Segments
“They didn’t suffer,” she says as she checks each buckle on the straps holding him down. “I made sure of it. Boxcars has a thick neck, you know. Hard to sever it all in one stroke. But I managed.”
He’s not drugged, but he doesn’t need to be; he’s weak with blood loss, and the restraints are cinched tight. She’s forced a strap into his mouth to keep him from biting his tongue, so her voice carries easily over the muffled sounds he makes.
“Deuce is forgetful, but so careful with his explosives. It wasn’t easy to slip him faulty materials, especially the amount I needed. I had to make sure there’d be nothing left of him. That he’d never know what hit him.”
Now she bends over the stump of his arm, folding the ragged jacket sleeve back. He can feel her probing the torn tissue, the splintered edges of his carapace, marking where the circuitry will go.
“I didn’t even spoil Droog’s looks. Broke his neck. You see? I can be merciful. They had to die, but I didn’t have to be quick. I didn’t have to be considerate.”
She picks up the first mechanical segment, a nightmarish mess of bolts and armor and wire, checks the fit on his arm. He wants to curse and claw and bite, but the best he can manage is feeble straining, lips drawn back from the gag to reveal his teeth. Almost gently, she pushes his head back to the table.
“But that’s because I understand. They were only standing by you.”
He shrieks, the back of his mouth filling with spit. She smiles and shoves the first bolt home.
===
He loses consciousness somewhere in the middle of the operation. She waits for him to wake, then begins again, talking the whole time, offering tidbits of information he’d missed by jumping timelines. The way the town had burned, the inhabitants dead or scattered to the desert. How the Crew had fallen apart, how each had died alone. It is cruelty, of course. She loves the pain in his eyes. But she also needs him angry. Anger will keep him alive for her, better than any other treatment she could give him. And she wants him alive. He will suffer, and he will serve her purposes, because when all is said and done, with both their kingdoms gone, he is still a tool, a chesspiece, a card, and she is still a Queen. She will not let him forget it.
She screws the last segment into place, tests the connections while he looks at her, glassy-eyed but still hating.
Flick of a switch, and the arm hums to life.
“Can you move it for me, darling?”
The first thing he does is grab for her throat. Of course. He never disappoints. Another twitch of her finger deactivates the arm, and it clatters to the table, cold and dead. She leans down to kiss his forehead.
“Good boy.”
===
She doesn’t tell him to play, but he knows that’s what she wants. That’s why he’s been left alone with the glossy white baby grand.
White. Sterile. Ugly.
It’s a taunt.
His first impulse is to pry a leg off--the new arm would make short work of that--smash it, salvage the wire for weaponry. But she’s probably expecting that. He circles the piano, brooding. It’s not in his nature to think so hard about a thing, but the rules of the game have changed. The deaths of his Crew have raised the stakes. It’s not about uniforms or broken hearts or petty turf wars any more. She’s changed, and he’s changing too, like it or not. He can get dragged along, or he can adapt. Own the game.
He should smash the piano. Instead, he sits, and starts to play.
What comes out isn’t jazz, or swing, or ragtime. Because if he’s honest with himself, he’s always played that for her. And this isn’t hers.
Isn’t his, either, because he won’t give her the satisfaction of wanting this.
Some of the notes are the same, some of the rhythms, but what comes out of him now belongs to his Crew. His good hand is Boxcars, steady and practiced on the low notes. The melody is Droog, pensive, oddly mournful, though the piano can’t imitate the wailing of a sax. The high chords (left hand crossed suddenly over right)--those are Deuce on his best days, flashes of unexpected brilliance.
At some point he becomes aware that she’s standing behind him, close enough to touch.
He should stop. Spin in place and try for the umpteenth time to gut her with his new metal claws. But instead he shuts his eye and plays, and after a while, she goes away, or he stops sensing her there--he doesn’t know which, and he doesn’t care.
He’s not drugged, but he doesn’t need to be; he’s weak with blood loss, and the restraints are cinched tight. She’s forced a strap into his mouth to keep him from biting his tongue, so her voice carries easily over the muffled sounds he makes.
“Deuce is forgetful, but so careful with his explosives. It wasn’t easy to slip him faulty materials, especially the amount I needed. I had to make sure there’d be nothing left of him. That he’d never know what hit him.”
Now she bends over the stump of his arm, folding the ragged jacket sleeve back. He can feel her probing the torn tissue, the splintered edges of his carapace, marking where the circuitry will go.
“I didn’t even spoil Droog’s looks. Broke his neck. You see? I can be merciful. They had to die, but I didn’t have to be quick. I didn’t have to be considerate.”
She picks up the first mechanical segment, a nightmarish mess of bolts and armor and wire, checks the fit on his arm. He wants to curse and claw and bite, but the best he can manage is feeble straining, lips drawn back from the gag to reveal his teeth. Almost gently, she pushes his head back to the table.
“But that’s because I understand. They were only standing by you.”
He shrieks, the back of his mouth filling with spit. She smiles and shoves the first bolt home.
===
He loses consciousness somewhere in the middle of the operation. She waits for him to wake, then begins again, talking the whole time, offering tidbits of information he’d missed by jumping timelines. The way the town had burned, the inhabitants dead or scattered to the desert. How the Crew had fallen apart, how each had died alone. It is cruelty, of course. She loves the pain in his eyes. But she also needs him angry. Anger will keep him alive for her, better than any other treatment she could give him. And she wants him alive. He will suffer, and he will serve her purposes, because when all is said and done, with both their kingdoms gone, he is still a tool, a chesspiece, a card, and she is still a Queen. She will not let him forget it.
She screws the last segment into place, tests the connections while he looks at her, glassy-eyed but still hating.
Flick of a switch, and the arm hums to life.
“Can you move it for me, darling?”
The first thing he does is grab for her throat. Of course. He never disappoints. Another twitch of her finger deactivates the arm, and it clatters to the table, cold and dead. She leans down to kiss his forehead.
“Good boy.”
===
She doesn’t tell him to play, but he knows that’s what she wants. That’s why he’s been left alone with the glossy white baby grand.
White. Sterile. Ugly.
It’s a taunt.
His first impulse is to pry a leg off--the new arm would make short work of that--smash it, salvage the wire for weaponry. But she’s probably expecting that. He circles the piano, brooding. It’s not in his nature to think so hard about a thing, but the rules of the game have changed. The deaths of his Crew have raised the stakes. It’s not about uniforms or broken hearts or petty turf wars any more. She’s changed, and he’s changing too, like it or not. He can get dragged along, or he can adapt. Own the game.
He should smash the piano. Instead, he sits, and starts to play.
What comes out isn’t jazz, or swing, or ragtime. Because if he’s honest with himself, he’s always played that for her. And this isn’t hers.
Isn’t his, either, because he won’t give her the satisfaction of wanting this.
Some of the notes are the same, some of the rhythms, but what comes out of him now belongs to his Crew. His good hand is Boxcars, steady and practiced on the low notes. The melody is Droog, pensive, oddly mournful, though the piano can’t imitate the wailing of a sax. The high chords (left hand crossed suddenly over right)--those are Deuce on his best days, flashes of unexpected brilliance.
At some point he becomes aware that she’s standing behind him, close enough to touch.
He should stop. Spin in place and try for the umpteenth time to gut her with his new metal claws. But instead he shuts his eye and plays, and after a while, she goes away, or he stops sensing her there--he doesn’t know which, and he doesn’t care.