Dad is completely paranoid now. It’s the morphine. I told these shitheel motherfucking sawbones not to give him morphine products, that he gets delirious, but they did it anyway.
“Tracy,” he says.
“Yeah, Dad?” That’s me.
“We have to be careful now.”
“Why’s that?” I ask.
“Because you’ve stumbled into a very dangerous situation,” Dad says.
“Really?”
“Yes. These are bad people, and they have bad plans for us.”
“What are they planning?” I ask.
“I dunno,” he says. “Something bad.”
I nod and turn the page of the fashion mag I’m flipping through.
“When I sleep at night,” he says, “the vampires come and take my blood.”
“How much of it?” I ask idly.
“Not sure,” he says. “I mean, not all of it, obviously.”
“Obviously,” I say.
“But some of it.”
“Oh sure,” I say.
“Then there’s these … I dunno what you’d call ‘em … what do you call a witch that is a man?”
“A warlock,” I say.
“Right,” he says. “These warlocks come. They do something with the air. It makes it hard to breathe. I feel like I can’t breathe.”
“Right now?” I ask.
“No, at night. When they are using the … I don’t know what you’d call it … gas or rays or something …”
“Like a ray gun?” I ask.
“Yeah, something like that,” he says. “But it doesn’t come from a gun.”
I lick my fingertip like my grandmother used to and turn the page. “What does it come from?”
“I dunno. Like a … a magnet maybe. Like a giant magnet. That clicks. It’s loud. And it circles around me in the air, like the … what’s the thing at football games?”
“The Goodyear Blimp,” I say.
“Right. Like that.”
I nod and look at the cute velvet miniskort and wonder if I’m too old to pull it off.
“So you have to be careful,” he says.
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?” I ask.
“They know you’re here. You’re not supposed to be here, and they don’t like that you’re here.”
“Where am I supposed to be?”
“Not here.”
There’s a pair of over-the-knee boots that are pretty off-brand for me but look super foxy. I feel like I could probably wear them out with Avan, if no other time.
“You should be careful,” he says.
“Will do, Dad,” I say.
“If these vampires and devils and warlocks have their way, we’re not gonna make it out of here alive,” Dad says.
“Just try to rest for a bit, Dad,” I say. “I’ll keep watch.”
“Right. Yeah, okay. You can keep watch. Take the first shift. I’ll just get some shut-eye and then we can switch.”
“Sounds good, Dad.”
Within a few seconds, he’s snoring.
I get up, toss the magazine in the chair, and leave the room.
Then I go down the hallway to a utility closet, which I open and step inside, close myself in.
It’s dark and cold and smells a bit like the supply closet at my grade school on the Gold1 did.
I reach into my bag and pull out the glove, slip it on.
It grips me tightly—a bit like a blood pressure cuff—then some of its dials begin to flitter and some of the knobby bumps hum, a few buzz.
With it, I open a door in the back of the utility closet, step through and into the empty lounge.
No one is one the stage. No one ever is, not while I’m here, anyway.
Normally I’d be looking for Klava, but since I have her gear, I guess that means something has happened to her. I’ll have to figure that out eventually, but until then, I need to find someone else, like Archie maybe.
But it’s Bill who turns up. Not Archie. Which sorta sucks for me because I can always fuck Archie for information, whereas Bill and I tend to come to blows. Wait, that sounds wrong next to the other sentence. We fight. Like, literally. With swords, typically. A sword fight. Shit, god damn it, that sounds Freudian, too … Fuck it, you get the idea.
He’s dressed like Elvis in a snakeskin jacket, strutting along the skirt of the stage.
“Well ‘ello there, little lady,” Bill says in his unusual dialect that reminds me of someone from East London trying to do an Elvis impression. “‘Ow’s tricks?”
I put both hands up, about chest-level. “Look, I don’t want to fight with you, Bill. I took a vow.”
“Rockin’,” he says. “‘Suse you want, ‘en?”
“My dad is sick. I just want to know if you guys are the ones doing it. That’s all.”
Bill smiles. “Supposin’ we was the ones, whaddya bring in trade, cupcake?”
I sigh. It’s always the same fucking thing with these assholes.
“I dunno,” I say. “What do you want?”
He smirks, lights up a smoke, raises his head slowly. “Whatcha got?”
I get he’s trying to do Brando, but I’m not trying to play games with him.
“Just tell me what you want, Bill.”
“How’s ‘bout a nice choc-o-late malt, baby,” he says.
“Salt?” I ask.
He nods.
“Yeah, okay, sure. We got loads of salt where I’m from. What kind do you want?”
“Finkin’ green sweat peas.”
“Sea salt. How much?” I ask.
“Georgie-O Washin’ton’s ‘ead, baby doll,” he says.
“A quarter,” I say. Then add, “Stone, right? So like three and a half pounds?”
“Should do, baby blue.”
“Just bring it back here?” I ask.
“Naw, cupcake,” he says as he snaps his fingers and locks his hips. “Drop me a line in a tree.”
I look at you and say, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll show you later.”
Then to Bill I say, “Anything else? Maybe some fries …”
“‘At’ll do, Lit’le ‘Awk.”
I make an insincere smile at him, then flick my wrist in imitation of a wave goodbye, and leave, go back through the supply closet, and down the hallway toward Dad’s room.
A few steps shy of his door, I feel woozy.
I lean on the wall for support.
The sucking sound of my brain juices being filtered and transfused fills my nerve fibers, and I hear a tank technician talking.
“Was that one of them?” the tech asks.
“Dude that was Bill the King,” another one says.
“Holy smokes,” the first one says. “That means we’re done?”
“No,” the second goes, “it means we’re finally able to get started.”
Will you two shut the fuck up, please, I think.
Then, where and whenever they are, I hear myself say in a tired and raspy voice, “Will you two shut the fuck up? Please?”
“Did she just talk?” the first one asks.
“You heard her didn’t you?” the second one says.
“Was she talking to us?” asks the first tech.
“Sounded like it,” the second says.
“Isn’t she not supposed to be able to do that?” the first one asks.
“I dunno,” the second says. “Who cares. Just log it and drain the tank. I’ll pull her out.”
No, wait, I think and try to get back to my feet, to make it back to Dad’s room before they yank me out.
The Gold Planet is the second planet I lived on as a child, after the Homeworld. This is explained a bit more in Everything Fails.
Jeez; now I feel paranoid.
I think that means the writing here worked just fine. Right? Right.