Steve Perry's Blog

My friend Bobbe Edmonds has died. 
Jesus, fuck, it caught me flat-footed. He was about the same age as my son, and for the twenty-odd years I knew him, I called him “Kid.”
He kept his illness from me, and from most of his other friends, but it was something he had known about for a while, and thus had time to adjust to it. The announcement came from another close friend, who posted something Bobbe wrote ten days ago. Here’s the first line:
“At the risk of sounding more pretentious than I ever have in my life (and THAT’S saying something) – when you read this, I’ll be dead.”
I was stunned. I had no clue he was that ill. Kidney failure, and his choice to forego the tubes and machines and go out on his own terms. I understand why he didn’t tell me. He said as much in his final post: Better to bleed to death from a paper cut than to ask for a Band-aid. 
I met him through martial arts connections — he studied silat in several places — and since it turned out he was a budding writer, I read his stuff and saw that he had potential, so I became a kind of mentor in that arena. I gave him advice, sometimes with a metaphorical whack upside the head, because he was good at it enough I didn’t need to pull my punches. He appreciated it, and said so. 
He was smart, funny, opinionated, stubborn, dedicated to his art, and I liked him. 
Once, we were keyboard warriors who stood against the forces of evil in the online Silat Wars. Sometimes, he shot himself in the foot, and said as much, but he fought the good fight. If I need information for a scene in a book regarding zombies, curry, or Godzilla, Bobbe was my go-to guy. My most recent novel’s acknowledgments name him such once again. He was raised rough, spent part of his youth in an awful institution. Over the years, he had his ups and downs, but he kept going and became a man worthy of respect. 
I will miss him. 
Seventeen or so years ago — probably for his fortieth — some of Bobbe’s friends hired an actor to deliver a singing birthday greeting — an actor dressed as The Reaper. There are people I know who would be appalled at me posting a screen capture of that scene, but Bobbe would not be among them. He’d laugh his ass off.
Wherever you are, Kid, you meant something to people while you were here, and number me high among them.
We’ll not see your like again.

I started Pentjak Silat in November, 1995, after seeing a demonstration at a science fiction convention early of a Sunday morning. Normally, that time featured a tai chi class led by Steve Barnes; however, Barnes had begun to study silat, so he brought his teacher to show that, instead. I’ll always owe Barnes for that.

I watched, fascinated, as a guy in a T-shirt and a sarong tossed his students hither and yon, and when he asked if anybody in the audience wanted to join in, boy, howdy, did I.

Understand, at that point I had a black belt in one system, a brown belt in another, and almost thirty years of training and practice in half a dozen martial arts. I was forty-eight years old. 

When the teacher, Maha Guru Stevan Plinck, told me to punch him, I asked, which hand?

He said, Doesn’t matter. 

That impressed me. Really? Never heard that before.

I punched, he did something I couldn’t catch, I nearly fell down, and I realized in that moment that this guy could beat me while he was drinking a cup of coffee — and not spill any while doing it. I was astounded – I thought I had game.

This was the art I had been looking for — one I had written fiction about — not knowing it existed. 

It felt like coming home. 

Later, I heard the saying, You don’t choose silat, silat chooses you. I believe that. Nearly every student in my classes came there from other arts.

Maha Guru was teaching classes in his garage, but those were invitation-only. He was offering public classes at the Straight Blast Gym in Portland, and I signed up there the next day.

After a few months, I was invited to the garage. Continued learning the entry-level art, Bukti Negara, and after a bit, moved into Sera. Long story, I’ll skip that. I trained in the art hands-on for twenty-six-years, and a couple more during the worst of Covid via Zoom. Still practicing it in my back yard.

Pukulan Pentjak Silat Sera Plinck is Javanese in origin, and the core movements are learned via short forms called djurus, along with associated footwork platforms, langkahs. There are eighteen of these, and they take a while to master. (Some branches of the art teach these all quickly, then go back and work on them. Our branch learns one, works on it, then moves to the next one.)

Maha Guru’s notebook offered a theoretical schedule for learning the djurus:

1st year: 1 & 2

2nd year: 3 & 4

3rd year: 5 & 6

4th year: 7, 8, & 9

5th year: 10, 11, & 12

6th year: 13, 14, & 15

7th year: 16, 17, & 18

This was based on taking one or two classes a week. Learning them in the old country would go faster, a couple years, where training every day was the norm.

Such was my dexterity and ability that it took me only twelve years to get them all ... 

 She wandered into the living room and turned on the television; the news was on. An anchor in a blue suit.

“—latest reports of two ICE agents who were shot as they kicked in the door of a home in Minneapolis this morning identify the homeowner as Gus Woodrow, a seventy-nine-year-old citizen born locally.

“Woodrow called 911, reporting that two armed men were at his door and threatening to shoot through it if he didn’t open it. 

“KARE News 11 has obtained a cellphone video of the incident. Be warned, the video is violent and may be disturbing to some viewers.”

The video, shot from behind and at an angle of about thirty degrees, showed two men in military-style clothing holding pistols in front of a house’s door.

Paula watched, fascinated.

“Open the fucking door or we will shoot you through it!” One of the men screamed.

“You have a warrant?” That was muffled, from inside the house.

“We don’t need a fucking warrant, asshole!” The second agent yelled.

Whereupon the first speaker booted the door open.

Whoever was taking the video yelled, “Fuck! Stop! Stop!”

There came two blasts from the inside the house. 

The two men fell.

The videoer’s phone shook, and pointed at the sky, then panned back and down to  refocus on the two fallen men.

“Ah, fuck-fuck-fuck you shot me!”

“Goddamit you motherfucker!”

“Ow, ow, ow—son-of-a-bitch, I’m gonna kill you!”

“You reach for them guns you dropped, you won’t. I have reloaded.”

Mr. Woodrow appeared in the doorway, holding a double-barreled shotgun.

The video faded and the news anchor reappeared.

“An ambulance took the wounded men to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Apparently both men were shot in the legs with what an anonymous source says was rock salt.

“Local police arrived, took the shooter into custody.

"We have reports, as yet unverified by authorities, that, after questioning Mr. Woodrow, the Minneapolis District Attorney has declined to prosecute."

Paula laughed. My. That was going to open a whole new can of worms.

Los Angeles, 1969

When my buddy, who had gone to work for a private detective agency, went on and on about how much fun it was, and how, if I got a job there, we could open our own shop down the line?

It didn’t take much to convince me. I was working at a metals-jobber, selling extrusion and bar and plate over the phone, or filling in for fork-lift drivers or dispatchers who missed work. Not  exciting. Not like being a Los Angeles private investigator! Just like Marlowe and Jim Rockford!

So I went into the agency and applied for the job.

The guy in charge of the agency turned me down.

I was married, with a baby, and the work was tricky. He didn’t think I should quit a good job and then maybe they’d have to fire me a week or two on because I didn’t have the knack for it.

Wait! If my buddy could do it, I could do it!

Sorry.

That was that, right?

Maybe not. 

I decided that I would show them I did have the knack to do it. I would, on my day off, go to the head of the agency’s house and set up a surveillance on him, follow him around, and then write a report and send it to him. 

That would show him, by gawd!

There were some problems. I knew the supervisor’s name, but there was no listing for him in the phone book. My buddy working there didn’t know — apparently over the years, the boss had been the target of people he’d investigated, so his phone and address were kept need-to-know.

Well, I decided, it was probably in his secretary’s Roledex, hey? I’d just go to the agency one night after hours, pick the lock, find the address, and I was in business, right? I had lock-picks, hey?

So I did. Got in -- no alarm fortunately -- found the information, in-and-out, presto!

Went to the guy’s house, and having followed my buddy’s advice to call the local police and tell them I was an op doing a surveillance, working for the agency, so as not to get rousted, parked down the block in my VW early on a Saturday morning.

Guy came out, fetched the paper. His kids played ball in the front yard. An hour or so, guy pulled his car out of the garage and took off. 

I lost him before he got out the neighborhood. 

He returned, watered his lawn, went back inside, and I left that afternoon.

Went home, wrote a report, using the operative-language my buddy gave me -- words like "subject" and "appeared to be" and his description and license plate and all --  and mailed it in.

A week went by. No response. What was going on? Could they not see I had the knack?

So, I went back to the office of a late evening, entered the premises as I had before, and went through the supervisor’s desk. Found my letter, with a note from the supervisor to the head of the camera-operatives. What do you think of this guy? 

The answer on the note was, Sounds great!

So, I wrote on the note, Sounds great to me, too! and left. 

Few days later, I got a letter from the supervisor: He pointed out some things:

First, his wife was the secretary to the local police chief, and when I called in to report I was setting up a surveillance, her boss called her into his office. Did you know one of your husband’s ops is running a surveillance in your neighborhood?

Huh. No.

So she called her husband, and thus he knew I was gonna be there before I *got* there.

How was I to know his wife worked for the local police? What kind of coincidence was that? Who would believe it?!

He thought my description was inaccurate as to his height and weight, and that he looked like Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Furthermore, I lost him three blocks from his house, and my skills were not impressive. However, my unmitigated gall, calling the local police and pretending I was one of his ops? To watch him? Well, I got credit for balls, and attitude, and that was more important than skill — I could learn skills.

Then he asked, How did you find me? I take pains to keep that on the downlow.

Well, I said, I picked the lock on the office door and got your address from your secretary’s Rolodex.

There was a long pause. Decades, Eons.

My heart sank.

Listen, we don’t do stuff like that, that’s TV and movie crap, we are legal and above board. You want to work here, you forget that kind of crap right now, understand?

Yessir.

He allowed that I should come in and start training in a couple weeks.

And then, when I hung up the phone? I realized that I had written something I thought funny on the note he had exchanged with another operative, and that he would know, if he read it, that I had broken into the office a second time, and I’d be screwed.

So, the only thing I could think of? Why, I needed to break into the office a third time and get that note!

Which I did. By then, I could open the door faster than if I had a key.

Did not mention this last part to my new boss, started working there a couple weeks later, and for the rest of the time I was in L.A. had a job that was waay more interesting than working the phones at the metals warehouse ...

Chapter 1

New Orleans

Coburn said, “Face, or send?”

Flint shrugged. “You’re the boss, old man.”

Coburn shook his head. He was three hundred and eighty-five to Flint’s mere two hundred years, so, relatively-speaking, that was true enough.

He pulled a quarter from his pocket. “Call it.”

“Tails. And let it hit the lawn.”

“You don’t trust me, lad?” He grinned.

“I’ve see you do sleights.”

He thumbed the quarter into the air. It spun, fell, hit the trimmed-short St. Augustine grass, bounced.

“Tails it is.”

“I’ll send. I can lie in the shade. Plus I know the delivery system better.”

The boy did like his new toy, also true. 

Colburn pulled his pocket watch from his shorts, opened the cover, and looked at it. “I’ll get set up at the park bench, he should be out in a few minutes.”

“You know, I bet they make a portable sun-dial you could carry.”

“That’s your problem, being so young. No appreciation for the watchmaker’s art. I got this particular watch in the Soviet Union fifty, sixty, years ago. It’s a Moljinar—Lightning—mechanical, an eighteen-jeweled, swiped-from-the -Swiss movement. A propaganda piece, celebrating WWII, got the hammer and sickle over the red star, see? Cost me about twenty-bucks, don’t recall what that was in rubles. Cheap, well-made, still runs just fine.

“I have a Charles-Hubert pocket watch I picked in Paris a few years back. Seventeen jewels, cost ten times as much. The Russian piece is a better machine.”

“Cell phone keeps better time than either.”

“And McDonald’s hamburgers are cheaper and faster than the Port of Call’s. Which would you rather eat?”

“I like Mickey D’s burgers.”

“Proves my point—you have no taste, and little sense. Your advice is therefore worthless.”

Flint grinned. 

Coburn glanced at the sweltering park. He was not a fan of high heat and humidity, and New Orleans in August offered plenty of both. Had to be approaching body-temperature, and swimming to get there. He wore a straw fedora, a short-sleeved shirt, cargo shorts and running shoes, a costume that meant hiding a full-sized pistol was impossible. He had a compact SIG P238 .380 ACP in his right cargo pocket, which was effective-enough if needed, though that would be unlikely. He and Flint had worked together since 1947, almost eighty years, and the youngster was adept.

The park bench, at least, was in shade.

***

The Àrsaidh player calling himself George Kaplan, born in Boston in 1876, emerged from the municipal building and started across the park’s freshly-mowed lawn, heading toward where he had parked his car. The smell of the cut-grass was thick in the muggy air. It was a sunny day, but clouds were rolling in; distant thunder heralded the imminent arrival of a storm, so the park was, save for the two of them virtually empty. 

Only mad dogs and Englishmen would be out in the noon-day sun, both of which, he supposed, might properly refer to him …

Coburn took a deep breath and stood, moving from the shade of the oak tree probably as old as he was into the direct sunlight. The air temperature would be the same, of course, but he could feel the weight of the sun slap his hat and shoulders instantly.

Kaplan saw him approaching, and angled to his right so as not to intersect.

Coburn adjusted his path so they approached head-on.

Five meters away, Kaplan stopped. 

He was a tall, heavy-set man in an off-white suit, a pale blue shirt and darker blue tie. Nicely-polished caramel-colored leather shoes. No hat.

Must be cooking in that outfit.

“Mister Kaplan.”

“Do I know you?”

“We’ve never met, no.”

“You a player?”

“Not as such, no, but Àrsaidh, yes.”

Give him credit, he got it quickly.

“You’re an Enforcer.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I can explain.”

“That, sir, is why I am here.”

“It was self-defense.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I had no choice.”

“As I understand it, the woman was a foot shorter, seven stone lighter—a hundred pounds or so—and unarmed. No knife, no gun, nothing. And you felt threatened enough to shoot her three times?”

“She was crazy, psychotic. She came at me with murder in mind!”

“I see. While that might be possible, there is no evidence of such psychosis in her background—we checked—and even had there been? She had not the means to cause you serious harm. She was a barmaid with no training in any kind of fighting system. What did you think she was going to do? Crush your skull with her bare hands?”

“I didn’t know! You weren’t there, you didn’t see her face!”

“Oh, but I did see her face, in the morgue. What was left of it after three .45 ACP rounds hit it. And since the only way she could have possibly been a threat would have been to destroy your brain? 

“Killing civilians is not allowed, Mister Kaplan, save, as you have attempted to claim, in in self-defense, and in no manner was that justified. 

“Oh, and if you move your hand any closer to your waist, you will die where you stand immediately.”

“All right. What are we to do? Are you taking me in?”

“I am. ”

Coburn removed his fedora to smooth his damp hair.

Kaplan’s head exploded in a sleet of blood and bone and brain, as the sound of the .308 shot echoed over Coburn from a hundred and fifty meters distance.

He put his hat back on, turned, and walked away.

You don’t hear the one that kills you. 

***

Back at the oak tree, Flint had already disassembled the sniper rifle, a new purchase, custom-made in Germany last year by master gunsmith, Alcott Beller. It was a  folding, bolt-action, with a Zeiss V4 scope that kept zero after opening and closing, and was seriously accurate to three hunded meters. They used match-grade .308 copper-clad boattail bullets that Flint handloaded. Even with a suppressor it was loud, but they weren’t sticking around. Once folded, it was only eighteen inches long, and easily packed it into its case—which didn’t look like at all a rifle case, because it wasn’t, but instead an artist’s portfolio, done in a nice reddish-brown leather. New Orleans was a city with a lot of artists, and one saw such things frequently. 

Should anyone stop them? They had badges and IDs that were perfect replicas of assorted federal agencies, and contact information to back those up. Should a local police officer call the number on a proferred card? The answer would match the ID.

FBI. How may I direct your call?

“Nice shot.” 

“Thanks. So, we are leaving this one?”

“One must do so now and again, mustn’t one?”

“Yes. The object lesson.”

“It’s about to rain. We should go.”

 

 From long ago when I was trying to learn to be a good guitarist. My best piece on that instrument.

 Dissonance

The piano tuner ran through ascending chords, enjoying the resistance of the heavy ivory keys. His balding head was bent forward, his eyes closed as he listened. The notes rose to the darkened ceiling of the recital hall near Warsaw's Old Market Square, then dissipated like smoke.

They even seemed to smell like smoke, Maria thought.

Pipe tobacco, perhaps ... ?

The man turned and looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

She nodded. “Perfecto, Sebastian. As always.”

Sebastian smiled. He looked back at the instrument, took a clean handkerchief from his pocket, and lightly wiped the keyboard, from base keys to trebles, producing a soft, rising musical sigh. This piano could out-thunder Thor, its forte was indeed grand, but even as quiet as a mouse, it sounded superb. Ian’s personal tuner, who knew exactly how his boss wanted the instrument to sing, Sebastian always made it sound superb.

Of course, he had much with which to work. Any Bösendorfer Imperial Grand Piano could roar or whisper on command–nine feet, six inches long, the best woods, the finest craftsmanship, perfect German construction, they were top of the line. But this one? It was Ian’s baby, and it had extras that made it even more grande than grand. Nine sub-base notes to low C; ninety-seven keys, twelve hundred and fifty-five pounds of magic in wood, strings, ivory and ebony, it had cost more than a quarter of a million dollars, and Ian considered it cheap at that price. 

Ian did not fly second class.

It had his name inlaid in gold over the center of the keyboard; not so large as to be ostentatious, but big enough for him to see every time he sat down to play. So that an adoring fan using opera glasses could read it from the center of the hall: 

Ian Thomas Laurance. 

The lettering copied from his perfect, artistic handwriting. 

The Bösendorfer was Maria’s baby, too. She made sure it traveled in safety, fussed and worried over it, assured that it was packed so lovingly well that it would survive a fall from a tall building inside its shipping crate. And since it was insured for more than half a million dollars, the shippers never dropped it. They wouldn’t dare. 

Ian. The man who had hands bigger than Rachmaninov–huge, magic hands that could span almost two octaves. He could play things nobody else could, because nobody else could reach two notes so far apart. He had written especial music to showcase his skills, a concert only he could pull off. At the end of the third movement, there were two chords, impossible things, wildly dissonant, one under each hand, and nobody on a stage could hit them together except Ian. He could palm basketballs. 

And when he had put his hands on her ... ?

For the six months they shared a bed on the road, it had been a kind of magic. There she was, Maria Vasquez, a lowly travel manager who had come from the mean streets of Madrid. Little Maria, whose brother Pablito had been a bomb-maker for the Basques until he had blown himself and half a building up by accident. A woman who had never dared hoped to be with man like Ian. But–there she had been, Ian’s lover, sleeping each night next to the greatest pianist alive, perhaps the greatest who had ever lived, a man who loved this instrument more than he could ever love any woman. Sometimes, after sex, still covered in sweat and each other’s juices, he would talk about the piano as if it were a woman: How she sounded today; how her voice was; how her action under his fingers felt ...

Well. That was done. Over. 

She should have quit once he had ended it. She could have gotten another job easily, people on the concert scene knew her, knew how well she took care of Ian and his instruments, somebody would have jumped at the chance to hire her. She knew that. But–she had been weak. She kept hoping he would invite her back to his bed. She loved him. She thought he would see that, would respond to it.

She had been wrong.

She had shown up at his hotel room that evening as usual, and a naked woman had answered the door. A tall, redhead, maybe twenty-two or three, sleek, fit, smelling of musk. 

Ian had stood behind the woman, also naked, and grinning. 

Sorry, Maria, he had said. It’s time for me to learn a ... new piece ...

So fucking clever, Ian. Talented, rich, supremely self-confident. Nonchalantly sure that she wouldn’t quit. Life was his oyster, full of pearls, he was golden and invulnerable. He expected her to stay and reflect his glory–and she had stayed. 

After Sebastian packed up his kit and went to find a pub and have a beer, Maria sat alone in the hall, perched on the piano’s bench, and stroked the keyboard cover softly. She loved this piano, but not like Ian did.

She sighed, and stood. She had plenty of time. Pablito had, before he had died, taught her things a young Spanish woman did not ordinarily learn. About circuits and wires and detonators. 

Tonight, when Ian hit those two impossible chords, a circuit would be completed. Nobody else could do it, only Ian. 

It wouldn’t be a big explosion. Nobody would be hurt. Just enough forte to turn the inside of the Bösendorfer into a smoking ruin. It would die under his hands–he would kill it.

She wanted to be sure she found a place to stand where she could see his face. Where he could look up and see her face, and know.Yes, indeed. 

-30-

 

Adjust for Obstacles

It’s not a hard job, nobody complains about that, though I don’t really have anything else to compare it to, since I can’t remember doing anything else.

Mostly, we sit around, waiting. We work out, play dice or spetterline, watch the Tivo. I don’t know how many teams there are altogether, or how many men are on each team, but there are four of us in our pod, and we always go out in pairs. 

Once every six cycles, they bring in females for us. We have sex, and in the morning, the females are gone when we wake up.

We don’t seem to need much food or water, most of our nutrition comes from a dense, blackish-green cereal that sits at the bottom of a bowl of white broth, the Chief calls it ess-gee and laughs, but I don’t get the joke.

The four in our pod are Elgin, Waltham, Gruen and me, Benrus. It seems as if our names should have something in common, but I don’t know what it is. 

Seems like a lot of things I don’t know or understand, but that’s how it is.

Elgin and I were up in the rotation. The Chief came in and said we have a sortie. We suited up -- different outfits for different climates. This morning, we were issued skinthins -- white shirts and pants that the sweat comes through, long sleeves, with gloves, hoods, brimmed hats, polarized eyeshields to keep the sun off, flexible neoprene moccasins. So we knew we were probably going to one of the islands. 

The hip strap holds two guns, a big-bore in .500, and a small one in .22. The five holds eight rounds, the two-two, fifteen. One extra magazine each. I have never had to use the extra magazine for either gun.

Each strap has a hard sheath with a fixed-blade knife, and a burner -- a rod about as long as my forearm that puts out a tight blue flame that will cut a hole in just about anything. 

Those are are we need -- we seldom stay on a job long enough to need food or fluid.

Well. And the locator unit. All you have to do is listen to the locator and it tells you, in a female’s voice, where to go.

Usually there might be one, or a couple of targets. Now and then, three. Once, I remember, there were six or seven every time we went out, but it’s been a while since there were that many.

So Elgin and I suited up and went to the helicopter pad and climbed into the craft. No pilot, they are controlled from somewhere. The craft lifted, and we sat back and relaxed -- there’s nothing to see, since the copter doesn’t have any windows. There used to be some with viewports, but the weather etches and clouds whatever material they used for windows or bubbles, so they don’t bother any more.

We flew. Elgin used to time the flights -- eight-eight hundred heartbeats, ninety-five hundred, it varied. It didn’t really matter, and he mostly doesn’t bother any more.

The craft touched down, the door opened, and Elgin and I climbed out. The copter would usually stay there until we were done, though once Gruen and I came back from a job and the copter was gone. We waited and after a time, it came back.

It was one of the islands. Hot, damp, the sun cooking the sand and us. No vegetation on the island. The episodes on Tivo sometimes had islands in them and there were plants and animals on the islands -- big-leaved trees with ball-like nuts growing in them. Shorter, small-leaved plants in thick clumps. Birds, small animals, a lot of green and like that.

My locator unit said, “Walk one hundred and seventeen steps half-sunward. Adjust for obstacles.”

It always told you to adjust for obstacles, as if you were too stupid to figure that out on your own. 

Elgin and I started walking, though we didn’t really need the locator to tell us. We could see the tank from where we were -- there wasn’t much else on the island between it and us, some buildings tumbled and fallen into ruin, a few rocks here and there.

Elgin said, “A single.”

I nodded. That would seem to be so.

It didn’t take us long to get there. The locator gave us course correction halfway to the tank, and we followed those, even though there was no need.

The tank was old, a translucent manila color, the surface pitted and sun-damaged and abraded enough so we couldn’t see what was inside. The tank was rectangular, with rounded corners, an armspan-and-a-half high by half an armspan wide, laying flat and half-buried in the soft ground. They are sometimes called “Ludens.” I don’t know the why of that, either. 

“A single, like I said.”

I nodded. Sometimes they were doubles. Now and then I had seen a triple. “It has a valve.”

The valve isn’t on all of the tanks, but it was on this one. It’s a small, hollow cylinder near the middle of the tank that offers passage through the tank wall. The valves are capped, but the caps are thinner than the walls. This was a old tank, and the older ones were heavier, thicker, harder to breach. The .500 AP wouldn’t pierce the older ones, and it would take three or four thousand heartbeats for the burner to carve a big enough hole to admit a pistol barrel. Not so long with the valve, though.

“Burn or shoot?” I asked Elgin.

“My turn to shoot,” he said.

I nodded. Shooting was easier.

I unstrapped my burner and thumbed the control. The blue flame lanced out, as long as my forefinger, and I leaned over the tank and applied the fire to the valve cap.

Maybe it’s the heat from the burner that arouses them. Or maybe they can sense us somehow. Usually after a couple hundred heartbeats, you can feel them stirring if you are touching the tank. Sometimes you can hear them, even though the sound is muffled. You can’t understand what they are saying, the language, if that’s what it is, is different, but you can get a sense of agitation. 

After a time, the burner pierced the cap and the edges of the material melted back. The hole had to be big enough to allow some angle -- some of the occupants were small enough they might be able to move to one side, so shooting straight down might miss them.

When I was finished, I looked at Elgin.

He stepped up, pulled his five, and put the muzzle into the hole I’d created. He fired one straight down, the second angled to the far side, the third to the near side

The guns are muted, not much noise from the propellent system, quiet enough so you can hear the frangible rounds hit the tank walls if you miss the target. The first one missed, the second didn’t miss. The third was therefore unnecessary, but it was better to waste a shot and be sure.

Elgin leaned back, and blew across the muzzle of his five.

“Why did you do that?”

“I saw in on the Tivo,” he said. “A cowbody episode.”

I nodded. Yes. The ones with the funny hats and odd-shaped guns. Cowbodies and Ardiens.

I touched the target-accomplished plate on my locator, the quick triple tap.

“Second target,” the female’s voice said. “Two hundred steps three-quarters sunward. Adjust for obstacles.”

Elgin and I looked at each other. We started walking.

The second Ludens was bigger than the first, and rather than laying flat, had apparently been stood on its end. It had tilted somewhat over a long time, settled, so that it stood at seven-tenths vertical.

This tank looked even older than the first one. The surface was more pitted, scratched, and clouded by sun and wind.

“No valve,” Elgin said.

“Your turn to burn,” I said. I was pleased it was not my job to make the hole -- this would take a lot longer than the first target.

“Something unusual here,” Elgin said. He pointed.

I looked. Yes, there was a ... seam? running around the tank, bisecting it lengthwise. It was a thin line, hardly visible in places, you had to look closely to see it.

“Huh,” I said. “I never saw that before.”

“Me, neither. Wonder what it means?”

I shrugged. Another mystery in a life full of them. 

“Well. My turn to burn.”

I smiled.

While Elgin applied his burner to the tank, I looked around. Not much to see. Sand and rocks, sun glinting from those and the water, which was a couple thousand steps half sunward. The white foam as the waves reached the land made thin lines against the darker blue. There were, so the rumor went, tanks under the sea, and somewhere, teams equipped to reach and deal with those. I wondered how that would be, to be under the water, finding targets. What kind of suit would you have to wear? Would it be like the Tivo? Masks and tanks and bubbles rising around you? Long and flat shoes -- fins? -- on your feet? Would the burners work underwater?

“Well, shit,” Elgin said.

I blinked and looked at him. “What?”

“I have burned to the depth of the flame and I am not through the wall yet.”

“Really?” I moved closer to look.

He was right. “Huh. I’ve never seen one that thick before.”

“Me, neither. Well. I will make the hole wider and insert the tip of the burner deeper.”

“‘Adjust for obstacles,’” I said. I grinned again.

“Shit on your cereal,” he said.

I laughed. 

Since I was leaning against the tank as we spoke, I could feel the thing inside stirring.

“It’s awake,” I said.

“Not for long.”

I turned to look out at the water again. In the distance, there were thick and dark clouds piled high, looking as if they went all the way to the sea’s surface. The skinthins and hat and eyeshields would mostly protect us from the rain if it came here. But any place the precipitation touched bare skin would redden and blister, so you had to be careful if the wind blew that you kept your hat angled against it. Even so, I had been burned a couple of times. It wasn’t pleasant.

There came a thump against the inside of the tank, hard enough that it felt as if somebody had slapped me lightly where my hip rested against the thing.

“Must be a big one,” Elgin said.

“Still not through?”

“Not yet.”

The clouds were moving in our direction, but it would take at least four or five thousand beats to reach us, I guessed.

I said, “Do you ever wonder why the Chief or his Chief or somebody doesn’t just destroy these things from the air? Have the copters crank minigun AP or drop a bomb or something on them?”

Elgin didn’t look up from his chore. “Never thought about it. They did that, we’d be out of a job. Cost-factor, maybe. Minigun ammo and bombs cost more than handguns and burners.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t make sense. What it costs to feed and house and outfit us, supply us with females and all? Has to be more.”

Elgin shrugged. “I just go where I’m told and do what they tell me to do. That’s all stuff for the Chiefs to worry about.”

“I suppose you are right.”

“Ah! Got you, you shirker!”

I looked. Elgin had burned through, though the hole was tiny. It was still going to take a while to widen the diameter enough for my five’s muzzle to angle back and forth.

“You know,” he said, “you could use the two-two.”

“That’s not the procedure,” I said.

“I understand. But it is going to take a long time to widen the hole enough for the five. Surely a magazine of two-two is sufficient? Then we’d be done sooner and could go home. You see those clouds out there over the water? They are coming this way. If they get here before the copter takes off ...”

He had a valid point. The birds didn’t fly in heavy rain. We’d have to wait inside on the ground until the storm passed. That might take a long time. And if we got caught in the precipitation, we’d likely sustain some burns. We were worth more undamaged than one magazine of two-two.

“You have a valid point,” I said. “Give me enough room for the two-two.”

We both grinned at each other. I pulled the two-two.

He shoved the burner back into the hole --

-- and the front of the tank blew off.

I was to the side, and the split tank hit me a glancing blow, enough to knock me sprawling to the ground, still conscious, but dazed.

Elgin was less fortunate. The front section hit him squarely and smashed him to the ground. The section toppled onto him, pinning his pelvis and legs to the ground. It had to weigh as much as two or three men. He screamed and tried to get free, but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t reach his guns either.

I felt as if my head had been filled with the sand I lay upon. I couldn’t focus my thoughts. What had happened? 

Elgin screamed again, a horrific sound, and this was a cry far beyond the pain of having his legs broken or crushed. It was pure terror.

My mind didn’t want to clear, I tried to stand, but I couldn’t figure out how to make myself move ...

The thing inside the tank came out. 

I couldn’t believe what I saw. What it looked like. That it could do that. They weren’t supposed to be be able to move, after all that time in the tanks, but this one came out. It went straight for Elgin. It fell upon him and smothered his screams.

It seemed like a long time, but it couldn’t have been more than a few beats when Elgin’s voice stopped. There were sounds coming from the thing that had killed him -- he was dead, I was sure of it -- and then the creature turned away from Elgin to behold me.

I couldn’t stand. Somehow, I had held on to the two-two.  

The thing ... rose from Elgin and came at me.

I screamed like Elgin had screamed, in terror, pointed the gun and pulled the firing stud as fast as I could. The fifteen rounds in the two-two sounded like one long, single sound, a ripping of heavy material torn by strong hands ---

When the gun clicked empty and the slide locked back, it was still coming --

I dropped the two-two --

The thing stumbled ... but kept coming --

I had a moment of blind panic. I was going to die ...

Then my training took over and I remembered the five. I pulled it free -- the thing was almost on me! -- and I shoved the muzzle at it and fired the gun until it ran dry.

The thing fell, landing no more than a handwidth from my right moccasin. 

I reloaded the five with my spare magazine and shot it five more times. It juddered under the impacts but didn’t move otherwise.

It was a while before I could gather myself up enough to move. If the first wind from the storm hadn’t begun to stir the sand, I don’t know if I could have managed it then.

I stood. My back hurt, my jaw hurt, but otherwise, I seemed to be uninjured. 

I moved to examine Elgin. He was dead. 

I started for the copter.

The rain had begun to fall, a hard wind swirling it around enough so that a few drops hit my cheeks as I reached the craft and was admitted. 

A few burns on my face didn’t seem like much, now.

“Close the door,” I said.

“Passenger Elgin has not entered the vehicle,” the helicopter’s voice said. “State the reason.”

“He’s dead,” I said. “Close the shitting door.”

The door cycled shut.

“What was the cause of Passenger Elgin’s death?” 

“It got him,” I said.

“Define ‘it.’”

I leaned back against the seat, exhausted. “The thing in the tank got out. It killed him. 

“The human killed him.”

The helicopter didn’t speak to that. 

I didn’t count heartbeats, but it seemed like a very long wait until the rain stopped and the copter took off. 

 

-30-

Back in the day, when I didn't feel like writing but wanted to do something creative, I decided to try my hand at scrimshaw. 

Never got good at it, but I did a couple pieces that were okay. The images here are the faux-ivory grips on a S&W M-52 .38 Special mid-range wadcutter target pistol.

These are, The Shadow (top) and a copy of a Vaughan Bode cartoon, from Cheech Wizard.