Hey
Tuesday, 3:02 p.m.: Yikes. The power’s out.
‹unintelligible›
Outside, far away, something exploded-my windows rattled and everything in the place jumped-and then ‹unintelligible› dead. It’s stuffy as hell in here, and I can barely breathe. I wonder what the battery life on this handheld is? I’m ‹unintelligible› set it to sound-activated to try and stretch it. Though I don’t know why I’m ‹unintelligible› gasp into it. Habit, I guess. And shit, aside from cataloging the spongy red shit I’m ‹unintelligible› all over the place by size and weight, what else do I have… to do?
Tuesday, 3:05 p.m.: ‹unintelligible, coughing›
Tuesday, 4:33 p.m.: Unreal-this can’t be allowed. Isn’t ‹unintelligible› wondering about all of us? Or am I the only one trapped in here? I’ve been in bed for hours, ‹unintelligible› puking myself up onto the sheets. I’m so hot. This can’t be. This can’t, I mean, I have friends, I have money-did every single other person just up and leave the city? I can’t even get out of my own building now. I could maybe drag myself down to the lobby, ‹unintelligible› every third floor, but then what? I don’t even know if the doors will open with the power out.
‹unintelligible, heavy breathing›
Right. And if I can get out of the building, so what? There’s no one to take me anywhere. And it’s not like there’s some magical hover to take me somewhere.
Tuesday, 5:05 p.m.: ‹unintelligible, coughing›
Tuesday, 5:15 p.m.: Exit Tricia-shit. I should try to get to Bellevue. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’ve been chipped. There have to be doctors at the hospital, don’t there? Better than just dying here.
Tuesday, 6:15 p.m.: No… I think… I think I’m on… Twentieth…
Tuesday, 6:21 p.m.: ‹unintelligible, coughing›
Tuesday, 6:23 p.m.: ‹unintelligible, coughing›
Tuesday, 6:34 p.m.: Daddy always ‹unintelligible› I guess… trying to walk… down… so… many… fucking stairs… when you… only… have… half a lung left… wasn’t…
Tuesday, 6:45 p.m.: don’t want… don’t want
Tuesday, 6:47 p.m.: ‹unintelligible, coughing›
Tuesday, 4:23 a.m.: ‹unintelligible›
‹END TRANSCRIPT›
Acknowledgments
When the government asked me to write this book, I wanted to refuse. I had planned a busy summer of drinking beer on the deck and watching my cats hunt sparrows, and writing a book would, I knew, take up precious hours of my day. The scientists sent by the government were adamant, however-something about the space-time continuum, me being my own grandfather, and avoidance of future events so terrible they shuddered every time the subject was returned to. Eventually they got around to mentioning huge advance monies and nationwide promotion, and since I was getting sleepy by that point, I hastily agreed.
When my lovely wife, Danette, found out, she didn’t believe me about the government scientists and whatnot, which didn’t bother me because in the movies the noble hero is always doubted, made fun of, and mildly beaten by his wife before he’s revealed as, well, the hero. But she remained my biggest supporter and fan throughout the process, and it could not have been done without her. Every time I made her read a draft of the book, she would hit me on the head with her shoe and shout, “Better! You can do better!” And then she’d dry my tears and I’d revise, and it would be better.
My agent, Janet Reid, and my editors, Devi Pillai and Bella Pagan, are three women who can probably kill a man from across the room, just thinking about it with their huge, pulsing brains. Every time I sent a draft of the book to one of them the ideas and suggestions they returned to me were humbling in their genius. It was a privilege to receive sternly worded Edit Letters from each of them.
My sainted mother was interested in my writing even before there were huge advance monies to be contemplated, and also she brought me into this world and somehow ensured my survival until I was able to care for myself, at approximately age twenty-eight. When, coincidentally, my wife took up the job.
As always, Jeof, Ken, Misty, Cassie, Rose Ann, clint, Karen, and a host of other disreputable people served as inspiration, in very strange and indescribable ways, for this and many other stories. Most of them won’t be pleased to read this, and there are probably lawsuits in the works right now.
And no acknowledgments would be complete without a shout-out to Lilith Saintcrow. Lili, you took a bullet for me in Berlin and joked through the entire back-alley operation, my flask of bourbon your only anesthesia. As soon as the State Department closes the investigation and I get my passport back, I’m taking off for Panama to collect our bounty.
Extras Meet the Author
Barbara Nitke
JEFF SOMERS was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. After graduating from college, he wandered aimlessly for a while, but the peculiar siren call of New Jersey brought him back to his homeland. In 1995 Jeff began publishing his own magazine, The Inner Swine (www.innerswine.com). The Web site for The Electric Church can be found at www.the-electric-church.com.
My Russian frowned and pushed his hands back into his pockets. From below his collar a smudge of ink was visible- a star atop what I assumed was a crown, the symbol of high rank. I reached up and scratched my chest where my own prison tattoo still burned. Prison had been good for me. I didn’t like to think about it too much, about Michaleen and Bartlett and the others. It hadn’t been a good time, an enjoyable time, but it had been a necessary time for me. It boiled me down and I’d come out of it the better man.
He saw me looking and smiled. “You know what it means?” He suddenly jerked his sleeve up, revealing two and half of the blurry skull tats on his arm. “And these?”
“Prison work,” I said, keeping myself still, feeling the bodyguards’ eyes on me. “Where’d you get the art?”
“You know what it means, my friend?”
I smirked, figuring that would annoy him. “I know what it’s supposed to mean, Boris. Anyone can slap some ink on you.”
“My name is not Boris,” he complained. Maybe he wasn’t as smart as me after all. I wasn’t used to being the smartest guy in the room. “And where I come from, they kill you for false emblems like that. Buy you a drink somewhere and slit your throat, you fall back onto a plastic sheet, five minutes later it is like you were never there.”
“Yeah,” I said. “How many? Five? Ten? You think ten is a big number?” If I’d had a skull for every person I’d killed, I’d be a fucking shadow, I’d be nothing but ink.
“Numbers do not matter. You New York boys, always counting.” He peered at me. “You are sure you did not work the Brussels job? I heard your name, very clear.”
“Then someone is lying to you,” I said. I’d been sucked into Chengara Penitentiary and hadn’t made it too far away since getting out. “The last two times I made it to Europe, things didn’t go so well for me.” The two big boys behind me hadn’t moved, not even to loosen up their coats.