Sinister Extremity, page 16
The monstrous little homunculus came out, but not all the way, as it stopped mid-fall with a snap like a neck at the end of a hangman’s noose. Griffin and Brandon paused at once to process the new development, which they saw was that the horrid clump of tissue covered in eyes and teeth was more body-shaped than such masses usually were, and it was hanging from the sac by an umbilical cord. Griffin and Brandon locked eyes.
Brandon said, “Take care of it.”
“Fuck,” said Griffin.
Griffin looked at the thing, which seemed to be looking at him, insofar as one of its grotesque eye growths was pointing right at him. He swung his knife and cut the thing in half. Blood poured from the half still attached to the cord until Griffin swung again and cut the cord and the whole mess fell. Blood poured from the flesh where Griffin had followed through with the cord cutting swing, and as the crimson liquid streamed away the top part of the mass grew paler and stiller, and after a moment of last-gasp frenzied thrashing the thing grew still enough for Griffin to swing on the next attachment point with his axe and sever it cleanly. A few more strikes followed to the dying tissue and soon the great mass of flesh separated from the lattice entirely and fell away as one, with the entire machine visibly snapping back up to its intended position as the hundreds of extra pounds of flesh no longer burdened it.
The wall of flesh on the incline slowly slid down to the collection area on a thick layer of blood and fat, where it came to rest against the metal door blocking the way to the next extraction zone. Looking down, they could see that the mass was still writhing from within the sacs.
Griffin asked, “Why isn’t it dying?”
“Those aren’t cystic cores. These are generated from tampon waste. Uterine tissue plus regeneratives can do horrible things.”
“Oh. God.”
“Yeah. That’s why the umbilical cord. Now go kill everything in that while I go cut down the next one.”
Griffin nodded, bent over, and threw up.
“You good, kid? Haven’t seen you do that in a while.”
“I’m good.” He spat. “You know, it’s just been a while since I’ve seen something new.”
“Good. Take care of that. I’ll cut the next lattice.” He leaned back and yelled up to the window of the control room. “Carolyn! Next one!”
Griffin headed down the stairs and followed the trail of blood, stepping carefully, trying not to slip in the greasy liquid. He gingerly shuffled up to the mass, wherein each womb was kicking with monstrosities struggling to live. He knelt down to the first one nearest him, fully skin-covered, and excised the thing within with careful slices from his cleaver. He found yet another mass of human and pig eyes and teeth and hair and ears and found what he figured was probably the head and positioned the knife gingerly over the writhing thing before pushing down in one shove with his full bodyweight that made it quickly go limp as its body fell in half. He repeated this process with the next one, finding a body inside that was all too human in its development, except it was also too porcine in its development, and the fleshy infantile body had hooves and pig ears and yet eyes that were far too much like a human’s for his liking, and he put the knife over its head and pushed down, and it ended, and he prepared for the next one.
And then he heard Brandon yelling to hurry up, there’s too much to be so careful and precise, just start chopping it apart with the axe so we can get this done as fast as possible, and then he was swinging the axe into every pulsing nodule on the mass of flesh, and hair and teeth were flying up on every backswing, and these weren’t cysts but they weren’t alive and they weren’t human and what was this and he kept swinging and his goggles were too covered in blood to see what he was doing so he tried to wipe them with his sleeve but there was too much blood on his sleeve and he just wiped it around and was still seeing everything blurred through smears of red.
Brandon yelled INCOMING and another wall of flesh started its slow slide down the incline, a little faster than the first from all the blood and fat the first on left behind on the surface, so Griffin stepped out of its path and waited for it to settle and then started swinging the axe again, killing each growth core one by one. Griffin swung the axe and hair and teeth and eyes went flying and umbilical cords severed and blood soaked every part of him and John Smith said he still owed Clearwater money but he didn’t owe Clearwater money but those bastards were threatening Jun and Mr. President all for just a bit of money even though there wasn’t even an apartment to pay for and all he wanted was to make a fucking living with some fucking dignity and be left alone to do his work and take care of the people he loved without some piece of shit landlord company treating him like an inhuman sack of shit just because he didn’t pay them rent on a destroyed room and who did those motherfuckers think they were fucking with and
And Brandon yelled INCOMING and he turned and saw the next wall of flesh sliding down the chute, faster now that it had its predecessors trail of fat and blood to slide on rather than having to make its own, but instead of diving out of the way and preparing to handle it with any kind of methodical responsibility Griffin ran towards the fucking thing axe in hand like a berserker warrior of ages past and swung low and rising at a throbbing mass within it, and it went through like butter and a spray of blood and teeth shot upwards but the thing kept sliding and it knocked Griffin off his feet like a storm surge and he fell back and was getting pushed along on his side like he was getting dragged by a truck and turned in his last moment of clarity to see the first mass growing closer and then
Boom the second mass hit him from behind and knocked all the air from him at once and he tried to breathe in deep but the weight on his back was too much and it was piling up over and around him and warm and pulsing and he tried to breathe but nothing was coming and things started to go black when
Burning.
In every cell. Oxygen debt. Carbon dioxide buildup.
Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. CAN’T BREATHE. CAN’T—
The weight on his back was lessening and his body’s desperate measures spasmed his entire torso to maximize the influx of oxygen, his diaphragm pulling down and opening his lungs as hard as it could, drawing in everything.
Blood came in with the air and Griffin returned to choking and drowning within two seconds of regaining the ability to breathe, making deep guttural hacking and wheezing sounds as his body now attempted to expel foreign blood from his airway.
More burning. Burning harder. Burning. Left. Why burning left. Real burning. Hotter.
The teratomaliths crushing him on either side were liquefying. They were almost scalding hot as they poured around him and just barely missed getting sucked into his lungs, but that wasn’t all of the pain.
It wasn’t just heat.
Griffin rolled onto his hands and knees and coughed hard, pushing out as much liquid in his lungs as he could in every productively wet hack. Everything hurt. A rush of bloody slime poured over him from uphill and his left hand slipped out from under him, knocking him back down to his elbows.
He heard his heart pounding over all else and, distantly, the sound of frantic yelling muffled through the thick liquid slowly draining from his ears. He was hurt. He couldn’t push himself up on his hands correctly. His right hand was working. His left side was downhill. He leaned right, leaned uphill, leaned against the onrush of liquefying flesh. He held this stable position for an endless second til a strong hand started yanking at the back of his collar and he was up on his feet.
He was up on his feet just long enough to get out of the rush of blood and over to the side where somebody else’s hands pulled his contorted mask, still attached to his head but not blocking anything and now just full of gore, entirely away. He went to put his hands on his knees to cough up more effluvium, and somehow missed his left knee.
Sludge drained from his ears enough for him to hear Brandon’s voice say, “Oh, no.”
He wretched one last time, stood up, and held his hands in front of his face.
His left hand was dissolving. The flesh around the wrist was already gone and there was a gap where his radius and ulna were visible. The palm of his hand was sloughing away and the bones in the gap were bending under the weight of what remained as they softened.
The bones in Griffin’s left arm bent and bent until his hand fell away softly, like a dead tree giving way under the weight of accumulated ashfall.
The stump sizzled for a moment and sealed over with the oddly smooth and shiny flesh of healed burns. Griffin stared at it for a moment, then let his eyes unfocus, where he saw the masses of teratomalith piles dissolving in the same way. Skin melted off of muscle and fat until they revealed pockets of hair and eyes and teeth and ears, and a wave of what looked like pain shot through the mass as sections of it in turn shuddered and went still, then sloughed away and melted entirely, filling the entire extraction gate with bloody foam.
Brandon stood in front of him, his left hand already covering the mouth area of his mask, his right hand holding a spray nozzle with a hose leading back to the 55 gallon drum.
Brandon lowered his hand and spoke. “I am so fucking sorry, kid.”
Griffin didn’t quite feel like he was really experiencing this. It was already just a bad memory, even as it happened. “It’s fine. I can reattach it.”
“Kid. Griff. It’s gone.”
Tears were pouring down Griffin’s face and he was shaking, but his mind was empty and his voice was steady. “I always reattach it. I’m really good at it.”
“I’m sorry, kid. I forgot you used to do that. This stuff is just supposed to melt abnormal growths and I forgot that includes reattachment points from within the past year. I’m so sorry.”
“Jun will still think I’m pretty,” said Griffin.
“I don’t— I was just trying to keep you from getting crushed under the thing. I saved your life. I was just trying to save your life. The most important thing is we get to go home, remember?”
“When I met him my hand was off. He smiled at me even when my hand was off. He’ll still love me. I’m tired.”
“Griffin, we need to get you to a hospital.”
“To do what? Put my hand back on? I’m still licensed to do that.”
“Griffin, we need to get you to a hospital. Please.”
“Did we clear the machinery? Is it clear?”
“Yeah. Yeah, we cleared the machinery.”
“Am I fired?”
“What? No. No, kid, you’re not fired, but you can’t work like this. You need medical attention.”
“What is that stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“The stuff in the barrel. The stuff that melted my hand off.”
“Oh, it’s, uh, I’m not sure of the chemical name, but the brand name is DeGrowth. They used to sell a consumer version called Tag Killer, I think.”
“Oh. I tried to sell that when I was working at the call center.”
“Okay. You still need medical attention.”
“I’m going to call my boyfriend.”
“Let’s go back to the van. I’ll take you to the hospital.”
“My boyfriend sells medical supplies. I’m licensed for autosurgery in extremis. He can get me a discount. I can do this. The new prosthetics attach with regeneratives at wound points. I can do this. Do not take me to a fucking hospital. They might just euthanize me or make me pay off my debt in a labor camp. Take me home. I’m calling Jun. I’m going to be fine. It’s fine. Shut the fuck up about the hospital. It’s fine. I can do this. Take me home. Jun will meet me.”
“Okay, kid, fuck.”
“Get an extra pair of the coveralls and bring it inside. I’m going to go clean off. Are there showers here?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“Hold on, then.”
Griffin turned and walked towards the exit. With his remaining hand, he unclipped his blade harnesses and dropped them. He stopped, pulled his rubber boots off, unzipped his coveralls, and stepped out of them, then fully tore off his t-shirt before pulling down and stepping out of his underpants and socks. He picked the blades back up and walked out the door and into the dark grey downpour. He walked out past the van and parking lot and into a side courtyard where no light reached him.
He stood in the rain, fully nude, as wind and water whipped the heat from him. He sobbed openly, clutching a nylon bundle of axe and cleaver in his hand. He pissed himself without realizing it, registering it only as a flicker of warmth that was immediately washed away in the rain. Greasy blood trickled off of his body, some of it his own, and he stood and screamed and sobbed and pissed until he was shaking violently from the cold and he felt a little more clean.
He stepped back inside, dripping wet and shivering.
Brandon, standing next to the barrel on the hand truck, handed him a fresh pair of folded coveralls and said, “Jesus Christ, Griffin.”
Griffin took them, put them on, and slung his blade harnesses back around himself. He took a deep breath and said, “Take me home, Brandon. I’ve got to make a call on the way.”
They loaded up the van and left.
The rain was coming down hard but the roads were still passable. Crews around the city were working to keep emergency drainage clear, and from the looks of things they were holding the line so far. Brandon drove, the radio off for once, as Griffin called Jun on speakerphone, too drained to hold up his arm. Brandon drove carefully and listened as Griffin spoke, his voice flat and monotone but for the sounds of shivering.
“Hi handsome,” said Griffin.
“Hey there, prettyboy. What’s up?”
“I lost my hand again. It’s gone.”
“What? How? Are you going to the hospital?”
“No. I’m not even bleeding. I don’t want to explain the whole process yet but can you pick up one of those prosthetics that attaches with regeneratives right on the wound? And then also the regeneratives. And meet me at home. I’m going home. I can’t work like this but I’m not going to the hospital. So meet me at home and I’ll put the new hand on and then I can keep making money. I’ll pay for everything. I’m making so much money this month.”
“Jesus. Okay, honey. I’ll get the stuff and head home right away.”
“It’s a little more than just the hand this time. It’s like three quarters of my forearm left, I guess. I don’t know if that makes a difference.”
“Shouldn’t make much of a difference. I love you so much. I’ll see you soon.”
“I love you, handsome. I’ll see you soon.”
Griffin hung up and Brandon drove in silence for a moment before saying, “That was Jun?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t talk about him much.”
“He’s what makes it all worth it. He’s what going home is for.”
“You two really met while your hand was severed?”
“Yeah.”
“You two have a really good energy. That was really good communication.”
“Thanks. Yeah. I love him.”
“I can tell.”
They drove on together for a long while, slow and cautious through the heavy rain. Griffin eventually stopped shivering right around the time they finally arrived back at his apartment and Brandon stopped the van.
“Okay kid, go take care of yourself. Patch yourself up. Keep me posted. If you can’t come back to work right away, that’s fine. I can find a temp. I’m not gonna replace you. You do good work. I want you happy and healthy. Just keep me posted.”
“Thanks, Brandon.”
“You’re a good kid, Griffin.”
“I’m twenty-nine.”
“You heard me.”
Griffin got out of the van, barefoot, having not had the energy or hands to get his boots back on, and buzzed into the building. He was fully re-soaked between van and building. He trudged through the vestibule and lobby, leaving a trail of water behind him, and called the elevator up to the fourth floor. He staggered to his door, put his keys in the lock, opened it, and saw Jun sitting at the table, ramrod straight, a prosthetic arm and tub of regenerative coolant gel on the table in front of him, and behind Jun stood a man with a gun in his left hand, holding it to Jun’s head.
19
“I’ll pay you,” said Griffin.
“I knew you would,” said the man.
The man standing behind Jun could’ve been Griffin’s brother. They were the same age, same height, same approximate build, similar skin tone. The difference was in the face. The man’s face reflected an unusually low amount of hardship. This was the face of a man who smiled often, stayed out of the sun, kept up with his skincare routine, and had years of childhood orthodontia. The last one was obvious because of the wide, earnest grin he had on his face while holding the gun to Jun’s head.
Griffin stood there barefoot, his soaked coveralls rapidly creating a puddle around him, and held up his stump for the man to see. “Can I sit? I’ve had a bad fucking day.”
“Go ahead and sit down, Griffin.”
“Please let Jun go.”
“I’ll let him go when you pay, you pathetic sack of shit. Christ, look at you. You look like a drowned rat. What fucking good have you ever done the world?”
“I do some good. Please just let him go.”
Jun quietly said, “I love you, Griffin.”
Before Griffin could respond, the man snapped, “You’re the only fucking one.”
Griffin narrowed his eyes at the man. “Are you John? John Smith?”
The man smiled wider. “Sure. The original. I fucked Pocahontas. You gonna pay?”
“I’ll pay. I’ll pay right now. Listen. I just lost a hand. I haven’t logged into the tenant portal in nearly a year. I have safeguards on my account so that I have to manually authenticate any payment larger than my rent payment. I’m so soaking wet I can’t type on a capacitive touchscreen. It is raining too hard to get to an ATM. Unless you have a way to make the payment go through just with a face scan on your part, I need to at least dry off enough to use my phone.”
