the skinny thing.

The skinny thing looks away from the cameras. It cannot face the other things in its current state. It is experiencing pride, or perhaps shame. It is hard for this thing to understand the trivial misfires that cause emotions in the other things.

A thing with an unkempt mustache and a trucker hat that says B
LACK
B
EAR
D
INER—
B
EARY
G
OOD!
motions for this thing to put its hand on the skinny thing's knee. This thing does so.

The skinny thing turns and opens its arms. This thing takes a moment to consider what the gesture means, before the thing with the scraggly mustache and ironic hat mimes an embrace. This thing embraces the skinny thing. The skinny thing trembles. This thing trembles, too. This thing does not want to appear strange.

When the cameras stop, this thing asks the skinny thing to accompany it back to the trailer. This thing says “Hey
hermano,
” though this thing knows they are not brothers. “Let's have a rap sesh in my trailer. I got some big ideas for you. Big!”

This thing knows it is important to use pronouns. That was one of the first lessons this thing learned. The other things grow uneasy when this thing refers to them and itself as “things.” It does not make sense. All are things. Matter is matter, and it merely comes in different forms. The other things are no more valuable than rocks, or dirt, or shit. This thing is different. It has seen the order of the universe, and has the strength to assist the eternal struggle against entropy. That makes this thing slightly more valuable than other things. This thing can therefore use the other things as it sees fit, because it is in the service of something greater.

The skinny thing looks uncertain. This thing realizes it has been staring at the skinny thing without blinking for some time. This thing blinks for the benefit of the skinny thing. The skinny thing does not appear entirely at ease. This thing gives the skinny thing two big thumbs-up, and a smile that it saw a thing at a coffee shop use once. At the time, the smile appeared to make the other things happy, so this thing stole it.

The smile proves its use yet again. The skinny thing follows this thing back to its trailer.

This thing recognizes that the skinny thing has some appeal. It is not certain what that appeal is, but the other things respond to the skinny thing positively. It would further this thing's career, and therefore this thing's usefulness, if this thing were to mimic and incorporate that appeal. This thing must therefore study the skinny thing. It must interact.

It starts by asking the skinny thing questions.

It asks: “So,
hombre,
where do you see yourself in five years?”

The skinny thing says many words, but this thing knows that words are not important. It studies the skinny thing's mannerisms. The way it tilts its head and looks upward when it is considering how to express a difficult concept. The way its hands are always moving, tapping and drumming on the table. The way it smiles when it has said something stupid.

There is a very small part of this thing that responds to the skinny thing's appeal. Back when this thing was a disorderly mess like the other things—before the hand of the Mechanic burned all of this thing's garbage away and showed it what it was to be simple and useful and important—this thing would have been attracted to the skinny thing. This thing did not distinguish its partners by gender. This thing enjoyed that other things wanted it, and that was enough for it. This thing sees the want in the skinny thing, and the minuscule remnants of the mess that remain in this thing flutter and twitch.

This thing laughs when it seems appropriate to laugh. It furrows its brow and nods solemnly when it seems appropriate to furrow brows and nod solemnly. This thing is learning much, and practice is important. This thing is still young, and does not pass as well among the other things as it could. This thing must learn. But for now, this thing is doing excellently.

The skinny thing is in the midst of telling an important story. It is a story about the skinny thing's mother. The plight of the mother thing, the poor circumstances that the skinny thing hopes to raise the mother thing out of. The skinny thing starts to tear up. It notices this thing noticing.

“It's nothing, man,” the skinny thing says, waving this thing's attention away. “I just got something in my eye.”

This thing knows the other things like to help each other. It is important to help, to pass as a lesser thing.

This thing helps.

It reaches out and sticks its finger in the eye of the skinny thing.

This thing realizes it has moved too quickly. It is so hard, for this thing to act like it is trapped like the others. Bound by their limitations. They move so slowly, they bruise so easily, they die so quickly.

A mere accidental jab from this thing's pointer finger, and the skinny thing's eye has popped open. It is loosing fluid down the thing's cheekbones. The skinny thing is screaming and flapping its arms like an angry bird. This thing realizes it has made a mistake.