Punktown: Shades Of Grey Part 14

Dennison nodded with, "Yessir." He chose a wrench and climbed under the sickly vehicle. Before taking his remaining crew out into garage C, Murphy gave his final orders. "We'll be going to the Post for a few, after work."

"Yessir," came a voice from under the hovercar.

The blue thrown off by the small elevated vid-screen mixed with the traditional green-filtered air to cast them all further into unreality. The Klu-Koza vets sat in their usual place and, as usual, dismissed the usual stares. Stares of fear, stares of misunderstanding, stares of hate. Stares.

Under his sheepskin coat, Murphy wore a vest of those short curved tusks, the type that Dennison wore about his neck. This amplified the stares.

"The Cardinal, in his war against starvation today..."

A smartly dressed Choom newswoman was giving a bland report.

Dennison watched intently, unconsciously drumming his right hand's three-and-a-half fingers. Kloud was listening to old men's old war stories. Murphy was contemplating his eighth beer, and no one could tell what Casper was up to behind those gla.s.ses.

"When we were invading Clanton," one old sailor was saying, "our number two gun blew up. Charge defect, knocked the gunner's head clean off. Never seen such a mess. I had to mop him up."

"s.h.i.+t, that's p.i.s.s, Bram," retaliated another forgotten soldier. "A buddy of mine, Clem...Clem Druva, I think, yeah, Druva. He was crawlin' under some barbwire when a grenade on his backpack got hooked. The pin came out but the grenade stayed on him. Blew him to bits."

They looked down into sour yellow reflections.

"That's nothing."

They looked in awe at Kloud. These renegades never spoke to them.

"We used to use kamikaze dogs," the young man with bloated sideburns said. "We'd strap a vest of bombs around their middle, then send 'em into an enemy camp, then hit a remote control and totally mow their rocks off. Well, once this guy was strappin' this dog up with fifteen pounds of explosives. The dog was b.i.t.c.hy though and it jerked away from him. So the guy went after the dog and he dropped the remote control, right on its b.u.t.ton."

There was no emotion in Kloud's words. "Blew up half our camp; took the nearest medical tent too. I was sittin' a good distance away and it knocked me right out. I woke up with this nurse's torso right in my lap."

The old-timers looked away as if they'd only thought they'd heard something.

"Economic advisers gathered today to discuss the-"

Dennison blew cigarette smoke; it obscured the newswoman.

"So, Murphy, you want me to get that seaweed tomorrow or what?"

Murphy looked at Dennison with languid eyes. "It's your money."

"Okay, I'll get it. We'll get it after work, then go over to my place after and get toasted. What do ya say?"

"Sure, man."

"The Prime Minister approved a two billion munit aid grant to King Syphos-Sans of Klu-Koza today," the VT-woman said. "That makes a total of ten point six billion since the reconstruction began last-"

"f.u.c.king s.h.i.+t." Murphy's eyes were beads of distaste.

"f.u.c.king h.e.l.l," Dennison echoed. "Hey, Kloud, you hear that?"

"What?"

"The P.M. has given the grape-guts over ten billion to redo what we undid."

"Oh, that's real dandy. Typical, typical. Doesn't sit too well with me, I'll tell ya."

"First they send us out to cut down the trees, next thing you know we're planting new seeds." Dennison was awed.

"Anything for the holy munit," Murphy said, once again projecting his silky cool. His long dark hair framed a face without distinguishable opinion, the face of a ghost.

The autumn breeze tempered the thickness of the city's pollution-dense air. The trees in Desmond Park rustled like rattlers. They rained their transitional colors, mutated by the neons of shops across the street.

Murphy sat beneath a graffiti-carved oak, with his men sitting in his aura. Kloud was watching the nearest bench where a couple was partaking of some intense physical action. Exhibitionists and voyeurs, like his favorite: peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly.

Casper rolled ancient rock tunes in his head as he observed the nightlife through dark lens eyes. Neon shone on his high forehead and played across his bearded face of stone. His feet tapped.

"Where is he?"

Murphy looked back over his shoulder. Dennison mimicked the movement, adding a shrug.

"He said ten hundred."

Murphy puffed up his face and blew out.

"He'll be here," Dennison a.s.sured him.

"Anybody feel like getting f.u.c.ked t'night?" Kloud asked, looking to Murphy. "Captain?"

"Nah."

"Yeah, me neither."

Two dozen bikies roared past the park's outer rim...they drove off the road to swerve in and out of the trees. Murphy smirked with distaste. Smirking stone.

"Every night is Halloween in Punktown," he said dully.

"Really," replied Kloud.

A thin brown car came slinking out of the mouth-like gap between Phil's Liquor and The Twist and Shout Torture Spa. The ratty vehicle drove halfway across the park and paused.

"That's him," Dennison said, standing abruptly and ramming his hands into the pockets of his brown coat. He started across the field-like park center.

"Cover him, Kloud," Murphy said, not looking.

Kloud was off in a microsecond, casually ducking behind a tall leafless clyse tree.

"Hey, Jasp."

"Dennison."

Goods and cash traded hands.

"Have fun."

"Yeah, thanks."

Kloud picked out two suspicious figures sitting on the backrest of a bench. They were watching the transaction. Probably vultures, Kloud concluded. Vultures being victims of the depression who watched drug sales in parks or wherever, then jumped the buyer once he, she, or it was alone. Some needed the drugs; others sold them to buy a day's meal.

Kloud felt his fingers curling back the cuff of his pant leg, curling denim back like a snarling dog lip to expose the knife's handle. Vultures for sure-he rose from his squat, parkerized blade in the breeze-they were following Dennison across the park.

The silhouette transformed into Dennison; the one behind him turned into Kloud. They resumed their spots around Murphy.

"Don't look now," Kloud said, dipping his short-bladed weapon into his leather pocket. "Two vultures ten yards behind us."

The two shadows froze at the sight of the four veterans. Four gravestone-crest figures of menace. There was no future in that. They were turning around when Murphy turned on his bench and pointed at them.

"Hey, c'mere, I want to kill you," he stated.

The figures jogged off.

"Hey, come back." He turned around with a sour sneer-smile. "d.i.c.k licks."

It was very dark in Dennison's small flat. A streetlight tossed the image of a tree branch across the window. It was a neurotic bone-bodied hydra with demon-leaf wings. The occasional gust of wind made the branch tap against the gla.s.s.

"I think the tree wants a puff," Kloud said, releasing a lungful of spicy seaweed smoke.

They sat on floor pillows around the low circular card table.

A hookah and a candle sat before them.

They resembled ghosts, smoke faded, emphasized by the blue flame of the lone gas candle. Music played in the background as they drew deeply from the hookah's arms.

Even without his gla.s.ses, his eyes were lost to darkness. Casper held his thumb over his hookah nozzle; his free hand rubbed thoughtfully at his head dome.

"Miserable sc.u.m," Murphy mumbled deeply.

"What?" Dennison nearly choked on his. .h.i.t.

Murphy stared at the Klu-Koza flag on the opposite wall.

"The government."

"Oh, yeah."

"They're useless. Useless flesh."

Silence.

"I mean look at us." Murphy turned to include each man with an intense look. He drew in their eyes.

"What have we got? A s.h.i.+t job at a car hospital, armpit apartments, enough money to buy toilet paper. We got s.h.i.+t." The Captain's voice was fatherly.

"We're nothing, nowhere. We don't exist. Uncle Earth gave us the royal fist f.u.c.k. We're gonna end up as b.u.ms. We'll be sittin' in the Post for the rest of our lives dreamin' into our beers, boozin' our brains out. And it's all 'cause of Uncle Earth's grat.i.tude, or lack thereof."

Dennison wagged his head. "No way, I'm not gonna end up like those old guys. f.u.c.k that, those guys are wasting away."

"We are those guys. The only difference between them and us is age. Gov's s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g them too."

"They get a pension," Kloud spoke up.

"They get s.h.i.+t for pension." Murphy's voice was always low-key; he explained things as though his audience were children. "The Prime Minister's gonna cut back on half of what they get, too. Those poor old guys aren't s.h.i.+t. h.e.l.l, they served their government, but n.o.body remembers that. They'll die without the little pension they get now."

Dennison agreed. "They don't make much, that's true. A lot of 'em can't work, either."

"Government can't afford to feed them, with this depression, but they can afford to give ten billion to the Klu-Kozi."

Murphy watched the enemy flag; blue smoke filtered up between it and his face.

"Weasel McGurn told me that the ghouls got a safe in their emba.s.sy with over five million in it," Kloud injected into the silence.

Murphy stared across the table.

"Five million in our money," Dennison said. "They take it out of our taxes and give it to them. Real farce, man. Imagine that."

"It is our money," Murphy said. "I'd like to go in there and take it."

Kloud laughed. Casper smiled thinly.

Kloud said, "That'd be somethin', huh?"

Murphy nodded solemnly.

Over the weekend, they drove out to Lougis Cemetery to visit some friends. The robot-legged dog stood in the cool fall sunlight, close as if on guard duty, impa.s.sive eyes effectively disguising the chronic pain enemy war-gas had burned into its lungs. No veterinary medicines seemed capable of diminis.h.i.+ng the beast's suffering.

The four men stood at attention. Murphy gave Major Gattle's grave a stiff salute. His "at ease" command was all but psychic.

The cemetery was huge, row after tooth-like row of white. One modern and expensive grave projected a life-size hologram specter in military dress forever marching in place. Murphy watched the blue ghost from the corner of his eye.

There were several great trees in the oldest section of the burial field. The veterans sat in the shade on crunchy red leaves, sharing a seaweed cigarette.

"Number Five," Murphy called his dog.

The handsome black beast sprinted over and stood respectfully. He stroked the animal's s.h.i.+ny crewcut back with vague compa.s.sion.