The Organic Air-Temp Converter

The QX-Fourteen is slender, light, cold. Everything I want in a woman - everything I need in a gun. When she's angry she spits hollow-pointed fire but when she's not she brings balance to my high-wire circus balancing act of a life, leveling off my erratic thought-spikes like some kind of mental nicotine. I've never smoked, but when I ease off on the trigger, give the powder-smoke a chance to burp out of the end of the QX I know exactly what it's like. Suck the cancer in and blow it out cool, my body acting as an organic air-temp converter. Stencil it onto my jacket, burn it into my flesh: The Organic Air-Temp Converter. Plug a quarter into my slot and watch the sparks fly, watch the frustration simmer and dance and bend and turn sideways like a crayon left on the stove. Watch me wrap my hands around the QX and bring order to my life, bring order to yours as well if you're a Creep.

The QX-Fourteen's big brother was ZIMY-One. ZIMY-One was cradled in a scientist's, a government official's, a soldier's, a police chief's hands two weeks ago, discarded from a plane in the skies over downtown Avalysk. ZIMY-One was not a gun like his sleek little brother. ZIMY-One was a big fat gas-bomb. Have you seen the Salvador Dali painting of the golden fleece? That's what ZIMY-One looked like: a heavy yellow party-guest, awkward and full of holes, going off in the midst of forty-thousand men, women and children. He knelt down from his cradle in the sky and kissed their eyelids, turned their hearts to vapour in the time it takes to say goodnight. I saw it first-hand; I watched the families die from my season-ticket spot in the belly of a rusted-out air-crane, dangling high above gas-filled Avalysk.

The QX-Fourteen, As Seen From Behind

I turn the QX-Fourteen over in my hands as I slice through the air, noticing how much the gun reminds me of a television show I used to watch as a kid: Future-Force. Everything on that half-hour show was about shiny metal. Shiny metal guns, shiny metal bad guys, shiny metal heroes like Jake Force. Now I've become Jake Force with a shiny metal weapon in my hand, falling through the poison-bombed atmosphere, praying my parachute blooms into a full-blown flower a couple of thousand feet before impact.

On the final episode of Future-Force, Jake died after getting pushed off a skyscraper by his One True Love (who was really his Mortal Enemy in disguise). I don't want to splash into a million pieces like he did - I want to live to use the QX-Fourteen again. I want to live to kill.

So now I'm cutting the air in two, tasting the heat the ZIMY-One left behind it two weeks ago. I'm following the exact same path it took from the sky to the city, burning through the clouds like a penny dropped from Heaven.

Jump!

I am CR-Twelve; the 'CR' stands for Creep Retirer and the 'Twelve' signifies the number of men in my unit. There are a dozen of us brave souls: losers without friends or family, patriots without love or hope or morals. We're the one who volunteered - we're the ones who said Yes! We'll finish off what ZIMY-One started but couldn't finish, we'll risk our lives for the sweet caress of the QX-Fourteen! We have nothing to live for - sign us up today!

And sign us up they did. Twelve of us volunteered and twelve of us were accepted. It was easier to become a CR-Twelve (Creep-killer) than it was a member of the Avalysk Humane Society (stray dog-killer) - but that may be because people love animals. We got ourselves signed up, trained and loaded. They jammed us onto an obsolete AVA-Seven air-crane and told us to make them proud. Even the President stopped by (via video-display) and branded us his countrymen, his knights, his heroes. We returned his solemn expression, tried to look tough in our neon-yellow jumpsuits. Leaning against the AVA-Seven's aluminum hull, we tried not to let the President see us shake.

As they opened the bomb-slot, checked our chutes, we suddenly realized they hadn't shown us how to jump in training. They'd shown us how to kill Creeps, how to make emergency gas-masks, how to get out of Avalysk when our heat-sensors registered nil - but they hadn't shown us how to jump. Like a spinal virus climbing towards the brain, we all froze, refusing to jump into the smoky-black night blanketing the city. Dr. Fulcrest, the missions co-ordinator, calmly placed his ZZX-Two against CR-Seven's chest and pulled the trigger, kicked the squirting body out through the bomb-slot.

The rest of us figured out how to jump immediately.

The Song that CR-Seven Sung

My parachute billows out behind me. I land softly between two abandoned transport trucks, a few feet away from where CR-Seven's body smashed down. I cut my chute-cords, tear away the loose fabric, walk up to the corpse. I reach down and place my fingers on CR-Seven's eyelids, remembering how Jake Force always closed the eyes of the deceased. CR-Seven's eyes don't close, though - they remain white, open, alive. They sing:

There once were twelve, now there are eleven, I once was here, now I'm in heaven...

I drag the body behind a pile of burnt-out televisions, computers. Behind me I can hear the rest of the CR-Team touching down, gathering up their parachutes and spreading out. I cover CR-Seven in trash, promise myself I'll come back later and bury him properly.

Who closed Jake's eyes? I wonder, staring at a dial on one of the broken TVs. Who went down and put Jake to rest?

Basic Creep-Killing Gear, Mission, Personnel

Standard-issue CR equipment: one bright yellow Kevlar-lined jumpsuit, one pair of WWIV-issue combat boots, one full-face gas-mask (with glare shield), three fragmentation grenades, one QX-Fourteen sidearm, fifteen-hundred rounds of QX-Fourteen hollow-point ammo, one double-edged knife (with a handle-embedded compass that recognizes every direction as True North), seven meal-packs, one light-impact helmet, one Creep-detecting heat-sensor.

Standard-issue CR mission: eliminate Creeps (human beings mutated into unrecognizable beasts thanks to ZIMY-One.) Continue until heat-sensor shows no signs of life. Evacuate LZ (downtown Avalysk.)

Standard-issue CR team member: lonely, scared, pathetic. Loyal.

When I was young, I saw pictures of Hiroshima after the A-bomb was dropped. I saw skin dripping off of fingertips, shadows

permanently etched into pavement, skyscrapers blown into mile-wide pancakes. Now I realize that was nothing.

ZIMY-One is just a gas bomb. That's it - no explosion, no radiation, no boom. The chemicals inside of the five-foot-tall sphere slide out of tiny air-holes upon impact, mix with the drop-zone's oxygen and turn it into poison. Avalysk is the first place it's been tried out. There's a rumor going around that it was dropped for testing purposes - that it was dropped just so the government could see how potent it would be in a real-life situation. The Avalysk revolution wasn't even out of control - it was just a little battle between themselves: Northern Avalysk (25,000 citizens) vs Southern Avalysk (15,000 citizens.) We always used to joke about it. Let 'em finish each other off, we'd laugh. Let 'em bust the pillars, crash the roof down on themselves.

Some reports speculate the residents of Avalysk didn't even realize ZIMY-One had been dropped on them until a couple of days after arrival. Apparently the bomb crashed through the roof of an abandoned recycling-plant and slowly leaked its toxic gas out from there. After a few days, of course, the Avalyskians began to notice sores on their bodies and realized something was up. After a few more days they were too sick to fight each other, and soon they began to die.

Those who didn't perish are now covered in painful boils. If the effects are anything like the pictures I was shown at the training centre, there are some very scary-looking things now walking the streets of Avalysk.

I don't even know why I volunteered. Maybe I wanted to be like Jake Force - a hero. Or perhaps it was for the three million dollars they said they'd pay me when I return.

I can't for the life of me remember. Like the air over Avalysk, rushing through my parachute, the moment's gone, lost, an echo.

All I have is the present, what's in front of me now - and for the time being it's a catwalk, hemming me in on both sides with rotted planks, aiming me towards my first encounter with a Creep.

A Different Kind of Tourist

I hear my teammates' QX-Fourteens belching hollow-pointed gasps to my far left. Glancing down at my heat-sensor, I see the green life-meter beginning to drop, recede, with every burst of gunfire. I hear soft screams, I sense tired panic. Everything around me is on it's knees: buildings, trees and sky. There are plenty of corpses lying around as well. Pinned against store fronts, casual in the breeze, their clothes gently scrape the brick-lined walls. Lying face-up on the sidewalk, their skin is peeled back, showing off their gaping eye-cavities. Their wristwatches still click and beep; the ballpoint pens in their pockets would still work to jot down grocery lists. But their hearts no longer beat and their tongues are dried up, decayed - completely and utterly useless.

I chamber a round into my gun's action, slide the safety switch to red. Hopefully I'll find some Creeps soon, earn my pay, become a hero. Earn the President's friendship, buy a condo. Spend my nights swimming in the cool black water off the shore at Tilor. Rent a maid to keep my clothes clean. Maybe I'll even get myself a little dog - one of those gene-enhanced golden retrievers that never grows up, never stops looking like a puppy. Simon, I'll call him

But first I've got to find some Creeps. I'm ready for them - as myself, as Jake Force, as a tourist. A tourist with a QX-Fourteen instead of a camera, a string of frags running up my arm instead of sunscreen. A heat-sensor for a passport.

Look ma! I'm seeing the world!

Never Gold

Crashing through these streets in my neon yellow jumpsuit, I feel like a comet. Safety off, round chambered, the QX-Fourteen burns quietly in my hand. Everything feels like a dream: the safety-pin crunch of my boots on cracked pavement, the staggering heat rising off the paralyzed automobiles littering the alleys, the faraway hum of QX-Blasts, QX-Action, QX-Death. All I have is the silence, the time, the space. Quiet, it's exactly 21:30 in downtown Avalysk. Quiet, I'm here alone. Quiet, I'm certain I won't spot any Creeps until my Creep-Killing friends have murdered them all, posed with the corpses, snapped pictures for their photo albums back home. I want to be a part of the action. No, I've always wanted to be a part of the action. Even in soccer, as a kid. Pick me pick me pick me. Always the goalie. Always the bridesmaid, always silver or bronze.

Never gold, I think, checking my heat-sensor once again. The flashing digital number is 1540, which converts to roughly 215 Creep heartbeats. Two hundred and fifteen left, meaning the CR-Team has already killed approximately 75 of the grotesque beauties. I've yet to see one.

Never gold, I think, putting the sensor away.

Peppermint Cyanide

I sit down in front of an imitation of a building. It's not quite convincing; I don't quite believe. The walls are peeling and the windows are broken and I smell what smells like burning hair. Dust-fingers crawl across the door frame, get sucked in and out with my breath. I run my fingers down the crumbling-plaster outer wall. I kneel down and touch the ground. This building seems out of place.

You seem out of place, the building says to me. I step back, look up, read the sign hanging over the door. Jake's Musical Instruments. That's funny, I think, Jake Force seemed like such a macho man! The mental image of shiny-metal muscle-bound Jake Force playing a harmonica makes me laugh out loud.

Soon enough, the laughter's bouncing off every broken building in Avalysk. I clutch my sides, slide down against the wall and wipe the tears from my eyes (the first tears in months!) The QX-Fourteen scrapes against the sidewalk as I slowly regain control. This is what I am: the Funny Killer. The Clown of Infinite Suffering, Instant Solutions. QX-Joker. He of the Wicked Humour. The Life-Dislodger. Assassin. Mess Cleaner-Upper. Floor Polish. I'm the minty-fresh capsule in Avalysk's urinal, the peppermint cyanide in Avalysk's bloodstream. An ineffective brat. Useless.

I can still hear the others' firearms firing, maiming, killing. I'd renounce my three-million dollars just to line a Creep up in my sights, release half my breath, squeeze the trigger (don't jerk it!) slowly, send the walking waste-heap to the ground. I can see my first kill now: squealing, bleeding, doing a breakdance-twitch on the slippery concrete. Gasping for life, wasting his last few seconds on Earth wondering what's worse: having chemicals tear up your insides or catching a QX-Shell in the chest.

Shakily, I stand. I feel the wall again, take comfort in its strength. Like a dentist pulling a wisdom tooth, I brace myself against the door frame, grip the handle, pull open the front door.

Stepping inside, the sounds from the street, the faraway muzzle-blasts, dissolve. Everything up to here has been the past; crossing this border, this line between outside and inside, means stepping into the present. I may as well have been a plumber back home, a street-singer, a wino.

For now I'm here - and nothing can stop me from going on. For now I'm here, staring at the back of a Creep.

Feminism; Fate

It's a she; I can tell immediately. Past the scabs, the bleeding wounds, I can see the graceful curve of a neck, the shallow pull of a thin, white waist. Her clothes are brand-new; certainly she has her pick of the city's finest fashions now that the population's dropped. She could waltz into any boutique, mall, shop, grab anything she pleases from the racks. If the scientists' reports are accurate, she's very sick and very weak - but Avalysk is hers alone.

I raise my gun.

Her hands begin to rise up to the piano that sits before her. I ease off on the trigger, waiting to see what she will play. For the last two weeks I've been thinking of Creeps as males - hulking, angry man-monsters. Never once did I consider that nearly two-thirds of the Avalysk population were women, meaning at least a few female Creeps must have emerged from the sweeping gas. It's always hard, I guess, to speak of beauty and outright ugliness in the same breath - always hard to consider them as one.

But here it is now, before me, about to pour its skinny fingers down onto the white-black-white-black piano ivories, deliver me a song before I sting it with my QX. I allow my gun-hand to come down with gravity, rest at my side, loosen up on the pistol grip.

My breathing slows, my stance relaxes. Even my shadow, grey against a grey guitar-case, seems to unthaw, roll out. Leaning, exhausted, I wait for her to play.

Spider-Fingers

She begins. Her fingertips land, touch down, embark. As though connected directly to her soul, the felt-tipped hammers within the piano strike the steel strings, start the air quivering. Sound is created; music is formed. I watch the spider-fingers stretch to make chords, pepper down again and again on the high notes. She runs up and down scales, blends octaves into smooth, living things. Once in a while I hear her fingernails tick the keys; once in a while I forget I'm here, with a gun, on a mission. The sound is so perfect, the air so cool, I wish I could sit down beside her, rest my hands on hers. Feel the vibrating air, touch her feet as they push down on the floor pedals.

Suddenly the muscles in her back relax; she begins to sing.

Carlos.
Carlos.
Is there any reason why?
Carlos.
My heart should lay down, die?
Carlos.
Carlos.
I'm a rose, you're my wine.
Carlos.
Is there any reason why?

The words stop there; her fingers do not. They continue to bend the air, flashlight-white in the hazy music store interior - flashlight-white in a world beyond darkness. Her broken flesh is twisting, turning, but her black hair stays still - limp upon her shoulders as the music swells around her. I slip the sensor out of my pocket, steal a glance at the display. It reads 193. I do a quick mental conversion and realize that killing the Piano-Creep will bring the total down to about 25 sickly heartbeats.

If I place her in my sights right now, pull the trigger, I may still get paid. If I don't - if I hesitate, lose my nerve - they'll imprison me for life on Tilor. They'll give me one of those silver rooms with the giant heat-fans, an executive suite in the Hotel Incarceration. I'd rather die than go there.

I bring the QX-Fourteen up, line the rear sight up with the front one, place the front sight just below her neck. I disarm the safety, squeeze the grip, feel my index finger tighten-

The First Division

Stop! she screams.

It's too late. The QX-Firing Pin strikes the QX-Primer, sends the bright shiny QX-Shell down the bright shiny QX-Barrel. The bullet leaves the flash-suppressed muzzle, screams down a clothesline-vacuum path into her head, bucks her eyes shut. The bullet carves a spiraled hole through her brain, buzzes around inside and exits the front in a target-watermelon pop. The piano's red before her head strikes the keys, sending an atonal ring through the air, through my mind, through my pale, trembling hands.

The Second Division

Stop! she screams.

She says it just in time. I stop my finger, myself, my mind from converting sensor-ticks to Creep-Beats. She turns around and I see her face, still together, still alive. Her eyes are blinking and her hands are shaking and her mouth is forming words:

Do you know who Carlos is? Have you heard the name before? Do you know he's-

I know nothing of classical music, jazz ballads, trip-symph, Carlos. My mind is on pause, fast forward, everything at once as I connect words/break them apart, stop my pulse/start it, pull the trigger/release it, build heat-sensor formulations/divide them between eleven Creep-Killing Good Guys, eleven shiny metal Jake Forces, eleven pathetic losers from Tilor. I start/restart, pause like a machine, stare at the back of my gun. Her face is in focus, out of focus, somewhere else completely and she's screaming:

Do you know who Carlos is? Have you heard-

I'm split in half, I'm two different people. One kneels before a piano, wiping a beautiful corpse's eyes shut with the palm of my hand, thinking The End - one stands before a talking, confusing Creep, trying to make sense of all the words, thoughts, instant calculations...

Do you know who-

I throw my gun down, holler:

One ninety-three means twenty-five left to kill! Twenty-five Creeps, twenty-five more bullets! Are you dead? Half of you is dead - and you're not even a whole person to begin with! I'm not a whole person to begin with! One ninety-three means - who is Carlos? Who are you? One ninety-three means you and Carlos and twenty-five more bullets-

She becomes quiet, she becomes calm. It spreads to me. In the silence, in the stillness, I see Carlos in a window's reflection. He has scars on his face, a huge piece of metal in his grip.

Stop! she screams.

I turn around, not quickly enough. Carlos' pipe sinks through my head and I crumple.

In God's Pocket...

Light is bending in my ears, escaping, as I feel the floor in my hands, hear the girl's echoes from a thousand miles away. The musical instruments around me turn over and over until the angle's too acute to tell them apart from one other. Everything blurs into a giant, shifting blob: a crimson/neon-yellow smear of harps and harmonicas, heartbeats and heroes.

Jake Force smiles at me. I can hear myself just barely breathing, just barely hanging on. My shiny-metal TV-hero raises his hand to my face, closes my eyelids. I hear him open his mouth and speak in two voices.

You killed him, Carlos!
He had a gun, April - he was gonna' shoot you!
No! He stopped, he wasn't-
Do you feel safe?
-going to... what?
Do you feel safe?
I guess so. But-
Then sing me a song.
What?
Sing me a song, April. Sing me a song before we go.

I hear her place her fingers on the piano; I hear my QX-Fourteen being picked up. Somewhere very far away, the air begins to quiver.

^