Walter Greatshell - Apocalypticon

He remembered something Voodooman had said to them the night before-something Kyle had failed to fully comprehend at the time, but which rose in his thoughts now like a wave of nausea: 'Stead a horsepower, we got Harpy power-you're looking at five hunnerd Xp right here. It's a Xombie-based economy, son. Your tax dollars at work.

The whole infernal machine was arranged so that it faced the group of guys blithely munching toast at the bar. Clearly they were the objects that galvanized the Xombies' manic activity, like a carrot dangled before a mule, or the electric bunny at the dog track. They were bait. There was something incredibly dangerous and perverse about it: that sweatshop of captive demons flailing away while El Dopa's people yawned and sipped coffee.

Kyle could see Sal and the other boys staring anxiously up at him from the lit floor of the hall, completely oblivious to the hideous Xombie contraption churning away just above them-two irreconcilable realities separated by nothing more than a heavy stage curtain. Yin and yang. He wanted to warn them, to shout, Look out-Xombies! But when they waved tentatively up at him, faces questioning, he just nodded back.

That bed-the unmade bed on the platform below. Kyle suddenly realized that El Dopa was a lot smarter than he looked and also why the man was probably crazy:

It was El Dopa's job to sit here all day as a magnet for the Xombies, using his own living presence to encourage them-that was his bed down there. For doing so he had a drone's privilege of being waited on hand and foot and being excused from all other duties. He was both goat and pharaoh-the living deity not of the men on this barge but of its Xombie slaves. Sure, maybe he was allowed brief respites, a few hours here and there to socialize, but when the party was over and everybody else was safe asleep on the other barge, he was the one who came back here to his gilded cage, the canary in the coal mine. For this they made him king. Kyle wondered: Was El Dopa the highest man in the Reaper hierarchy… or the lowest?

Kyle tore himself away from the balcony. Get a grip, he thought. Peering into the dim cocktail lounge, he saw a spiral staircase. Go all the way up to the roof, they had told him. Fine. Climbing the narrow stairs, he entered a dark, leather-padded corridor. Tiny cubicles with massage tables branched off to either side. Squeezing along the passage, he headed for a circle of reddish lamplight at the end. It was coming through a smeary porthole in a swinging door, and as he pushed through, he could hear a gruff murmur of conversation on the other side. The talking ceased as he poked his head in.

An arsenal of weapons was pointed at his face. Kyle held very still, feeling sweat pop across his forehead.

"I'm supposed to talk to somebody," he said, the words hanging awkwardly, as if tangled in the haze of cigar smoke. "Somebody named Bendis?"

Four heavily armed men just stared dully at him, their shaved heads gleaming like planets orbiting a Sterno-powered sun. Kyle knew these must be the dreaded mercenaries sent by MoCo, the much-whispered-about "B Team." To him they looked more like punk rockers or carnival geeks than soldiers: tribal pain fetishists covered with scars, tattoos, and extreme piercings, skinny and scruffy-bearded, with steel teeth and spiked dog collars. There was something wrong with them; their eyes were not so much cold as blank, not quite focused. They looked drugged… or insane.

This was obviously their room, a dim red bachelor pad full of beds, booze, a bench press, dirty laundry, dirtier pictures, and about a hundred guns. There were blackout curtains on the windows, and a girl-shaped target full of tomahawks against one wall. Beneath all the cigar smoke, the place reeked of death, and Kyle could see why: Weird altars of charred skulls and other human bones filled every corner like grotesque floral arrangements. Dried scalps on wig stands. Hunks of dark-cured meat dangling from hooks, marbled purple and white where pieces had been sliced off-Kyle shied from looking too closely.

Not saying a word, barely moving at all, one of the men inclined his head toward the rear door, the fire exit.

"Thank you," Kyle said, trying not to hurry, fearing to turn his back on them.

The door opened onto a rooftop patio-a pleasant place to dance or have a luau under a canopy of Japanese lanterns. It was deserted, just a few empty chairs and tables, two barbecue grills made from fifty-five-gallon oil drums, and a hanging bird feeder that creaked slightly in the breeze. Kyle stood at the rail and breathed deep, taking in the view of green shoreline. What the fuck am I doing here? Next time keep your damn mouth shut, fool! Seeing those men had cleared his hangover like magic.

There didn't seem to be anyplace else to go. He thought he was expected to wait, but after a moment, he noticed a higher structure-the highest point on the barge:

It was a portable radio shack: a weatherproof canopy stretched over an aluminum frame, resembling an igloo. A steel cable ran from there to the top of the other barge, with a basket seat that could be pulled across the water by ropes.

Oscillations of white noise emanated from the tent. A shortwave aerial sprouted from its top, and greenish light shone from its low doorway. Kyle glimpsed a man in a wide-brimmed hat, just a brief silhouette, then it was gone.

There didn't seem to be any way up there, no ladder or stairs. "Hello?" he called up. "El Dopa sent me?"

The paper lanterns bounced, and Kyle felt a breeze on the back of his neck, balls shriveling with the sudden itchy sense that someone was behind him.

He turned to see a man curled up on one of the patio chairs. The man was perfectly still, sitting hunched under a tattered black poncho as if hugging his knees to his chest, face hidden by the brim of a floppy bush hat. The sight reminded Kyle of Clint Eastwood in one of those old spaghetti Westerns: The Man with No Name.

A voice seeped out from under the hat, a voice both slippery and bone-dry-and not unlike Clint Eastwood's: "Do you see it?"

"Excuse me?"

"Up there." The man raised a long, knobby finger to the sky.

"No, what?"

"Wormwood. The Big Enchilada. It's right there, plain as day. You don't see it?"

"Um… maybe. What does it look like?"

"Don't humor me. You don't know me well enough. Nor I you."

"No… uh, my name's Kyle Hancock." He started to offer his hand and immediately stopped himself. "I'm with the shore party from the submarine? Sir, we need to get back, or they're gonna leave without us-if they haven't already. We're way, way overdue."

"Leave? They have nowhere to go… any more than we do."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. The temple of the Moguls is gone, as are the Moguls themselves. They evaporated, like all organic life must evaporate."

"What do you mean, evaporate?"

"Gone. Burned. Scattered upon the waters, same as dousing the coals of a campfire. Such is life. Only a few embers remain, but they, too, will soon go cold."

"How do you know that?"

"From the quiet. No more transmissions, no more signals. The last ones made it clear enough: There was a struggle, and while the doctors were fighting, the patient died."

"The Mogul doctors, you mean?"

"It's a figure of speech. What I mean is, you are lying. You know exactly what happened because you helped bring it about."

"I didn't do anything, I swear."

"You did it trying to preserve your own feeble lives."

"Hey, we didn't do shit. Doesn't everybody have a right to live?"

Quick glimpse of black teeth in an odd, leathery grin. The voice said, "How did you get that scar?"

"I bumped my head."

"That was the site of a Mogul implant-the badge of Thule. You removed it. There are very few places on Earth where such technology is still employed. You've been to the forbidden city. You know where it is… and why it's gone silent."