The next monitor along showed a building in 3-D. With perfect marking—radar devices set in three places around the building—they were able to triangulate and get a precise scan of its contents.
“It’s built just as it says on the blueprints. Have you ever been inside the building yourself?”
Boiled glanced at Flesh, unspeaking.
“We ran some background checks on you ourselves, you know. You’re amazing. All those cases you solved with that other PI called Oeufcoque, and every single one of them designated an Official License. You’re a real celebrity within the industry, aren’t you? And I hear you’ve got a lot of clout with the DA’s office too.”
“That’s all stuff that my former partner engineered after he dissolved our partnership.”
“Hmm…I would have thought you were the sort of person who didn’t worry too much about history, what someone might or might not have done. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind discussing the past?” Flesh asked.
Boiled continued staring at the monitor, but nodded slightly.
“We were all in the Forces. Well, Medi and I were all in the Experimental Mechanized Division of the Marine Corps—the Guinea Pigs, we were known as—and we met Rare and Mincemeat at the front when we were all thrown together in the same company of the Southern Division on the Continent. I was up for military discharge after getting shell-shocked and developing paranoia, but then loads of enemies came and surrounded us. We had to hole up in the forest for over ninety days before the helicopters were finally dispatched to evacuate us. Even today, whenever I see an oak tree it takes me back, brings back vivid memories.”
Boiled ignored Flesh, but he carried on speaking. “Everyone looked after me, a mere comm specialist. A lot of soldiers ended up regressing to a childlike state, though. Some grew paranoid, or started developing abnormally aggressive tendencies. Some units had a lot of these sorts of soldiers concentrated in one place, and I somehow found myself in one of them. At first we were the exception, but before we knew it our sort of unit became quite common, especially on the front lines. Then, as the battle intensified, it became completely normal. These are the only sorts of people who can really adapt to the front lines, after all. We fought hard and received plenty of medals. We killed a lot of people. A lot of enemies, a lot of allies. Guns, gas, bombs, electricity—we used all sorts of weapons. All day long I survived on tranquilizers washed down with scotch, firing away from inside my armored vehicle. Eating and shitting where I sat firing my guns. In a vehicle not unlike this one, actually, for three months, with no sunlight, in a place like a subway toilet. As a result of that I started suffering from white wax disease in my legs…”
Flesh stopped talking at this point and smiled at Boiled. “And what about you, sir? Have you been involved in experimental warfare?”
“I was in the P7 Experimental Corps.”
“P7…oh, so an Airborne Division? I know about all of them up to P6, in charge of the twenty- to sixty-thousand-meter altitude zones, right? I didn’t realize there was anything higher than that.”
“Strategic Space Corps. There were three of us, including me, who enlisted—volunteers from the Airborne Division.”
Flesh clapped his pudgy hands together. “Amazing! Just like a sci-fi movie!”
Boiled’s eyes caught Flesh’s again. After a second he nodded silently, facial expression immutable as ever. A movement like the cylinder of a revolver spinning in place.
Then a murmur. “The whole unit was a sham, a concoction. Objectives and results, all fabricated. It was only there as a smokescreen to develop pointless technology.”
And with that, he turned his eyes—devoid of sentiment as ever—back to the monitor.
Chapter 4
SPARK
01
It was four in the afternoon.
Balot was stirring stew in a saucepan, but she suddenly stopped. Oeufcoque was standing on the counter sniffing the air coming in through the ventilation system. Balot poked Oeufcoque with her free hand.
“Agh, that tickles.” Oeufcoque covered his sides.
But his nose was still to the ventilator.
He spoke with just a trace of nerves. “There’s an unusual smell.”
Balot poked at the stew. She lifted up the wine, bringing the neck of the bottle toward her.
“I’m not talking about the seasoning.”
Balot placed the bottle down and leaned her head toward him.
“There’s a smell of carnival. A group of people rejoicing, about to go to a party, or a festival…or maybe to war.” Oeufcoque spoke and sniffed the air again. “There’s also the faint, bitter smell of fear. As if someone has been killed.”
Oeufcoque looked at Balot, apprehensive. But Balot was no longer afraid of this sort of thing. She turned the heat down and entwined Oeufcoque around her fingers.
–Enemies?
“Probably. Check communication lines with the outside world, will you?”
Balot put Oeufcoque on top of her right hand and touched the intercom on the wall with her left hand as he’d requested.
She snarced the receiver without lifting it, putting a call out to the police escort that was staked out in the neighborhood.
–The lines are all ringing, but nobody’s answering.
“What, all three of the bases? What about headquarters? And try the Doctor too.”
–I’m not getting anything.
Balot tapped the receiver with her fingers.
–Something doesn’t feel right. It’s coming up that the lines are engaged, but it’s weird. It feels like I’m contacting somewhere entirely different.
A claustrophobic, urgent atmosphere pressed in on them from all sides.
Balot took her hand off the intercom and turned the stove off completely, and then she took her apron off and threw it over a chair. She headed toward her room, Oeufcoque still on her hand.
–They’re coming, aren’t they? The people who rubbed out our police guard. Coming here to assassinate us too.
“Highly probable.”
–I want to get ready. Will you give me five minutes? “What are you planning to do?”
–Take a shower.
She spoke as if she were talking about tending to her firearms.
Oeufcoque nodded. “But be quick.”
Dish, wash, brush…she felt the ditty spinning around the back of her mind as she savored the hot water. Dash, crush, rush, flush…
She knew that having dirt and grime on her skin weakened her natural abilities. So, whenever she was due to wear Oeufcoque she needed to make doubly sure she was clean. To scrub herself up spick and span, polish herself up like a stainless steel knife.
As she washed she started to feel that she might be able to grasp each individual droplet of hot water as it fell from above, down to the finest of movements. She probably could have. Even the destination of the water. She could almost imagine the whole world flowing through her skin.
Under her control.
My body is my own.
The seed of resolve was planted firmly in the back of her mind.
She wasn’t going to hand it over to anyone else ever again.