“Well?” asks the flat voice.
His empty revolver clatters on the floor.
“The prisoner brings five bodies,” says one of the Ad Hocs ringing the room. “In the van’s cargo compartment.”
“What?”
“Scan indicates no heartbeat or biothermals,” says another.
“You fools! You fools!” The voice isn’t flat anymore.
The five dead men are up and out, guns cold, unblinking. He peels off his jacket and its pocket heat pads; he pulls off his sunglasses.
“G-got g-g-gotcha,” smiles the Cold Man.
Then the Ad Hocs are tumbling away, pulse and crack as the Numismata loose their iron bullets.
Kay’s good at faking work, so when Houchens walks in she just lets him stand there. Especially when he coughs.
“Can I help you, Professor?” she says, finally.
“I wasn’t aware they had students in charge of the IT office,” he says.
She waits.
“Well. Uh.” He holds out a pathetic bag. “I think my… hard drive crashed. On my laptop. Can you fix it?”
“Not school property?”
He looks guilty. “I was hoping you could make an–”
“Yes.” Kay smiles. “Let’s talk about exceptions, shall we?” She stands, goes to the door, and locks it. Houchens is beginning to blush.
Adele’s pulse dropped to eighteen in the surgeon’s chair: the anesthesiologist had overcompensated (Adele’s hair is red). She never knew, except in nightmares.
“I wanted to keep the teeth,” she tells the doctor a week later. Her cheeks are finally receding.
“They were impacted,” the doctor replies, “the roots were wrapped around your jaw. There were only dust and fragments left. We had to use a tiny jackhammer to get them out. Pow!”
But the explanation doesn’t ease her dreams. How did it happen, and why, she wonders. What madness is there, hidden in her body, to teach bone to tangle?
When it’s healthy, Twenty-One grows decoys, dull-eyed swaying humanoid figures that attach to a seat and sigh. The bus prefers adults–they’re meatier–but Jenkins would like the occasional kid.
At night, Jenkins coaxes the bus’s belly open and hauls out the remains of the day’s catch. Twenty-One’s gastric juices leave them white and clean, along with whatever plastic they were carrying: buttons and credit cards, condoms, phones. He throws all that away.
When Twenty-One is bedded down, Jenkins will be in his room, making patterns. Knucklebones to tell the future. Ribs to sing in the wind.
South shows up on Sunday, but the set’s empty. He goes home. They’re leaning on a van. He catches a familiar duffel bag.
“This is mine,” he says stupidly.
“Shouldn’t keep your key in that fake rock,” Seven announces.
“We couldn’t find any clean underwear,” grins Rebecca, “so I bought you some–”
“You what,” says South.
“You needed underwear!” says Seven. “For the kidnapping!”
“The network–”
“Won’t tell us anything for a week,” says Rebecca. “We’re going to the beach.”
Seven hauls open the door.
Then it’s Dandy Warhols on a boombox, the stereo’s broken, and three hundred miles to Coronado.
They shuffle around, wiping their palms even in the icebox AC. South asks, “So this is a ‘meet and greet?'”
“Meat market, really,” says Moses.
“There’s a pun in there,” says Seven. “Please don’t find it.”
Bailey’s waiting behind the door. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, “our principals,” and then they’re in with the sharks.
Seven’s all teeth and sexy danger; South and Moses pair up and slay a whole tribe of execs, and Rebecca is God’s own golden girl. She looks invincible. They’re all invincible. South never knew he could do this. Before they went in, she squeezed his hand.
Seven appears on day five–just as everybody’s murmuring about when Bailey’s going to cast the part, he walks in after lunch with a minor cult hero. The crew goes fanboy; nobody gets anything done.
“Welcome to the weird names club,” says South when they shake hands. He’s trying to be casual in a tiny g-string. It’s not easy.
“Bailey says he’s doing a shower scene today,” says Seven drily, “then mentions I get to work with Rebecca Chiltern if I sign. Just mentions.”
“Your conclusions are your own!” calls Bailey.
“It’s cool,” says South, “my ass is better anyway.”
“You take notes during the dailies?” South asked Moses, the second day of principal, when he saw the little pocket pad. Moses just grinned.
The next night, South had his own notebook and ballpoint, getting down about half of what Bailey said (half legibly, anyway). He switched to a felt-tip when he realized it wouldn’t dent the pages.
At the end of the first week, he edges by Moses and sees the pages of his notebook, and of course there are no notes: Moses draws. All the right shots, broad shading, their faces and hands when they catch the best light.
They split a cab. The cab smells like lemons.
“How do you think it went?”
“What? Oh–”
“How’d you–”
“Great,” he says quickly. “Great. Yeah. It’s such good text.”
“Can’t always tell on the read-through,” she says. “But I agree.”
The cabbie avoids the strip, for which South is grateful. They pass little hotels: neon legs and adobe.
“So,” he says. “Heh. I should be up front about this.” He looks at his hands. “You’re just incredibly professional, and I’ve developed this huge crush on you. And I absolutely–it won’t interfere with the work.”
She’s smiling. “It never does.”
Afternoons, he wakes to the smell of eggs and onion. The only way up to his squat above the restaurant is a fire escape; Garrison makes do without electricity, and washes furtively with their hose.
He buys lunch from the little blind cook, his only human contact. He’s said he avoids the front counter because he’s horribly disfigured (but really his face is still all over the news).
They have a ritual: Garrison knocks at the kitchen door, and she jokes about saving table scraps; he tells her she looks pretty today. She brings his check, his change, his prison food.