This felt like the longest week in between posts. By all means, I could have done this post at any time during the week. I felt that keeping with the regularity of updating was good for me in regards to continuing a consistent blog in the future. That and it afforded me with plenty of time to play videogames. Taking a little post book release breather. It's good to give yourself a break here and there, since usually other people won't do it for you.
Aside from all of that, it has been an uneventful week in the aftermath of getting By Starlight - Before Dawn ready for purchase. I pulled the typed out manuscript for the novel, To Slice The Sky. Time to pick up at the halfway point in rewrites where I left off. Funny enough that I stalled out at the exact same point I stalled out while writing it. Granted the back half all came to me at once and I knocked it out in a fraction of the time it took me to write the front half. It's going to take a lot of work and some professional help, but there's something pretty underneath all those rough edges. To Slice The Sky follows Trip and Decker, whom we first met back in Urban Legends of the Future (now available for free at that link), in a big whirlwind adventure across New America that's about half their fault. It also features Manner, who was introduced in her standalone story Mind Your Manners in Urban Legends, and the clone team we'll meet in The Clone Wars, a story bundled in with By Starlight - Before Dawn. It's a story about two best friends and the price of achieving your dreams set against the backdrop of the Clone Rebellion. If it was the year 2099, that shit would be Pulitzer material.
This week brings us to part three of eight in the story of Tressie, Johnny and Gribelle. Plans are undertaken, investigations are afoot, and meals are had. This section is a little longer than the last one. Enjoy:
three
Johnny walked in 301’s door while Tressie sat in lotus position. Tibetan psytrance filled the air. He dropped his bag on the ground and pulled a beer from Tressie’s mini fridge. Before Johnny could pop the tab Tressie tapped him with her toes.“Johnny Star. Glad you’re home.”
“Glad I’m home too, babe. How come you didn't respond to my texts? Today’s been fraggin’ whacked, man. All the dudes at school were flipping the frag out. Did you hear the net has no more porn?”
“Yes.” Tressie chewed some more on her already swollen and skinned lip, “Yes. A little more first hand. You remember my slice last night?”
“The jamstain Search & Destroy? Tressie.” Johnny’s face sagged, “Don’t tell me you pulled a devin and erased all the world’s porn.”
“What? No. I mean I really don’t know what’s going on. But I have an idea.”
“Are we gonna Scooby the great porno heist of ‘72?”
“Lorde, I hope not. But last night, after you passed out. I kept hearing Oscar moaning next door, in like, a really weird way.”
“Is that the scientific term for it?”
“Well, it was like a moan and a groan at the same time.”
“So you think Oscar’s super orgasm powers knocked out the netporn?”
“No, well. I don’t know yet. Let’s not rule it out.”
“If that turns out to be true, I’m afraid of what other untapped powers the penis holds.”
“Johnny, focus.”
“Focusing on porn talk is what’s distracting me. Did you forget I’m seventeen?”
“Let me power through the unsexy part then.” Tressie took a deep breath, “So my deletion progress tracker went on the blink. I jacked in, saw The Raw was all fubared, and went to investigate. In that investigation, I found wide swaths of cam whores died on the clock and what they had in common was Oscars trodes being logged in at every instance.”
“Okay, the guy got ambitious with his supergasms. Jay-C and Trix were logged in too.”
“What’d they see?”
“A bunch of people in some gonzogangbang keel over and die at once. Does that mean we should hustle them?”
“But were they simultaneously logged into three hundred and thirty thousand gangbangs last night?
“I didn’t think that was possible. Especially with just trodes and no palmtop synched to it.”
“Oscar managed it. To top it off, the camwhore biosign data shows they all died at the point of climax. Once they came, all their bodies shifted into high gear and burnt out their nervous systems.”
“This brings me back to the power of the penis.”
Tressie eyerolled, “So I go to check up on Oscar. Doesn’t answer the door.”
“That’s not a surprise. Probably tuckered out from all the super orga-”
“-Johnny.”
Johnny showed palms, “Okay, I’ll stop helping.”
“No answer at the door, but I can hear him mumbling to himself and bumping into stuff. Tried getting a look through the blinds and Oscar’s in a stupor walking like he just discovered his legs.” Tressie paused for Johnny to interject. He shook her off. “I rapped on the window since I knew he was there. Then, through the curtains, he locked eyes with me. About the freakiest look I’ve ever gotten from someone. Like, ‘I’m gonna fragging kill ya,’ but with dead, hollow eyes. I fraggin' swear those dadfraggers glowed for a second.”
“Skag dude,” Johnny rubbed his chin. “I mean, clearly he didn’t kill you, but he must know you know something.”
“Pretty much. This is some heavy skag Johnny.”
“Serious. But like, has he done anything since then?”
Just some crashes and bangs through the wall. A couple thuds like he fell or something. How do you even go forward with something like this?”
Johnny shrugged with his hands in his pockets, “I guess you don’t really have to.”
“And live next to a out of control sex maniac?”
“Or we can switch to a new unit.”
“If Oscar’s fragging with the net, how am I going to make money?”
“Did you forget about being a DJ?”
“Like that pays the bills these days, Mr. Designer Molecule pusher.”
“Okay, so this needs to be dealt with. Why us?”
“Because we’re the ones who know there’s a problem. Johnny, are you going to help or keep being a boy about it?”
“Babe. I’ll help. Frag. But neither of us have any fragging clue where to begin.”
“When it comes to possible demon possession, there’s a pretty obvious place that pops into my mind.”
Johnny sagged, “The guy wipes out some enterprising media then stumbles like a drunk fool and you dive headfirst into demon possession? If you’re going to church, you can do that on your own.”
“What the frag, Marko? If you're not going to help me you can at least support me.”
Johnny looked up at her, “I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you. You seem to be on this demon possession thing, right?”
Tressie made a go on motion with her hands.
“I know a guy, well more like see a guy in passing. Guy goes to the gun range Skeeter and Gordo hang at. They call him Dr. Rattlesnake. Supposedly he’s from Haiti before the ice shelf fell. Into all sortsa creepy Vodou skag.”
“I don’t know how I feel about pulling in some witch doctor named Dr. Rattlesnake.”
“You’ve got your sources, I’ve got mine. The whole idea is ridiculous anyway.”
“Johnny,” Tressie’s eye muscles were sore from rolling.
“No, it really is. You want me to believe that Oscar,” Johnny thumbed towards the neighbor wall. “Lardo, needs a bath, next door fragging Oscar. That guy is some crazy ass demon-possessed techno-shaman, getting his rocks off on killing sex workers. I believe that.”
“When you wiki it like that, it does sound ridiculous. But really Johnny, are you going to side with your eccentric--and if I’m honest with myself, freaked the frag out--girlfriend? Or am I gonna have to strike this out solo?”
“Babe.”
“Don’t fraggin’ babe me. Are you in or are you out?” Tressie crossed her arms.
“I’ll help. Don’t worry. Just... I really don’t feel like going to church. Nothing good ever happens at church.”
***
Gribelle burned a considerable amount of energy in the process, but Oscar’s mass was under her control. The first thing to do was eat. Hunting in Base Plane Reality was not something Gribelle had experience with, but she'd dealt with countless dreamers back home. What could go wrong?
Oscar’s consciousness sat in the mental pocket Gribelle first resided in after breaking through from the neuronet. It was dusk by the time Oscar’s body found its way outside. The previous hours of manipulating a weak fleshy prison on the physical plane were full of many stumblings and injuries.
At first, Gribelle worked in tandem with Oscar. He fought his own disbelief and hijacked body the whole while. Once Gribelle got the mechanics down, she shunted Oscar to the back and told him to remain silent until called upon.
Outside the door, Gribelle felt familiar energy emanate from the old shack perched above the third floor. Walking on her own was still a work in progress. Gribelle managed an awkward waddle down the stairwell into the courtyard. Curt and Daisy sat with their shoes off on the unscorched grass beneath the bleachers in front of the stage. Gribelle paid them no mind until Daisy called out.
“Yo Oscar. Where you off to tonight?” She said, twirling her fingers through neon orange curls.
“What is the meaning of this, meat bag?” Gribelle spat through Oscar’s mouth, beaten into a sneer.
Daisy and Curt recoiled. Gribelle caught their expression and tried to smooth Oscar’s face with his hands. Daisy and Curt’s horror faded to gawping confusion as they watched Oscar try to mold his face like silly putty. Gribelle regarded their change in facial expression. She worked Oscar’s features into a serial killer smile, and said, “Lovely evening this evening fellow travellers of the void. May your hunger always be sated.” Gribelle brushed a finger from brow to the tip of her nose in a Succubus salute then exited stage right. Daisy and Curt sat gobsmacked.
Gribelle knew not where to go, opting to just walk until she found something tasty. With a rattle of the grand entry gate, Gribelle stepped out into the hard pavement of SFV818.
***
“Johnny McFraggin Marko. What brings a little claptrap like you back to this slagpit, eh man?” A thickset Bully with neck neontats spread her arms in welcome.
“Not much, Jo. Kind of an odd request today.”
“What the frag you doing making odd requests at a shootin’ range, Marko? Didn’t yer momma teach you skag before you noped outta home?”
“The only thing my mom taught me was how to annoy the frag outta people with the Book of Mormon.” Johnny inhaled the contents of his sinuses and spat a loogie into a nearby recycler. He chuckled at the sizzle, “You see that Haitian dude around? Hangs with Gordo and Skeeter.”
“Doctor Rattlesnake?”
“The same.”
“Yeah, all the time. Can’t get that dadfragger outta my face some days. Good enough dude. Makes the place reek of patchouli.”
“That’s great and all, but is he here?” Johnny asked despite a lack of patchouli fug.
“Oh, no.” Jo shook her head.
Johnny choked off profanity, “And of course you have no clue where to find him, huh?”
“Why don’t you ask Skeet and Gordo?”
“Are they here?”
“Oh, no.”
Johnny yanked at his crusty hair, “You’re killin’ me, Jo. You know that? You are killing me.”
***
The streets were gummed with traffic while the sidewalks remained devoid of life. Oscar/Gribelle lurched down Reseda Boulevard. “Curse those insubstantial slatterns I drained yestereve,” Gribelle grumbled. Oscar remained silent in his thoughts as an invader cavorted his frame around. A deluge of sweat soaked through Oscar’s food stained, yellowing undershirt. It was white at some point.
Gribelle cursed at the inefficient vessel she inhabited in this static, unfun, world. She plodded down the street, feet swollen in pain. Mouth parched and an empty stomach, Oscar’s body was needing a refuel as well. Gribelle caught the aroma of food blowing through the air. Down the street, adolescent humans flocked to where the food smells originated.
At the southeast corner of Reseda and Plummer, Gribelle succumbed to the limitations of the flesh. Eyes glazed over with hypoglycemia, Gribelle stood slack jawed in the hologram glow of a cartoon wolf stretching its maw to ingest a burger stacked comically high with beef patties. Stomach growling, she entered Lil' Wolfie's.
***
The synthetic oak doors of the church hall were silent as the interior this Friday night. Tressie thriced herself and knelt before entering the congregation space. Candlelight flickered through a cloud of incense. A meditating Madre thumbed rosary beads in a silhouette haze. Tressie tiptoed to the altar and assumed lotus position on a free cushion near The Madre, not wishing to disturb her reverie.
“How may I ease your troubles, daughter?” The Madre turned her head and smiled at Tressie. “I assume that’s why you’re here.” Her deep brown eyes glowed with a heavenly blue behind their cataracts. “No one comes to confession at this time. Haven’t transgressed enough yet.”
“How may I ease your troubles, daughter?” The Madre turned her head and smiled at Tressie. “I assume that’s why you’re here.” Her deep brown eyes glowed with a heavenly blue behind their cataracts. “No one comes to confession at this time. Haven’t transgressed enough yet.”
Tressie cleared her throat and coughed anyway, “I had a run in with something beyond my understanding, Madre.”
“Faith is always the best guide through uncertain terrain. Would you prefer to walk as you tell me about it? I’ve been sitting for some time now.” Tressie assisted The Madre to her feet, joints creaking and popping all the way. “Let me preface this by saying my line of work is not the most honest.”
“The Trinity welcomes all walks of life, daughter. Even those who walk the night.”
“I’m not a prostitute, I’m a slicer.”
“Beg your pardon, dear. Not that you look like the type. Nine times out of ten that’s the profession in question. You'd be surprised at the demographic.”
“Understandable. But Madre, do you, uh, think it’s possible to become, uh, possessed?” Tressie held her arm out for The Madre to steady herself as they rounded the pews.
“The Codex states of the possibility across all faiths. But have I personally seen a possessed person? No.”
“What Codex?”
The Madre cocked her head quizzically.
“Well, I think my next door neighbor may be possessed by a sex demon through the neuronet.”
The Madre stopped, Tressie two steps after.
“We’re both in uncertain territory.”
***
Johnny leaned his bike on its kickstand and hung his helmet on the handle bars. He was directed to a ranch style house off Zelzah and Prairie. A dirt lot stood in for a front lawn and the screen door was rotted wood trim coming off its hinges. Johnny tried the doorbell, hoping that it worked even if he didn’t hear it go off. The blinds jostled slightly in the window near the door.
“Whutchyo goin’ on ‘bout, white boy? Why you here?” An Island pidgin rasped through the door.
“I seek Dr. Rattlesnake,” Johnny laid on the theatrics, spreading his palms before the window in supplication.
“Why you wanna seek Dr. Rattlesnake, whiteboy? Don’ya got better things to do than russ up some ole man’s hackle?”
“I seek the good doctor for knowledge of the beyond.”
“Why else you seek a man named Rattlesnake?”
“Dude, seriously, you know me. From True Aim? Johnny? Johnny Marko? Ring any bells? I hang with Gordo and Skeeter.”
Silence from the other side. “Go away.” The blinds rattled in place.
Johnny jammed the doorbell with a vengeance. The door opened a crack into darkness. Johnny, totally sketched out, shuffled from foot to foot, not daring the screen door.
“C’mon now. Whatchya waitin’ for? Get yer ass in here.”
Johnny entered the lair of Dr. Rattlesnake.
***
Dead eyed bodies slumped over the surfaces of Lil’ Wolfies. Gribelle rubbed Oscar’s belly and loosed a satisfied belch, tossing a burger wrapper over the shoulder with the other hand. Both soul and borrowed body sated, Gribelle waddled out of the restaurant scratching her gut, “I think I could get used to this plane.”
***
Tressie was lead behind the choir stand and into a sterile changing area for the baptismal. The Madre held her hand on a recessed bioscanner that activated a seamless panel to pull from the wall. Behind were stairs leading into a basement. The pathway was well lit, assuaging most of Tressie’s fears of going alone into strange basements with members of the clergy.
The Madre beckoned Tressie down the stairs which led to a partitioned off bunker beneath the church. The main reception was lit in harsh white light, devoid of anything but tumbling mats and training apparatus.
“Okay, so now that I’ve walked into an oldmedia training montage, I don’t think I made the right choice.” Tressie fiddled with a dreadlock.
“I disagree. Come, I’ll show you The Codex.” The Madre motioned her to a side room framed in wall paneling. Tressie followed her into a cramped broom closet jammed with server racks and cooling fans. An old fashioned keyboard, affixed to a spinach green text cathode monitor, sat on a desk. Wires sprouted from the back in a twist of multicolored braid. Sweat traced down Tressie’s forehead and back in spite of the cooling rig’s best effort.
“Behold, The Codex,” The Madre attempted a voice of ominous beatitude. “I know it’s not much to look at.”
Tressie stood in awe of the blinking, humming and whirring server racks. Dreams of the freespace inside to explore while jacked in lit up Tressie’s mind.
“This terminal has access to the Universal Church’s collected knowledge. Its beginnings are in the Vatican Library. It includes scans or copies of any religious and occult text made available by the world’s practices. All here for easy reference.”
“Do you often bring strangers into your secret agent hidden sanctum?”
“It is uncommon.”
“Does every church have one of,” Tressie gestured at the general area, “these?”
“Only the ones that host a chapter of the Holy Knights.”
“Holy Knights? Ain’t that some skag." Tressie covered her mouth, "Sorry.”
“The Trinity forgives you, daughter.”
“Madre. You down here?” A forceful contra-alto came from behind them.
“In The Codex room Erika.” The Madre responded, “And speaking of Holy Knights, here’s our first check in of the evening.”
A tusseled black pageboy cut on a sharp brown face poked through the doorway, eyes steeled in wary defense. The intense features softened at the duo.
“I didn’t know you had company. New recruit?”
“Oh, no,” Tressie shook her head. “All I wanted was to find out if my neighbor is possessed by a demon or malware.”
“Shame. Could use some more meat on the streets,” Erika shrugged out of a pleather shell jacket, tossing it from view. "We're sanctioned by The Church."
“That's enough unwilling recruitment talk," Madre Leon said, "I was going to go over The Codex to aid this young lady. Run your drills, Erika, the others will be by shortly.”
“Si, Madre Leon,” Erika bounded away.
“Now let’s see what we can dig up for you,” Madre Leon turned to the sturdy keyboard that Tressie already had her long fingers all over.
“It doesn’t look like much, but the interface is rather intuitive.” Tressie typed the command line to search for sexual demons.
“I’m really not supposed to let outsiders handle The Codex.” Madre Leon moved to take position behind The Codex display when commotion and shouting came from the gym.
“Madre. Anyone here? Erika. We gotta move. Fast.”
“What’s going on Estevan?” Erika asked on the other side of the partition. Madre Leon stood in the threshold considering the new arrival.
“Mass murder at Lil’ Wolfie’s. Was checking the scanner, cops just got on scene. All the eaters are toast. I scoped the zone before the crime scene barrier went up. Looks like the work of a--”
“--Succubus?” Tressie said from behind The Codex screen. The screen cursor blinked green across her face. It rested at the end of the first search result: Incubus/Succubus.
***
Johnny stood on Dr. Rattlesnake’s front stoop, having a smoke and taking in the events of the last hour. The good doctor had already chased him out of the house. The front window opened behind Johnny followed by a raspy, “Go away.”
With a final blast of smoke out the nose, Johnny botched flicking away his filter with shaky hands. He stepped off with a grind of the butt beneath his heel then crunched across a dead lawn. Johnny hopped on his bike and tried to stop shaking as he gripped the handlebars. Visions of a wild eyed Hatian man exercising his craft needed to vacate Johnny’s skull asap.
***
Tressie was advised to go home and that Erika, Estevan and the HPD would handle the disturbance. Home was the last place Tressie wanted to head. Instead Tressie hiked up her jacket and shuffled aching feet over cracked concrete. She trawled past the graffitied tract homes of North SFV818 to every place but Das Komplex. City noise was the night's sole soundtrack, not daring to connect to her cloud files. Oscar was at home and there was evil on the net. Tressie was fully homeless tonight.
***
Up the steps to 301, Johnny found he arrived home before Tressie. He’d stimmed three hits of BlastOff, afraid to go to sleep after his visit with Dr. Rattlesnake. Then nased a fourth for good measure.
“It’s the veil between worlds, boy. It ain’t been right for a good long while. Longer than my time.” The doctor’s voice echoed in Johnny’s memory.
Johnny grabbed a glass from a cabinet and held it to the wall. Air noise was all he heard through the glass. After building courage and ignoring the trails taking shape around the edge of everything, Johnny’s curiosity beat out his paranoia. He crept out of the apartment to the window of 302 and gazed into the blacked out room.
Faint lights from Oscar’s gadgets illuminated the spartan setup just enough. Under the effects of nextgen stimulants, Johnny’s eyes swirled round the gap in the blinds, searching for signs of life. He was about to straight up knock on the door when from behind came--
“Dude, Johnny. What the frag are you doing?”
--Johnny’s bones lept through his skin with no evidence of exit. Daisy stood arms crossed, scowling at the young punk.
“I was just... I mean... but I couldn’t... and then...”
“Oscar’s not home. He walked outta here hours ago like a fraggin’ weirdo,” Daisy said.
“Hours ago? He hasn’t come back?”
“Nope.” Daisy relaxed her stance, “Got anymore BlastOff?”
***
The heady aroma of human pheromone poured from the open double glass doors. Gribelle picked up the scent on her way back to Oscar’s domicile and followed its delectable acridity with her nose. Above the complex threshold was a banner offering a Back-To-School Move-In Special. The doors themselves were propped open by an opened case of wine coolers. Loud whoops and sounds of merrymaking echoed through the enclosed hallways on the other side.
The scent of sex overwhelmed Gribelle’s senses filtered through her borrowed body. On the prowl, she stalked the hallways and up the stairwell. Outside a cracked open door, hard driving music failed at drowning out the sounds of an exaggerated female orgasm. More whoops and cheers erupted from the external courtyard through an open window. Gribelle pushed her way inside. Her ephemeral stomach rumbled as she stood in the doorway, watching a young couple ride each other in complete abandon to their surroundings.
The female on top leaned back onto her palms, bucking her hips against her partner. She tried to get leverage and brush hair out of her face, only to manage slipping off the male. The phallus slapped back wetly onto his gut. Their eyes filled with terror at a dishevelled obese man rubbing his belly and licking his lips at them.
***
Johnny’s ringtone rattled in Tressie’s earbones as she huddled against the cold 14°C night. She paid it no mind. A missed call alert followed by a text message popped onto her HUD.
Oscar’s gone. Get home ASAP.
Lots to tell. Love you.
***
Gribelle stretched her body out in a flesh colored I. She admired the curves of her new borrowed frame that complimented her natural form. She drank in the remnants of ambient sex hanging in the air.
She tiptoed over Oscar’s collapsed body, still warm and twitching on the floor. Gribelle had no choice but to drain him despite his bitter desperation aftertaste. All Oscar did was continuously scream once control of his mouth was regained.
Gribelle padded to the headset that matched Oscar’s back at his dwelling. She slid it upon her brow as a queen does her diadem. Gribelle planned to retreat to the other plane of glowing lights. After such excellent courses, she was ready for dessert.
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