Walter Greatshell - Apocalypticon

As the boys queasily approached, El Dopa pressed the button on an intercom. "Mr. Bendis!" he said. "You have a visitor."

There was a hiss of static, then a whispery voice: "Send him up."

"Chiquita, will you send up Mr. Eagle Scout here so that he may consult the oracle?"

"You go ahead on up," said the hideous mask to Sal. "The rest of you stay here."

"If one of us goes, we all go," said Kyle.

"It's okay, Kyle," Sal said. "I'm cool with it."

Kyle replied, "Oh, he cool with it. Well, fuck you, man, I'm not cool with it. You been acting like King Shit around here ever since we started out, and it ain't like you done such a fucking great job that you deserve to be spokesman for the few of us that's left." To El Dopa, he said, "He don't call the shots for us, and he sure as shit don't speak for me."

"Kyle, come on," said Sal.

"No, man, it's about fucking time somebody else took the lead. If anybody's going, I'm going. I'm going."

"Joo don't do shit unless I say so."

"It's okay, Chiquita," El Dopa said. "Boy wants to go, let him go."

"Up where?" Kyle asked.

"The elevator," Chiquita said sharply, pissed off at having been overruled. "Are you blind? Move, bitch! Ain't no fucking request!"

"Fuck you," Kyle said, too tired for this bullshit-he was trying to be reasonable here. Suddenly his head was yanked back by its braids and a sharp steel point pressed to his throat. A whole arsenal of scary metal syringes had appeared from under the dancers' robes as if by magic, weird weapons resembling chrome-plated caulk guns, their injector tips resting on the boys' ripe jugulars and eager to stab. The boys stood frozen at needle point, afraid to breathe.

"Say something now, punk," snarled Chiquita behind his leering plastic face.

"Sorry! I'm sorry!"

"Joo wan' me to shove this needle up in your skull? You want I should cook your stinkin' brain in your head so it sizzles out your nose like hot lava?"

"No!"

"Then do like you been tol' to do!" He contemptuously shoved Kyle up the steps to the elevator platform. "Next time I flick you like a fuckin' Bic, except there ain't gonna be no next time, unnerstan'?"

"Okay, okay, I'm going," he said. Hemmed in by another ominous Kali, he said, "Can I go, please?"

They stood aside. Kyle traded a grim look with the other guys, hating to be separated from them. Sal shook his head no, ready to lay it all on the line right then and there, but Kyle's expression was fierce-it said, Don't.

He went into the elevator. Something somewhere was making a loud, repetitive grinding noise, a noise like a hundred squeaky shopping carts, which to Kyle sounded like the rusty clockwork of El Dopa's brain.

"Top button," called the shriveled leader. "Go all the way up to the roof." Then, as the door closed: "And say hello to Satan's little helpers for me-I mean, Santa's. Damn, I always do that."

"Rich, we have a problem." kranuski didn't need Alton Webb to tell him they had a problem. For the last two days, he had been trying to get an all clear to raise anchor, and every time they were on the verge of doing so, some critical system went haywire: more red lights on the Christmas tree. Now, once again, the tide was too low to do anything; they had missed their chance. Worse than that, someone was tampering with the guts of the ship, no question. It was brazen sabotage.

"Al, did you know that a wooden clog used to be called a sabot?" he said wearily, studying the crew manifest. "People used to wear wooden shoes to work, and when they were unhappy with management, they'd throw their clogs into the machinery, 'clogging' it up-hence, sabotage."

"That's fascinating, Rich." Lieutenant Webb was holding a piece of wiring that looked as though it had been chewed through. "Well, I didn't find any wooden shoes," he said, "but this came from the turbine generator fuse box. Looks like somebody doesn't want us to leave."

"Really? Thank you for that brilliant observation. Who's responsible for that department now?"

"Fletcher. He's one of ours."

"Who else could have had access to it?"

Webb shook his head. "It's a loose ship. Robles, maybe. Emilio Monte. Or Fisk-his son was one of the ones we sent out. But Fisk is essential."

"They're all essential. Coombs has too many friends on board; I can't confine them all."

"No, but you can make an example of one or two."

"What would you suggest? Flogging? That's only gonna piss off our gremlins even more. And I'm not even sure it's any of the men we're dealing with."

His eyes flicked to all the dark crevices in the ceiling.

Okay now, keep your shit together, Kyle thought, going up. As he stepped off the glass elevator, the rhythmic churning sound he had heard from below was much louder. It was clearly not the elevator mechanism. The third and top floor of the casino had a balustrade overlooking the gaming pit, running alongside suites of administrative offices, private gambling rooms, and signs pointing the way to a rooftop restaurant and cocktail lounge, all dark and deserted. Looking down over the railing, he could see the brightly lit bar area where El Dopa and the boys were, and also into the curtained stage just above them where bands had once played. The sight caught him up short.

That raised platform was definitely where the sound was emanating from, but what the hell was going on there? Kyle's first thought was a gym: He could see a lot of movement-what appeared to be people exercising-sweaty bodies spinning and pistoning up and down, with a sound like the sawings of a weird, tuneless orchestra.

It took him a moment to make sense of it. For his eyes… and his mind… to adjust.

Filling the whole stage deck of the casino was something that Kyle could only liken to a grotesque modern art installation. But it wasn't art; it was a functioning machine-a machine comprised of wheels and hinges and moving Xombie parts.

What the fuck?

Hundreds of headless, limbless, or otherwise partial Xombies dangled from greasy axles like so many rows of foosball players, skewered through the ribs and joined side by side, their remaining arms or legs bolted to rotating cam shafts and pumping away as fleshy pistons in a giant engine. Rubber IV tubes, or rather hoses, ran from the Xombies to plastic jugs full of cloudy yellow liquid. The combined effort of all those bodies caused the whole mechanism to vibrate, risen flesh and car parts rocking on rusty springs, creating a weirdly musical rhythm-it was an orchestra, or a hideous calliope.

Kyle caught his breath-Lulu Pangloss was there. They had wasted no time. Her body was too short to reach the cams, so they had left her intact and rammed the axle bar through her skull, ear to ear, instead of her chest. But she was not madly pedaling like the others. Her body just flopped in place, going with the motions like a corpse.

Suddenly her dark eyes flicked upward, meeting his and dilating like two bubbles of black tar. Kyle was struck by a powerful sense of connection, strong as raw electric current-his whole body stiffened, and he jerked his eyes away, heart pounding. She recognized him.

He was ashamed, sickened-what was the point of this sadistic bullshit? Just to torture them? Then he saw the insulated cables connecting the gearboxes to banks of truck batteries, and he realized there was a purpose.

Generators, he thought. Are you serious? They're using them to generate power!

As disgusted as he was, he had to admit the awful genius of it. Not everybody had his own nuclear submarine. It had never occurred to him to wonder what was keeping the drinks cold and the lights on around here. Now he knew: Pedal power-store it up all day, tap the free electricity all night. Diesel generators would be noisy and smelly and attract attention, not to mention wasteful to fuel. Between the duck boats and the demands of the Moguls, there was probably not much gas to spare.