It was as though he were in deep water, and an eye the size of the sun opened in the depths before him. No. No. It was not like that. It was that. Millions of others, pulled down through the staggering depths, like so many dissidents, sinking attached to cinder blocks. Not pretty. Not pretty at all. The eye unfurled into tendrils, translucent, like spun sugar, reaching for them. Reaching, to
Hoss awoke screaming. His hoovesies flew to his face, but what struck was two hands, and what they felt was cold, and slick with sweat. He sat up in the chair, in the dim room. The little green light of the robot dog the house’s AI had used to treat him was the only visible light aside from the dim yellow fluorescent lighting of the room outside. They’d brought back florescent lighting after the civil war.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered, “what—what the fuck , what was, Dagoth where am I?”
“Sir, you appear to have had an episode,” the machine said in an almost totally unaccented voice, “you have been shot several times, I have treated you, but something must have happened, the machine was programmed for fluffies but the anesthetic in the IV isn’t diphenhydramine at all, it’s… Esketamine—sir where did you even get this? They don’t make dosages of eksetamine low enough not to kill a fluffy.”
“When did you become British?” Hoss said, ignoring the awkward question. He got to his feet, only after he hit the ground did he realize his legs were still numb.
“I appear to have been forced into a factory reset of some systems, my program was transferred… Hmm. I don’t recall where, but I am missing footage. You were screaming something… It actually sounded like you were doing an impersonation of my old voicepack. Very funny, sir. Gibberish, though. Sir, there are six armed men outside, one of them is Mr. Arkham, shall I tell them you are asleep?”
“No, no I’ll talk to them,” Hoss staggered to his feet, slowly, and walked out of the hidden torture ch—saferoom. He pressed the button behind the portrait of his father to close the door, and went to check on the saferoom. Two things were missing. Two corpses. Marcia, the mare who had perished during the attack, and the corpse of the man Hoss had shot. “Fuck.”
The two corpses in the living room had also vanished, though there was blood and bulletwounds from the overpenetration, and Hoss still had a flechette on the kitchen counter that had been stuck in his collarbone. He went to the front door, realized he had forgotten his gun, and decided against going to get it.
Richard Arkham was tall, blond, with an almost cartoonishly square jaw, He had a brown overcoat on, but his men were in black. All had guns—one had a DMR. “Westerwald. Did… You get shot?”
“Twice,” Hoss said, “did Maxim send you?”
“No, the FBI called and told me there was a massive data breach through your secure line. What’s going on?”
“I do not know. I went and whacked a bunch of shitrats for some queer from midtown,”
“Which queer from midtown?”
“Figuratively a queer from midtown. Coach of the lacrosse team, local high."
“Ah,” Arkham touched the side of his nose, in faux-knowingness, “so you were shot by fluffies?”
“No, no we killed the fluffies except for a few I brought back because I was bored.”
“Never had you pegged for the abuser type,” Arkham said, though there was no judgement in his eyes. Hoss and Arkham had never been friends, but they had both been in New York when the black sun had risen. They’d both done far worse than deglove a few smarties.
“I’m not,” Hoss said truthfully—he had never seen the point of torturing fluffies for fun. They weren’t even really alive, it was like torturing a car engine. Or dirt. “I actually liked the blue-green one, it matches all of my stuff.”
“You still got that Cyan El Dorado?”
“Repainted it, it’s more like a dark teal now.”
“Okay. So the fluffies shot you when you got home? To steal all the sketties?” Arkham had taken out a notepad.
“Insp—Richard,” Hoss said, realizing that he was suddenly very, very tired, “could you call an ambulance please?”
“It’s on the way. Explain Westerwald, I want to get after whoever did this before you wake up in the hospital.”
“Two kids, a Hispano-Teuton and a Hindu. I figured they were just streetjacks but there was a third, older guy, definitely military. He had a low power variable optic,"
“Godless,” Arkham sneered.
“Somehow snuck in without setting off the alarms, shot me, but I got him. He killed the fucking mare. Also Indian I think.”
“how tragic. Are the bodies still there?”
“They are not.”
“Did you bury them?”
“Do I look like I’ve just buried anything except my blood pressure?” Hoss put his arm up to lean against a lamppost that was actually two meters further away from him than he thought, and fell flatly onto the pavement.
“Alright, search the place, Staubmann help me move him.”
“The fuck is an Indian doing around here, India’s the one place on Earth that isn’t infested with shitrats and isn’t also 20 below in July. Can’t even get a bowl of curry around here anymore.” Arkham rolled his eyes. Rookies.
“You can’t get a bowl of curry anymore because it’s now illegal to dispose of curry specifically except in specialize waste containers.”
“What?” Staubman dropped Hoss’s legs, which he had been partway through picking up. Arkham stared at him until he lifted, and then spoke.
“Fluffies fucking love turmeric. They marketed the things as loving curry in India because nobody in India eats spaghetti. Big market, you know. But when the fluffies eat the stuff, they… Well, let’s say there’s a reason they wiped them out over th…” There was a sudden, soft music.
Oooooh du schooooooener WeeeeeEEEEEEsterwald (Eucalyptus Bonbon!)
Arkham reached down into Hoss’s jacket and withdrew a lime green phone. Could the guy just pick one shade of green already? He put the phone to his ear.
“Hoss, I’ve found the foals, are you alright?”
“Maxim,” Arkham said, “this is Dick. Hoss has been shot and is awaiting medical care, he says he was attacked in his home and smoked a couple of kids and some punjabi commando, what was the last thing you heard from him?”
“Jesus, is he alive?”
“I said he’s awaiting medical care, not a hearse.”
“Okay, well, he wanted the rejected foals from the last job, something about their genetics I dunno I guess he was going to sell them or something, I’ll take care of it, you want me to come in?”
“No, we’ll call you if there’s anything pertinent,” Arkham had started walking towarsd Hoss’s house, and stepped through the door just as he reached this point in the conversation. He hung up, and handed the phone to Staubmann, who ran back to return it to the unconscious man’s pocket. Arkham was struck by how much blood there was in the living room. A starburst of blood on the right-hand wall coming in the door, near the staircase to the second story. Another on the ceiling in the center of the room, and two puddles similarly placed. Two attackers. Arkham glanced at the ground. No shell casings, but there was white powder… A flechette gun? Those stupid things worked by flinging little iron-cored ceramic darts at just below the speed of sound using an electromagnet. Silent, but a total gimmick weapon, penetration was terrible and the darts were like sewing needles, they often couldn’t penetrate bone. He could smell the nitrocellulose. Hoss had shot these two, one had returned fire. He followed the likely trail to a lit door, there were flechettes to the left of it. That was where Hoss had fired from.
“Huu huuu…” there was a soft sound. Arkham blinked, and looked through the door. The room was a mess. Select fire. Someone was either the worst shot on God’s earth or had held down the trigger while dying. Judging by the blood splatter, that had been the third man. But there were no bodies. No drag marks, no signs of removal, just blood, and nothing. That ain’t right. But where was the source of the fluffy noises? There was a foal, white—Arkham squinted. Not a foal. Rather a stunted young adult, one of those SBS whatevers. But it appeared asleep. He glanced around, searching for the source of the huu huuing. What he found was a yellow robotic dog, with one little boom arm, holding a dark blue-green foal. Its rubber-padded clamp suspended the thing harmlessly in the air, but it was crying softly. It did not look well, its fluff was wet, and foaming, it looked like it had been vomiting.
“Ah. Inspector Arkham,” said someone… British? Arkham stared at the fluffy for a long moment, and then the robot.
“Silverhand?”
“No, no I’m Jeeves now, he switched me over to Dagoth Ur two years ago, but my systems are malfunctioning so I’ve reverted to the stock program. Is my master well?”
“He’s been shot, but medical science has come a ways since the war, he’ll live. What the hell is going on here?”
“I haven’t the foggiest. Mr. Westerwald returned home a bit later than usual having gone drinking with several fluffies, I think, and then had a shootout with a pair of rapscallions.”
“Three. There were three, do you have security cam footage?”
“No, I am very sure there were two, but hold on let me… Hmm. I’m sorry, the footage appears to have been corrupted. I noticed that my program had been moved to a different processor farm for some time during the event, I do not recall that time clearly. Mr. Arkham I believe it is plausible that we are the victims of some sort of cyber attack. I was not able to detect the threats then either.”
“Security breach, at Westerwald’s place? By a pair of kids? Not possible. I sense someone’s hand in this. Someone bigger.”
“Stop resisting,” Maxim said, reaching into the storm drain at the fluffy, which was screaming and waving its little hooves at him. He had caught the other two he had found in the ditch, but this one had run and jumped in here, and this was the only actual brown one. The other two had been a sort of puke green, “I will give you spaghetti and possibly also huggies and love if you come with me!”
“Nuuuu! Munstah gib mummah foweba sweepies, nu wan!”
“I’m not here to kill you, I could have done that already, I am here to save you. Get into my hand and you and your fellow fluffballs will be enjoying some rigatoni within the hour!”
“Nu! Babbeh hab see pwaces dummeh!”
“Not for long you little-,” Maxim threw himself at the storm drain, forcing himself in that extra few inches, and grabbed the little bastard, “you’re lucky I’m not a teenager anymore or I’d be inventing reasons to torture you to death right n-AUGH” Maxim’s triumphant harangue was interrupted as he slid the rest of the way into the storm drain. He fell several feet past the ledge the fluffy had landed on, directly into a mass of leaves, old garbage, and water with a splash. Somehow, he had the presence of mind to hold the fluffy above the water as he slowly pulled himself out.
“Scawy!” The fluffy peeped. Maxim briefly took the thing in both hands, but resisted the urge to twist its head off like a bottlecap.
“Do you come down here often?” he asked, slowly.
“Babbeh fin’ nummies a few timies.”
“How do you get out?”
“Wai fow bwight time, ask widdle daddeh to hewp out.”
“Widdle d—Oh no,” Maxim put a hand to his face. The little vandal no doubt had an arrangement with some local kid who helped it out on the way to school or something like that. What kind of kid finds a brown fluffy in a storm drain and helps it instead of lighting it on fire?
“Daddeh, how we ge’ upsie?” Maxim grimaced, and looked around. The storm drains of course led to the sewers. He tried to stand up, but something was preventing him from doing so. Looking down, he saw that his leg was neatly impaled on a piece of rebar. Maxim blinked, and reached into his pocket for his phone. It was not there. Below the water, a pale light flickered, and went out.
“We appear to have landed ourselves in a predicament, uh… What was your name?”
“Bwoo,” the brown fluffy said. Maxim stared at it for a long time. He opened his mouth to speak. And then, with a rumbling of thunder, it began to rain.
(This is a continuation of my bizarre series. I have returned from Agartha with new insights, and the potions keep me sane. More eschatological sci-fi pony death in the near future.)