Lawless Sign Part Eleven (Fiction)

Chapter 18: Time In A Bottle Part Two

The million lumens were back and I cancelled my sight again. I was being dragged across the floor. Thick metal cords were wrapped around both of my legs.

“You’re lucky he didn’t overwrite your mind the moment you got within eight feet of him,” a  tinny voice said. It came from the direction in which I was being dragged.

Even at this point, I didn’t know what it was. Every Assembler Brain Box I had ever encountered had been overly friendly. Most were somewhat child-like, like Mister Rongo. Leave it to the pirates to make such a whimsical modification.

“Is he still after us?” I asked.

“Yeah. He might be. You’re going to have to do whatever I tell you or he’s going to be right on you.”

I didn’t need to read its mind to know that was a lie. At the moment I was content to let this thing pull me across the floor. Although I couldn’t be sure, I was guessing we were back in the multi-gravitational chamber. I heard what I thought was it working an airlock.

My benefactor was trying every trick in the book to break into my suit’s systems. Specifically, he was seeking my life support. I asked “What is he?”

“I am going to go with demigod,” it said. “That was just an avatar. A wounded and none too clued-in one. You would have lasted two seconds with the real thing. An unwounded avatar, that is.”

“Define your terms,” I requested.

“This piece of crap you are wearing doesn’t give up. Still pushing the meds,” it said.

“Would you kindly mind not trying to override my life support,” I said. “I thought you wanted to meet me.”

“Well, now I have. Would you now please expire without damaging this rig any further?”

“What do you mean by rig?”

“Talkie, aren’t you? Demigod: an entity capable of bending physical laws at whim; of awareness through multiple independent living entities; of actually entering into the minds of living beings; of interacting with beings similar but inferior to itself and, in this example, of being able to cancel the normal progression of time within a short radius of itself. Avatar: an independently functioning aspect of the whole, with many of the same aspects and abilities as the demigod, yet in some way designated as inferior or subservient to the demigod. Rig: your stuff or you, whichever is easier to rig.”

That was helpful. It had the lock open at this point. I could sense it for the first time.

It was a two gallon can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. Four thick tentacles made of rubber coated cords were coming out of its open bottom. How it was getting enough leverage to drag the two hundred and twenty pound me wasn’t apparent at the time. One of its armatures was extended into the room we were entering.

The Assembler Box wasn’t actually the can, but rather a self-aware electric current. Normally they house themselves in large devices. This one was in hiding.

“Where the hell did he come from?” I asked.

“A very weird little planet,” it said, climbing onto my chest.

“Is he the leader? Who is in charge of this place?”

“Nah. He’s an invader, like the rest of these things.”

“Who found the complex first? Us or Royce Cole or the United States Government or Sulfur—Joe Blow? Where is Royce Cole now?”

“I’ll fill you in alright, Admiral Talkingbuckle. I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good news is that there is a way out of here.”

“Take me with you.”

“I fully intend to. But now the bad news: You are dead.”

“Get the hell off me.”

“Listen to your own systems,” it said as I protracted my baton. “Nice stick.”

I twisted the end of the baton and then reeled my arm back.

“Accept the facts. The most noble thing you can do right now is to be my vessel,” it said.

I wasn’t feeling so noble. The can jumped, disintegrating into a mass of flaming sparks. Its abruptly disconnected cords went slack about me. I slowly started to rise to my feet. The pain killers and stims were working. I waved my baton’s menacing rotating end about.

The can was charred flinders, the tiny parts inside reduced to swirls of thin ash. It and its cords were motionless on the cement floor. I knew where I was from the zombies’ memories: it was Cole’s windowless, door-less factory. This was a two story space fashioned partially of cinder blocks and partially of brown bricks. Tract lighting and halogen ballasts hung from a ceiling of poured cement. The automated lift platform Cole had once fired his machinegun from was about ten feet from where I knelt. Its lift was in the down retracted position, a giant three sided basket on rollers.

I was able to bounce signals out of the factory. The factory was fairly much what it seemed to be, except for the concealed doors. This factory was situated with two other structures, all of which were made out of bricks and other Earth-bound construction materials.

All of these structures were in the open space of the third pyramid. I couldn’t tell from this perspective if the area outside of this factory had been transformed into another material or what was on the terraces here. I would have to get out of this enclosure to do that.

Other than its lack of an apparent method of getting in and out of it, the factory might as well have been scooped straight out of Stone Park. There was an entire Sears worth of hand tools hanging on three of the walls. Tall metal work desks, benches, standing presses and drills were positioned in orderly aisles, making the space resemble more a repair shop than a factory. Excepting the careless placement of a few cordless power tools, it seemed as if the factory was between assignments or in clean up phase. The ceiling was a little higher, but it was otherwise about the same area as the building in the alley at Chicago and Avers.

It did not perfectly match the zombies’ memories. A few of the stations were new. There were no blood splatters on the walls, no shell casings on the floor. One of the walls had been cleared of hand tools. In their place was a pair of refrigerators, a counter with a microwave, a coffee maker and a pair of break tables. Perhaps Mister/Doctor/Professor Cole, Esquire had rethought his labor relations policy?

More likely it had occurred to him that the homeless population of Stone Park wasn’t infinite.

I looked around. I had already found the actual exits. The nearest one was between the two refrigerators. I started for that location, but then my attention lit to the coffee maker. It was a five gallon pot. There was a hole in the counter beneath it. Per my sensors it was solid on the inside. In the cabinet under the coffee maker was another coffee maker, this one probably not the configured housing for an Assembler Brain Box. 

My new acquaintance probably had several bodies hidden throughout the complex. I had no doubt that he had jumped into the coffee pot. I didn’t want to play cat and mouse with the thing, but I felt no immediate compulsion to reveal all I knew about it. Going forward, my intention was to reason with it. Again, this was based on my experience with Assembler Brain Boxes not owned by Countess Rezvulga.

I was sure the thing was going to try to jump me again. Why make it easy? I took one step towards the kitchen area and then pivoted. Instead of going for the kitchen, I cut across the thirty foot space to a patch of wall where the hand tools weren’t so dense.

My companion had clumsy stalking instincts. It started to move the moment I had my back to it. The coffee pot rose, threading out its sheathed metal lashes through the hole in the countertop. And it wasn’t all that quiet, either.

I triggered my helmet and the bricks in front of me parted. I stepped through to another room, which was about a quarter of the size and had a much shorter ceiling. For some reason I had thought this was a materials storage area. At one time that’s what it may have been. Three tiers of bunk beds were there, all made. The area did smell of liquor and residue from smoking.

My companion was treading across the factory floor behind me, its coffee pot being held aloft by four strands of cords. It moved like a spider with palsy. I stood there in the darkness of the barracks, seemingly paying it no mind. It got within a foot of the door when I shut it in its face.

“Hey! Hey!” the tinny voice complained loudly.

It was trying to open the door. I was continually locking it.

I couldn’t tell how long ago the room had been occupied. A copy of Soap Opera Digest I found was from September. There was a ladder in the room’s closet, which led to a loft.

The loft was mostly filled with canned goods, cleaning supplies and the like. What order there was to it had been imposed on by a metal table which toppled everything that was around it. On the table’s top were stacks of old photographs, arranged in piles and then circled in white grease pencil. I checked the writing on the desk and it didn’t resemble the writing I had seen before. But the actual symbols drawn on the table were familiar to me—the modern version of space navigation language. It was describing a timeline, but it was missing the nouns. After making note of the arrangement, I headed back down.  

Like the factory, there were no obvious exits here. I found two other hidden doors. One led to another building and one led to the outside. Each was located on the wall opposite from the one I had entered through. Both were between aisles of bunks. There were tight sleeping arrangements for about a dozen people here, complete with two stall showers and a pair of toilets. It was not something that any of the zombies recalled. The furnishings did seem newer.

“Hey Admiral! Don’t you want to get out of here?” the coffee maker asked.  

I came before the hidden door to the outside space and triggered it. The wooden paneled wall parted.

Just as I took my first step out, the Assembler Brain Box yelled “No! Don’t go out there!”

Not three feet from the opening was an electrified chain link fence, twenty feet in height and topped with razor wire. From what I could tell, the fence clung to the perimeter of this cluster of brick buildings. Weirdly, the razor wire was angled inward.

I chanced the floaty belt. It responded fine. Within moments I was hovering directly over the collection of buildings. This was perhaps the second or third complex of buildings that had been constructed here. Outside of the fencing were mounds of askew bricks and concrete in chunks, a Hyundai bulldozer and several metal shacks. The mounds and shacks showed spots of charring. It wasn’t very organized, other than the debris had been shoved clear of the fencing.

This area had the exact same dimensions as the other pyramids. The complex of brick buildings took up about two thirds of the floor space. All of this was surrounded by an uneven hill-scape of demolition waste. Each of the buildings inside the fence were sharing walls. What I had been in was the smallest building, the end structure. The one next to it was just as large, but taller. It was further connected to a much taller structure which jutted rudely out of the pyramid’s wall. The outwardly sloping terraces on that wall of the pyramid were interrupted for four levels.

There were Brain Boxes here, millions of them. These were different than the one stalking me; configured more like the ones we found in the alley. The little devices were in ceramic shelving, housed in neat upright cases lining the walls of every terrace--reaching to the roof five thousand feet up. This was the library itself, the jewel in the crown.  

The entire area glowed an aqua green, with the distant top covered in churning violence, similar to the last chamber. Except for the bottom area, there wasn’t a shadow present. A multitude of zombies plied the terraces. Unlike the last room, they weren’t climbers, but rather lingerers. (Much like people in a library.) Some of them were facing the shelves of brain boxes, as if they could access them.

Without going into greater detail, these zombies weren’t in any better shape than the ones I had run into previously. They just seemed less motivated.

Royce Cole had about six times the nuclear power capacity of the Earth sitting on the roofs of these buildings. I counted seven industrial sized autorec arrays, all different models, all with highly muscular amat gens. Somewhere in the roof top sprawl was a combination communally powered magna gen and a communally powered mechanical force distending unit. Its uses I could only guess at.

What the amat gens were funding was immediately apparent. Surrounding the outside walls of the building jutting through the pyramid was a force field so intense that it could actually be seen. It was zapping at the air. Webs of grey lightning continually played around its box-like perimeter.

My companion emerged out of a hatch in the roof below. I couldn’t tell what its sensing capacity was, but it was waving one of its legs through the air.

I was fourteen feet above it, far out of its reach, I thought. I called down to it “Countess Rezvulga sent me.”

“Yeah. That’s a nice telepathic helmet. Glad it’s working,”  it said. “Anything else you want to say?”

I then spotted a triangular outlined object hovering near the upside down pyramid’s ceiling. “That’s the junked corvette that was supposed to have been sent ahead of me.”

“Cole got to it before I could,” the Assembler Brain Box explained.

I think the Assembler Brain Box was expecting the corvette to float down to us. The ship was armed and on moving patrol. It would have come down, too, but I already had countered its standing commands.

Whatever Cole had ordered the corvette to do, my presence had cancelled--so much so that I was not able to recall Cole’s commands. If I wanted to know more I would have to climb into the canopy and find out. This isn’t something I wanted to do with the Assembler Box lurking about. But I wanted to maintain the corvette as a lingering threat. I set the thing on very remote follow.

The Assembler Brain Box had picked something up with its waving tentacle. It asked “What are you doing? Taunting it?”

“It’s mine.”

“Nice try. I know the lady that owns it.”

“Countess Rezvulga was having me explore the Garden for her.”

“That helmet’s on the fritz, after all. Unless you think you’re a hairy glob of clay.”

“I’ve been helping Elmaty do the actual exploration. I bought that ship.”

“No, you didn’t. Keep fishing, corpse. Right species, wrong sex. You don’t look anything like Buccaneer Toovy. And she has real gear.”

“I’m her boyfriend.”

“The psycho monk?”

“I am through talking to you.”

“Look, Space Policeman, I am the only living thing here. If you are out to save anything, it’s me,” it said. Its arm was tracking my descent. Then it spotted the corvette dropping to follow me and yelped. The next thing I knew, my companion had scrambled back down the roof hatch.

I touched down on the roof, straddling the hatch. I had the corvette charge its asteroid clearing tool, just for emphasis. Right before I was about to kick the hatch closed, I had to ask “Is there anyone else here?”

“Just me and you corpses. This is depressing.”

“I wonder if I am dead?”

“Recognizing the problem is the first step.”

“But I have not seen the long table of my ancestors. The sea of peace has not embraced me. Quite the opposite.”

“There is no God? There is no heaven? Ask the other corpses what they’ve been going through. None of them think they are dead, either. But they are dead. As dead as you.”

“Hold that happy thought--right where you are,” I said, kicking the hatch closed.

“You’re eight galaxies out of your jurisdiction, officer,” was its hollow sounding response.

  

“You’re off by a factor of sixty,” I snarled, becoming airborne again. “Come on out and you’ll be debating legalisms with the sting from this queen of space.”

I thought I had set the corvette to blast the Assembler Box if it showed outside. The corvette did acknowledge this command. (Where I come from they call this ‘an excuse’.)

I did decide to take its advice, sort of. I was off to question some of the zombies, if that was possible. My selection was entirely random, I thought. For some reason I was drawn to a terrace in the middle range. The location called to me.

There were two zombies on the terrace, which I landed between. About five feet from my perch was a short man in a dark brown tweed suit and a narrow brimmed brown hat. On my other side, just at where the terrace turned into an elbow, was a tall, slender, blonde to grey haired woman in a sleeveless blue dress. A red purse with a long strap dangled from her shoulder. It was a match in color for her elevated heel shoes.

The two zombies seemed to be accessing the brain boxes merely by touching the ceramic brackets in which they were housed. Both were motionless, facing the boxes, their faces bathed in a green glow. The man had an especially broad smile on his face. The woman was, to put it mildly, not as complete and seemed grim. Her shoulders were slumped down, as if she was carrying a weight.

I turned my attention back to attempting to access the corvette. I shifted my position one foot in the man’s direction.

I was now someplace else. I was standing in a line behind the man. Other humans were lined up behind me.

The man in front took a selection of small paper strips from a person behind a sales stall, very similar to the ones I had found at my base. Behind the short bars was a man with a transparent bill on his head. He asked me “Place your wagers.”

I turned to the man in the tweed suit. He said “Banner Bob in the third.”

“Win, place or show?” the man in the bill asked.

“Win,” advised the man in tweed.

I somehow complied and was presented with a ticket. Stepping away from the cage, I joined the tweed man who I for some reason thought was a friend of mine.

“I know I am slow, but are we gambling?” I asked.

“Yes, we are.”

“Not on Wickets, right? I refuse to gamble on Wickets. Like throwing your money down the toilet.”

“What’s that?”

I assumed he knew what a toilet was and answered “It’s a team sport. Something like soccer only played with rackets.”

“You mean lacrosse.”

“Is lacrosse played in a frozen bowl? Do they carry shields and pole-arms?”

“Nah.”

“Then it’s not Wickets.”

“Let’s get a Mint Julep. That ought to hit the spot.”

It was bright and summery in here. The people milling about us were wearing light clothing. Out the big window was a blue, cloudless sky. I could see people beyond the glass, sitting in grandstands facing away from us.

The place was a buzz of chatter. No one gave me a second glance. No one gave anyone they were not immediately with a look.

We came to a counter where I was handed a long stemmed plastic glass. I raised my blast shield and took a sip. “This is vile,” I commented. “What is this?”

“Sort of mandatory at the Derby. Figured I’d get you used to it. We’re going to be headed to the Derby in a few.”

“And where are we now?”

“The queen: Arlington International. Next is Santa Anita, then Aquaduct, then Hialeah, then the big one at the Downs.”

“Do they have any mystery meat here?” It seemed like the right venue.

“They might have tacitos outside.”

“What is that?”

“You said mystery meat.”

I followed my short, tweedy pal out a transparent door and onto a sun-drenched staircase. We walked down between a gap in the seating.

I asked “Some sort of sporting event?”

“The oldest professional sport in the world. The sport of kings.”

“Lying? Religious bloodshed?”

I then spotted a progression of beasts with children riding upon them. Both the children and their rides were sheathed in reflective, brightly colored fabrics.

“Banner Bob is one of the kids?” I asked.

“The horse.”

“The beast gets top billing?—Are the odds figured for rider or the beast? Or as a set?”

“Nah. Just the horse.”

“I refuse to wager on anything this ridiculous,” I said, taking a physical step backwards.

I was back on the terrace, having lost my balance. I reached out to the woman. My hand grabbed her shoulder. She turned and we made eye contact.

The next thing I knew I was loading a set of shoulder pads, cleats, a dirty uniform and a helmet into the back of her—Claudia’s—dented and faded Saturn hatchback.

I sealed the back and got into the car on the passenger side. Claudia put the car in drive and we pulled away.

Claudia looked much more pleasant with all of her body parts present. She had long, dark blonde hair that curled just a slight and hung over her shoulders. Her lips were thickly glossed in pink, her face caked in cream and rose. At that moment she was wearing a white linen apron over a brown flowered button down shirt and a long skirt of sturdy black fabric.

She flipped open a pack of cigarettes and then pointed it in my direction. I took one, placed it in my lips (suddenly, I have lips) and she produced a lighter. Then she lit her own cigarette.

“You look perturbed,” I said. Her brow was furrowed, her jaw clenched.

“Eh?” she asked.

“Miffed? Pissed?”

“Stupid Denny’s,” she said, releasing a cloud of smoke. “Three weeks now and they can’t give me the right shifts. Now they’re saying breakfast and dinner or nothing. And they want floating days, which screws up granny day care, which is already screwed up because the service is saying I need a CNA for my pay-grade. Now that Vicky has lost a client, house cleaning is down to two days. Not that those people have anything worth stealing.”

That was not all. I could tell. I asked “Is there something else?”

She was mildly shocked. “Nothing you need to worry your pretty head about,” she said, playfully squeezing my knee. “When is your next game?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t even know what kind of a game player I was. I later found out that I was a semi-professional football player. When I asked Claudia what position I played, she was no help at all. I was one of the big guys in the middle.

“Well, I’ll check the calendar,” she said. “I think you have two games left.”

We turned off the four lane boulevard and into a plantation of three story beige brick buildings, all of them identical and identically run down. There was a vast grid pattern of them, divided by grainy lots filled with disheveled cars.

I asked “What else is there? Why don’t you tell me?”

“Communication? Why start now?”

“Indulge me.”

“What? Later. Not in the car.”

“I swear, I am speaking English here. Something else is on your mind, Claudia. Tell me. Trust Captain Meteor.”

For a moment, she looked frightened. I remained still. I hadn’t raised my voice. A second passed and then it all spilled out of her: “I can’t really deal at work, because the cook’s dealing, so there’s a conflict. There’s a guy, one of the cook’s connections, that has a line on an under the counter part work job. It’s at night, though. Probably just a few nights, but it will be without notice. It’s cash. Within walking distance of the flat. I told the guy ok.”

“Parts? Parts. Aircraft parts. Separating used aircraft parts,” I blurted.

“Parts of some kind. It’s at the airport. They drive in trucks at night and you pick through the stuff and pick out stuff that matches these outlines. It’s $300.00 a night, cash.—It shouldn’t interfere with us! It’s just until other things come through.—I ordered cable with the sports thing you wanted.”

“If you’re going to be picking through parts, I want you to wear gloves.” Why I was giving advice to a woman who wound up being Tommy gunned to death was beyond me. Cuts on her hands would be the least of her worries.

“It’s still all about you, baby. I promise,” she said. “Just need a few nights. Just need a little cash.—The cable’s got that channel that you wanted. I asked! Not Spike… Versus.”

We pulled into an uneven lot. It had been raining. Some of the holes in the lot were partially filled with black water. I’m not sure of the seasons around here, but the mangy bushes around our building made it look as if it were an earlier stage of fall than in real time.

She parked the car and then bolted for its hatch. By the time I joined her, she had the shoes, jersey and shoulder pads in her arms. When I offered to take them, she said “Get the helmet. I didn’t touch your precious helmet.”

She seemed oblivious to the fact that I was already wearing a helmet. After a time, I became oblivious as to what I was wearing. If I didn’t focus on it, it changed. I was never sure what she saw when she looked at me—or what she saw in the person she thought I was.

I knew which apartment was ours even before she hit the door. It was the right garden unit. All of the other units had crappy curtains facing out. Our unit had nice curtains facing in. That just seemed right.

I followed her into the building and down the stairs. Not that I was under any other impression, but we did not have much. The apartment’s furnishings consisted of a mattress and box springs (covered in sheets, but no head board), three sets of drawers and a television.

She quickly made the shoulder pads and other items disappear. Before I knew it, she had taken the helmet away and I was on the mattress with a beer in my hand. Water was boiling for something in the kitchenette.

Claudia came swaying up to me with a beer in her hand and a curious look on her face. She took the beer from my hand and seemed to weigh it. “Not done yet? Well, I’ve got another one right here for you—if you’re good.”

Then she climbed on top of me and placed her forehead against mine. She laughed “Indulge me.”

What happened immediately next I will keep to myself.

Later, as we were ritualistically sharing a cigarette, she said “Baby, the cable guy is coming tomorrow. I need you to be up between 9 and 5.”

It turns out, I didn’t have too many actual duties. Over the next few days I attempted to expand my portfolio of tasks. Each time I did, I discovered that I had some new limitation.

Some things went fine. I read trashy romance novels aloud to her, doing different voices for the different characters. That made her laugh, a joyous sound. I did what I said I would do, which was to her a pleasant surprise. Under the best of circumstances I am not much of a food preparer, but I had something for her when she got up and when she got home. After a few tries, I had mastered the laundry. She had crisp and clean uniforms ready for each of her jobs. When she wanted to talk, we talked. We watched what she wanted on TV. When she was tired, I made sure the apartment was dark and cool so that she could sleep soundly. It was the least I could do.

I was somewhat worthless otherwise. I could not do the marketing. This was because I could not drive. Although I was trained and capable of doing so, if I were caught behind the wheel I would be incarcerated immediately. There was a warrant out for my arrest. I was wanted on domestic violence charges and had skipped out on a court date. For extra good measure, I have already done time. Claudia did not like my odds on this go around with the court system and thus we had fled Columbus, forfeiting the bond she had put up.

A bond she had put up for my release on domestic violence charges. The domestic violence I-or the previous version of me-- had committed upon her.

All of this said, within a few days I didn’t care what type of guy I was supposed to be. I would be damned if I continued to freeload off this woman. Surely there had to be some form of employment that even this person could find.

Claudia was asleep when I left the flat. It was dark and raining. I went to that large road that ran alongside the complex, chose the wrong direction, and headed down it.

The road became elevated. What businesses I passed were at the intersections I was passing over. Eventually, I did find a tavern. They did not now nor would they ever need a dish washer, bar back, janitor, bus boy or mop person. In that they were emphatic, almost to the point of being rude.

When I got home I found Claudia up. The conspiracy had called her. They had another load in and she was getting dressed.

I was going to perhaps insist that she take the car, inasmuch as it was raining, but she had previously explained that they didn’t allow cars.

She didn’t ask, but I explained what I had set out to do this evening.

“You idiot,” she said, but then changed her tone. “Baby, don’t go walking down Palatine road at 2 in the morning. You’ll get smashed flat like some drunken Mexican.”

I sat down on the edge of the mattress. “Maybe I will try again when you are off at breakfast shift.”

“I don’t think I’m doing that today. Besides, I don’t think we’re going to be all that desperate for cash this week,” she said, pulling a Hefty bag over her blue dress. She grabbed her long strapped red purse and snapped it open. “These gloves you gave me are great. My special spaceman gloves. Because I am a special spaceman.”

“That’s right. You are.”

“I am the envy of all the picker slaves. Damn! I’m missing one,” she said, starting to tear through her purse.

I rose slowly, with the intention of helping her look. It had been my experience that any sudden movement or jerk of my arms caused her to flinch. She lost a shade if my voice was ever anything but at moderate tone. I was at this point quite good at being a graceful, mellow talking whatever I was supposed to be.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m sure I have another set of gauntlets to give you.”

The brief look of dread passed from her face and she muttered “You know what, baby? Maybe next week we get a hotel room. Just for a night. One with a pool.”

“If you wish,” I said,  removing another set of gauntlets from my bandolier.

“You don’t mind? The pool, I mean. I know you drowned and died. But you won’t drown this time.”

“Of course not. I will be with you, special spaceman,” I said, handing her the gauntlets.

She pressed herself into my arms and whispered “Trust Captain Meteor.”

“That’s right.”

  

We broke apart and she whirled for the door. She said “We’re getting a bonus tonight. That’s what Mr. Cole said. We’ll have a little more cash for a while. That will be so good.”

I let her walk out the door.

My eyes glanced back at the pink silk pillow on the mattress. Embroidered across it in cursive was the message ‘Someday my prince will come’.

Then it dawned on me that I had just let her walk out to get shot to death. I bolted for the door. “Wait! Claudia! He’s not going to pay you. There is no bonus.”

Something had wrapped itself around my neck. My shoulders and legs were being yanked back. I crouched, jumped and hit the floaty belt.

I was in mid air, ten feet off the terrace. I saw the Assembler Brain Box’s lashes snap away. The whole mass of us was spinning end over end.