After the Revolution, page 20
The sleep was fully banished now. Manny was awake, and the gravity of what had happened over the last few days sank in again. Hamid and DeShawn were probably dead. So was Mr. Peron. And Alejandro. And Oscar. Oh holy shit, holy shit, what am I going to tell Aisha? And then the darker, more selfish thoughts: Am I going to have time to fly out of Austin?
“How the hell did the Martyrs turn into a real fucking army overnight?” he asked, with more fear in his voice than he meant to display.
“Well,” Reggie said, as he gestured to a series of curated social media posts from people in and around ciudad de muerta. “Best as we can figure, they sorta stole most of the Republic’s army. There are a lot of reports of entire units of Republic soldiers, thousands of fighters, turning at once.”
He gestured to a live-updating political map of Texas. It was a map Manny consulted regularly. The Heavenly Kingdom’s territory was outlined in red. There was a lot more red on the map today. It seemed impossible that…
“Son chorrados,” Manny breathed, “Galveston?”
“Yeah,” Reggie gave a grim nod. “Fell about ten hours ago. Heavenly Kingdom’s pushing into the Lake Houston suburbs right now. They’re holding position in Dallas though. Digesting their gains still.”
“Ain’t gonna be long before they hit Austin,” Mike said. “Maybe a week. Maybe two.”
Manny stood there for a moment. He thought about his father, his friends. He thought about the house where he’d grown up and the view of Austin’s sprawl from his roof. He imagined golden cross banners flapping in the breeze above burnt-out buildings. He pictured gallows filled with people strung out along sixth street. A knot of nausea started to build in his belly.
What will you do, Emmanuel? He heard Mr. Peron’s voice echo in his conscience. Manny shook the dead man’s words away.
“I need to get back home,” he insisted. “Is there some way you can get me a ride?”
Skullfucker Mike took a long pull from his drink. He squinted at Manny and the chromed man’s eyes focused. One iris looked a lot larger than the other. Mike swayed a bit in his seat but he seemed lucid. Mostly.
“And what’re you gonna do in Austin?” he asked. “Pick up a gun and die fighting? Unless you’re hiding some serious mods under that skin, I don’t think your help will make a rat’s shit wortha difference.”
“I know. I’m not going there to fight. I need to–”
“What, fly away? Go to fuckin’ California? Try your luck in Europe?” Mike shook his head. “You’ve got a chance to actually do something. Help us get our people out of Dallas and we can fuck the Kingdom’s advance. Maybe even throw them back.”
Manny thought about it, sighed, and said, “I think I do need a drink.”
Skullfucker Mike nodded. He pointed over to a table lined with a dozen different beer taps.
“The normal stuff’s self-service. I recommend the Wheat Haze. Pretty mild, but it’s good for stock humans like y’self.”
Manny got up, grabbed a glass from a dispenser at the edge of the bar and walked over to the beer table. Each keg had a thick strip of white tape across the front. The only details given about each beer were vague, almost illegibly scrawled names. Manny found two labels that both looked like they might say “Wheat Haze.” He picked one at random, then headed back to the bar and sat next to Reggie.
Mike looked impressed for some reason. “Good choice,” he said with a nod. Manny took a sip. It was really good, a mild pale ale with just a hint of sour. He leaned in and looked at the maps and scrolling updates on Reggie’s screen. The journalist finished writing down a couple of notes and shook his head.
“I’m really sorry man. Truly.” He gestured toward the live map, “This is so fucked.”
“You gonna stay here to cover the fall?” Mike asked. Reggie shook his head. He looked frustrated.
“Got a message from my editor a bit ago. They’re trying to work out an extract for me. Gonna send a team out here to drive me west, to El Paso. I guess it’s not safe to fly out of Austin right now, so…”
He trailed off. The three of them drank in silence for a minute. Skullfucker Mike gulped down the last of his glass and ordered another, along with three shots of bourbon. Manny started to turn down the shot, but it was soon apparent that Mike wanted all three shots for himself. He downed them all in the space of around a second, belched loudly, and then returned to staring at Reggie’s screen.
“Fuck,” he sighed out again. “Fuck, fuckedy fuck.”
Manny was halfway through his beer when Donald Farris approached. The old documentarian wore a burgundy velvet waistcoat underneath a slightly battered but well-tailored tweed jacket. He had a glass of probable whiskey in his hand and the soberest eyes Manny had seen that day.
“Hello there, gentlemen. Skullfucker Mike. Getting caught up on the latest catastrophes, are we?”
“Yep,” said Mike. “How ya been?”
The older man shrugged and took his seat at the table. He gulped his whiskey and looked down the table at Manny. It was strange to see an actual old person this close up. The creases in his forehead and around his lips were so deep they could have been carved with a knife. There were spots on him, a clear sign he’d taken no JuvEn treatments at all. His voice had a deep craggy richness that lent every word he said a certain vague majesty. Donald Farris spoke and Manny felt compelled to listen.
“You can help this you know. We’re stuck negotiating with the Kingdom now, and they are most recalcitrant. But the Fuckians–”
“Wait a second,” Reggie interrupted. “Fuckians? Really?”
Donald and Mike exchanged a look, and then a laugh. Donald replied, “This city’s not exactly famed for consistency. Almost any collective noun you can think of would be appropriate.”
He took another slip from his glass and set it down on the bartop with a “clack.” Donald Farris leaned in at that and eyed the glass as he rotated it around on the table. He tapped it again, smiled, and looked back up to the group.
“Now, young man, let me explain why you should go risk your life on a daring and dangerous rescue mission.”
Manny grunted and shook his head, reflexively defensive.
“I’d rather not talk about it right now, if that’s cool?” he said. “I just woke up, this place is ridiculous, and I’m not going to decide to go into terrible danger because some old man guilt trips me at a bar.”
“Suit yourself,” Donald smiled. “I can’t imagine how stressful this all must be for you. I’m a little surprised you’d choose to trip balls at a time like this.”
“What do you mean?” Manny asked, with growing anxiety.
“That’s a White Haze, right?”
“I think Mike said it was a Wheat Haze, but I couldn’t really read the labels–”
“Ah shit,” Mike cursed, while Donald Farris fought back a laugh.
“What?” Manny asked.
“Mike should’ve warned you. The Wheat Haze is normal alcohol. The White Haze packs about two hits of lysergic diethylacid per pint.”
The anxious knot in Manny’s gut began to pound and pulse. He looked to Skullfucker Mike, furious, “What the fuck, man?”
Mike winced. He looked genuinely rueful.
“I’m really sorry,” he said. “I’m not used to it making a difference. Most people here take two or three hits of acid with their breakfast cigarettes.”
“Oh shit,” Manny slumped forward and put his head in his hands. He started to hyperventilate. The edges of his vision blurred and Manny couldn’t tell if that was from the drugs kicking in or just a consequence of his own panic. He could feel Oscar’s face hanging out, just at the back of his mind, afloat on a river of guilt. He didn’t want to know what a head full of acid would do with those feelings.
“I gotta get back to the room,” he said. “I can’t handle thi–”
Donald put a hand on his shoulder. He was stronger than Manny would have guessed.
“You’ve got a head full of Surprise Acid, boy. The last thing you need is to sit in a dark room and stew with your demons.” He exchanged another look with Skullfucker Mike and said, “Brainbreakers ought to be kicking off right now. That’s the place for a man in your condition.”
“But–” started Manny.
“What the hell is that?” Reggie asked.
“Wait–” Manny continued. Donald ignored him and replied to Reggie.
“It’s the best damned party on the continent. Or at least the best one humans can attend and survive.”
“I don’t really want to–” Manny started.
Skullfucker Mike added his hand to Manny’s shoulder.
“You really do. Trust us on this.”
In the end, Skullfucker Mike and Donald convinced him to go. Reggie, surprisingly, opted to stay at the bar and continue his work. He said he was “close to something.” Manny really wished he’d chosen to come along. He didn’t know the journalist well, but Mike and Donald were complete strangers. Manny was not looking forward to the drugs kicking in. He also wasn’t sure a giant rave room was the best place for him to be when they did.
As they approached it, Manny realized he’d seen the structure when they’d first arrived at the City of Wheels. Brainbreakers was a three story cube at the top of Rolling Fuck’s highest gantry. The cube appeared to have been knitted together from long strands of black metal. Multicolored light pulsed inside it and bled out through gaps in the knitted metal of the sides.
Skullfucker Mike led them down the gantry toward the cube. There didn’t appear to be any kind of entrance: the wall on this side was the same knitted steel as every other side. But once they reached it, Mike simply stepped into the wall. The woven metal writhed like something alive and curled back to admit the big post-human. The metal tendrils caressed Mike’s body as he walked through. Manny flashed a questioning look at Donald.
“It feels nice,” he explained.
Manny sighed, exasperated and furious, “Is this whole damned city built around drugs and fondling?”
“Yes,” Donald grinned a spidery old-man grin. “Now, inside with you!”
Manny sighed, swallowed, and walked up to the wall. The metal—which felt surprisingly soft and warm—slithered around him and, mother of god, it felt GOOD. That might’ve had something to do with the acid percolating in the back of his brain. The sensation was a cross between being tickled and being caressed. He was reminded, uncomfortably, of his mother stroking his forehead when he had a fever as a kid.
And then he was through. It took him a moment to realize he was breathing heavily and covered in cold sweat.
It was then that Manny got his first view of the interior of Brainbreakers. It looked a little like a space station designed by M.C. Escher, with a drunken H.R. Giger as the contractor. There were a half-dozen different stages protruding at various levels from the walls. Three of the stages were currently occupied. One performer was an enormous, seemingly sentient xylophone that pranced about on stage, playing itself with eight knob-ended arms. Another stage held four human-looking individuals. They were naked. And they were all fighting.
Manny watched in slack-jawed awe as they punched and bit and kicked and choked each other. Every impact sent a chorus of warbling sounds pouring out from speakers at the base of the stage. The longer he listened, the more hypnotic the “music” seemed.
The third inhabited stage held a what looked like a normal DJ booth with a presumptive person behind it. Manny guessed that was the source of the bass-heavy rhythmic pounding that filled the square. The remaining stages were empty, for now. But the place was so full of sound Manny couldn’t imagine two more acts making things any louder. It was chaotic and confusing and a little uncomfortable. But after a few seconds Manny started to pick up on an overarching rhythm. All three “acts” were making very different music at very different paces but, somehow, it all tied together.
The inner walls of the place were covered in projection art. Giant, human-sized silhouettes stalked the walls, floor, and roof. At times they moved so fast they looked almost like wisps of smoke. But here and there, one would stop long enough for Manny get a solid look. He saw several different figures: a tall, muscular but androgynous person; a small, lithe young woman; a broad, squat man with a bald head. They danced around each other, flittering up and down the walls. Their pace and the nature of their motions varied depending on the tempo and pitch of the music nearest to them.
It was mesmerizing. Manny stared for what felt like minutes. The sensation of his body faded away from him and his vision tunneled in on the dancing figures. Their dance had looked joyous and sensual at first. But the longer he watched the more frenetic it seemed, the more danger he spotted in their jerking limbs, the arc of their necks, the uncontrolled way they spun ’round and into one another. Anxiety started to build in the pit of his stomach.
And then there was a person beside him. Mike.
“Heeeeey, budddy,” he grinned. The other man’s pupils were the size of dinner plates. He clenched and ground his teeth back and forth, “It OK if I put a hand on your shoulder?”
“Uh…sure?” Manny said, surprising himself.
“Cool,” Mike smiled, and did so. His hand felt supportive, comforting.
“How you likin’ the party?”
Manny really wasn’t sure. It was beautiful here. Now that Skullfucker Mike had pulled his attention from the dancing silhouettes, he’d started to focus more on the crowds of people dancing and drinking and fucking across the assorted dance-floors, cuddle-spaces, and bar-tops of Brainbreakers.
Most of the celebrants were visibly chromed. He saw a woman with six arms, a couple things he could only describe as “dick centaurs,” a man with the head of a dolphin, and countless people in bizarre costumes built of light and fur and liquid metal. It was hard to tell how much of this was real and how much was the drugs. The acid was hitting his head pretty darn hard. Skullfucker Mike squeezed his shoulders and brought Manny back again. The fixer blinked and then finally responded.
“It’s, uh…good.”
“Good? Fuckin’ great. Let’s get you some whippits and head over to the fireworks table. They’re about to open it up.”
“Fireworks? Inside?”
Mike laughed. “It’s hardly a party without explosives, brother. Just go with it.”
And so Manny did. He and Mike did some whippits, which meshed gloriously with the acid. Then they stood up on stumbling feet and headed over to the fireworks table. Things seemed to be just getting started over there. Manny inspected a few different brightly-colored explosive toys, before something burst next to his ear and he looked up to see Skullfucker Mike firing a massive Roman candle toward the musical punching people on the stage.
The sound of it—holy hell the sound! It might have been the most compelling thing his ears had ever heard. The acid is definitely hitting hard now, Manny thought, holy fuck. Holy fuck what IS this?
The rest of his night faded into a blur of lights and music and strange, indefinable sense memories. It was disorienting and exhilarating in equal measure.
Hours went by. The acid faded. And eventually Manny found himself on a bunch of cushions, sitting around a table with Skullfucker Mike and other Fuckians. He couldn’t remember any of their names but, after a few minutes of relative lucidity, Manny was able to piece together that they were all friends of the people who’d been captured. One of the men, a bearded guy with multi-jointed fingers the length and width of rulers, reached over Manny to grab a beer. He pulled it back, took a sip, and settled back into his seat.
“My favorite memory of Marigold,” he said, “is from back when we were still building this city, right after we stole the Bagger. She got a hair up her ass that there oughta be a big purple clubhouse at the top, for folks to do cocaine in and watch sunsets. I remember she strapped an armload of wood to her back, grabbed a can of spray paint, took a big rail of meth and just started climbing up the center spindle like she was gonna do the whole damn job herself. She got fuckin’ stuck two-thirds of the way up, just hanging out there with her panties in the breeze, screaming like a scared cat.”
Mike laughed, “I remember that. Me’n Topaz had to climb up and free her. And then she climbed the rest of the way up and started laying down boards.”
Finger Man nodded.
“Yeah, I remember. When I climbed up there an hour or so later she was all frantic and fiddling with nails and bolts and turnt to fuck but like, making progress too. And I asked her, ‘Marigold, why are you doing this alone? This ain’t a one person job.’ And she said, ‘I know. But unless I start building it, it’ll never be real.’”
There was quiet for a while. Manny could feel the pain in the pause, and see it on everyone’s face. He didn’t want to say anything. He was pretty sure there was nothing worthwhile he could say. But then he spoke anyway.
“Can you tell me about the others? The other two who were captured?”
Another of Mike’s friends, a tall Black woman in a bright blue shark onesie, nodded and replied, “Rick’s a little dude, great painter and pretty good pyrotechnician. He’s no kinda fighter but he’s got a real sweet way about him. He puts people at ease. So he goes out on a lot of these delegations to be a good face for the city. Marigold’s always the main negotiator, but we sent Tule out too. She’s newish to the city. Used to be an activist in Albuquerque, before the King took over and started boiling people. She’s a good talker, we had her studying under Mari so she could pick up some of the load in the future.”
“They’re all good people,” Finger Man added. “Marigold saved my life a few times, back during the Revolution. She helped found this place. It started out as just a big caravan of RVs and mobile hydroponics units. She’d find isolated communities, bring ’em food and such. No government was much use back then, so for a lot of folks Mari’s caravan was the line between life and death.”
