Metrophage

FOUR

During the last few hours of night, Jonny was caught in a series of violent, fevered dreams in which he was being pursued by things he could not see. The end of each dream was the same: he would stumble or feel his legs lock like rusting machinery, leaving him stranded and helpless. Then something would grab him and he would be jolted awake by a phosphorous dream-flash that snapped his eyes open. He would lie in the dark room staring at the ceiling as vague pains stirred just behind his eyes. In a few minutes he would drift back to sleep. For a time he would float peacefully on a sea of nothingness, but then the dreams would start again.

There was a woman, all in white, running down Hollywood Boulevard, her hair and dress in flames. Long rows of chrome beetles moving over damp brickwork. A man in the back of a pedicab.

Mirror shades, cheap plastic poncho. From the cab, he points a gun at Jonny. It is all deliriously slow. There is no sound, only the muzzle flash and the heat of impact.

"Jonny, wake up, goddamit!" called Ice. "You're gonna pull your stitches out."

Jonny awoke at the sound of her voice. Her face was right above his, thin lines of tension spreading out radially from the corners of her eyes. "Jesus, what a ride," he said, his voice hoarse with sleep. "How long have I been out?"

"Almost twenty hours," said Ice. She settled down next to him on the futon. She was wearing baggy fatigue pants and a tank top with the faded picture of some Japanese pop singer. "I was starting to get worried. You barely twitched in all that time, then all of a sudden you're moaning and rolling around like you're trying to hogtie a Meat Boy."

"Did it look like I made it?"

Ice smiled. "You were massacred."

"Typical," replied Jonny.

The room they were in was small. Seeing that brought back images of the previous night. He remembered the Piranhas, his trek through the sewers, Zamora's threats. His arms were still bandaged, his right shoulder itched fiercely in a clear plastic induction cast, healing in its weak electrical field. Looking around, Jonny saw rough walls, gray limestone papered with yellowing layers of ancient subway schedules and anti-Arab propaganda. Hexagonal panels of radio-luminescent plastic lit cases of medical supplies and electronic gear stacked ceiling-high against two walls.

"No windows," Jonny said. We're still underground."

"Give that man a cigar," said Ice. She picked up a styrofoam tray from a crate littered with drug ampoules. The smell of frijoles and rice assaulted Jonny. "Breakfast, babe. Quieres?"

He groaned and pulled the sheets up over his face. "Take it away. I'll never eat again."

"Come on, you've got to get your strength back."

"Forget it. You're going to have to feed me with needles. I think something slept in my mouth."

Ice set the tray down, as Jonny reached out and took her arm, pulling her on top of him. Careful to avoid his bandages, she slid her arms under his shoulders, grinding her crotch into his. The scent of her body transported him; they were home, in their own bed in Hollywood. He could sense Sumi's presence nearby. Then a second later, the hallucination was gone. Still kissing, Jonny experienced a terrific urge to bite Ice's tongue.

"You know I'm still pissed at you," he said.

"I know," said Ice.

"And I don't buy that 'I don't know why I left' crap, either."

"But I don't know why. It's all twisted around in my head." Ice sat up, pushing a few beaded corn-rows of hair from her face. "I just knew I had to move. Get away."

"From what?"

"From everything. From my life. And that meant you and Sumi."

"That's comforting."

"Part of it was living in this city. Nothing's real here. It was getting to me. Was getting to you, too."

Jonny put a hand on Ice's cheek and turned her head, forcing her to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"We were dying," she said quietly, almost whispering. "I watched you staring out the window night after night like you were working on some puzzle, trying to put it together in your mind. Sumi fiddling with her circuit boards. We were all together, but we might as well have been on different continents."

Jonny shrugged. "Let's face it, we have to keep a little detached in our work to stay sane. Sometimes that spills over. But we can fix that."

"But there's more than that," said Ice. "Have you ever heard of the Spectacle?"

"No."

"It's a political theory. Groucho talks about it. He's kind of our leader around here. Says the Spectacle is the way the government keeps control. It sets up these mysterious and complex systems like restrictions on medical service, the Committee, it makes the Arabs and the Alpha Rats into icons of evil. That way, it keeps us isolated and makes us feel like we don't have any control over our own lives."

"And you think the three of us got eaten up by the Spectacle?"

"Yeah," said Ice. "Do you understand what I'm saying? "

As Jonny he sat up, Ice rolled off his lap and lay down beside him. "I understand it's all very easy to argue in the abstract," he said.

"Talking politics is a good way to avoid what really hurts."

Ice looked at her hands, lines of tension deepening around her eyes. "I was sick," she said. "I didn't love you. I didn't love Sumi. I was hollow and dead and there was nothing inside me but dust and dry bones. I don't think you want to understand."

"That's not true." Jonny reached under her shirt and rubbed the small of her back. "We're back together; that's what counts. We'll get Sumi and work the rest of it out."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," Ice said.

"So am I. I wish I'd seen you needed help back at the old place."

Ice smiling guardedly, and rested her hand on his stomach.

Under her fingers, Jonny became aware of the steady rhythm of his own breathing. He groped for something to say to ease the tension, but nothing came to him. "We kept your stupid Samba tapes," he offered finally. That made her laugh. Jonny broke up, too, and they lay on the futon giggling like idiots until she pulled him to her.

He bent to her breasts, pulling her shirt off over her head, finding her penny-colored nipples with his tongue. Ice arched her back, tugging off her pants and tossing them away, cupping his testicles on the return motion. She pushed Jonny onto his back, rubbing herself along the shaft of his erect penis. When she lowered herself upon him, he held her for a moment, struck again by a cold deja vu, needing to confirm for himself the reality of her presence, the flesh that held him. She gave a little grunt as he entered her; her face eased of tension for the first time since he had woken.

They moved slowly at first, drawing out each thrust (damp friction), the motion resolving itself at the moment of greatest tension, and beginning again. He came quickly, unexpectedly, and she, a moment later.

They lay there, clinging to each other damply, unwilling and unable to do anything else. Jonny traced the outline of her shoulder blades with his fingers. She closed her eyes, her feathery breath coming cool across his chest.

Later he asked, "So what do we do about getting Sumi?"

Ice sat up, wiping sweat from her eyes. "We talk to Groucho and see if he has any ideas."

"You called him 'your leader'? I didn't think anarquistas had leaders."

"Every group has leaders," Ice said evenly. "What the Croakers shun are rulers."

"Shun. Jesus, you really are one of them, aren't you?"

"I really am," she said somewhat wickedly.

"What would your poor mother think?"

"My mama was a Hollywood whore and so was yours." Ice rolled off the bed onto her feet and clapped her hands. "Come on, you have to move around or you're going to get stiff."

When Jonny stood up, he caught his reflection in the aluminum housing of a portable CT scanner. "I look like a goddam mummy," he said.

"You look fine. Let's see how you walk."

Standing, Jonny found his balance shot by the combination of long sleep and drugs. With his arm around Ice's shoulder, he made it around the room a few times, his legs feeling stronger with each circuit. However, he was aware of not yet thinking straight. There was something he had to do. Twenty hours sleep was a long time.

"How long had he wandered in the sewers? What time is it?" he asked.

"About four in the afternoon." said Ice, glancing at her watch.

"What day?"

"Wednesday."

Jonny concentrated, trying to force the fog from his brain. He counted backwards; the numbers stumbled by. Eventually, the answer seemed right, or at least close enough. "Six hours," he said.

"Six hours what?"

"In six hours Colonel Zamora declares open season on me."

Ice handed him a set of green nylon overalls with the Pemex logo stenciled on the back. Under the breast pocket was a small hole surrounded by a suggestive rust-colored stain.

"Welcome to the club," she said.

Ice lead him through three levels of absolute darkness, through crawl spaces damp with leakage from underground pipes, up frozen escalators and an elevator shaft where they stood on a section of heavy wire mesh barely a half-meter square and were lifted slowly by a retrofit electric dumb waiter. At the top of the shaft Jonny was engulfed in stars. A three hundred and sixty degree panorama of open space swung slowly around him, illuminating the tile walls with solar flares and star fire. It was like nothing he had ever seen sober.

He said, "I'm seeing this, right? This isn't just brain damage or something?"

"Don't worry," said Ice. Some lunatic dragged a Zeiss projector from the planetarium and reassembled it down here. We got it hooked to a satellite dish top-side. Pulls down signals from some old NASA probe. You know, Jonny…"

Ice took his hand and lead him to the edge of a subway platform, then down onto the tracks. "…things get a little strange here sometimes. I mean, we're all dedicated anarquistas, but we're also artists. Some of us more than others."

"You an artist, too?" asked Jonny.

Ice shrugged. Only where stars marked her face could Jonny see her, her dark features blending evenly with the black of space.

"I'm not a painter or a sculptor, if that's what you mean. Art here means more than that. It's a way of looking at the world; a state of mind. I just don't want you to make any quick judgments about these people."

"You afraid I might not like your revolution?"

"You work very hard at being cynical, I know that. But what we're doing down here means something. It's not just revolution we're after. It's political alchemy."

"What does that mean?"

"We're out to change the world."

Jonny scratched at his injured shoulder. "Sounds great," he said. "Just hope I have the shoes to go with it."

As they moved beyond the star fields, they were plunged back into darkness. Ice pulled Jonny to one side of the tracks and said, "Don't step on any wires. Some of 'em are dummies. Cables hooked up to vacuum alarms." Jonny was impressed with the sureness of Ice's moves in the dark tunnels. Whatever she had been doing with the Croakers for the last year had revitalized her. Jonny thought back on the last months he and Ice and Sumi had lived together. It was just as Ice described it. Stasis. The long, slow surrender of emotions to habit. Things could be different now, he thought. He reached for her shoulder in the darkness, and felt her hand close around his. Up ahead, there was light on the tracks.

"This is it," said Ice evenly. But Jonny could see she was trying to contain her excitement. "Your gonna love this. We're right on the edge of the clinic."

Voices echoed around the edges of the tunnel, blending to become a single voice whispering in a language Jonny could not understand. As they approached the light, the sound deepened, was joined by the astringent smell of disinfectants. Jonny followed Ice up a short flight of particle board stairs to the flat expanse of a subway platform. A group of Croakers, techs, by the look of them, were lounging, smoking and talking, on a stack of brushed aluminum packing cases. A couple of the women waved to Ice from their perch.

"Recognize the place? It's the old financial district metro line," Ice said.

"I've seen photos. But I thought the Committee dynamited these tunnels during the Protein Rebellion."

"They closed off the ends and a lot of the service tunnels, but squatters were living down here for years."

Jonny followed Ice through a maze of maintenance shops sectioned off with ruined vending machines and lozenges of graffiti-covered fiberglass. Croaker techs bent over fiber optic bundles and circuit boards in a jumble of disassembled diagnostic devices (Haag-Streit electron microscopes, magnetic resonance imagers, a video micrographer) nodding and shouting polyglot advice. Further on, Ice lead him through a workshop where rusting M-16's and AK-47's were retooled and fit with computer-aided sighting mechanisms.

There was a surgery, cool lights glinting off delicate instruments.

Silent children stood to the side of one table, studying a man's open abdomen through an enormous Fresnel lens. A legless woman surgeon, suspended in a harness from a webwork of runners attached to the ceiling, described the tying off of an artery in rapid-fire Spanish. Older children translated into English and Japanese for the younger ones. "We're also a teaching hospital," said Ice. She nodded gravely toward the children. "If things don't work out, they'll be the next generation of Croakers."

Jonny leaned against a wall covered in stylized biomorphic landscapes of L.A., done in watery browns and grays.

"This is really-impressive," he said. Someone had painted the Capital Records building to resemble the bleached skeleton of some prehistoric whale. The HOLLYWOOD sign, all driftwood and jellyfish. He shook his head numbly.

"The place is quiet now," said Ice. "Rumor has it that the Committee's gearing up for a big push. We've been getting almost double our usual patient-load."

"How do you get them down here?"

"Same way you got here: through the sewers. Most people make a less spectacular entrance, though."

"I sure hope so," said Jonny. He rubbed his sore shoulder, wondering if he could score some endorphins. "Tell me, you getting many leprosy cases down here? I'm moving Dapsone and Rifampin like cotton candy at the circus."

Ice crooked a finger at Jonny and lead him through a poured concrete arch studded with vacuum tubes and plastic children's toys.

At the end of a short service corridor they entered a lab. Inside, Ice keyed in a number sequence on a Zijin Chinese PC hooked to a bank of video monitors. Three screens lit up with multi-colored snow, which gradually dissipated when Ice punched the monitor housing with the side of her fist. On one screen, a couple of Croakers in moonsuits were taking blood from a woman's arm. Fingering the PC's joystick, Jonny moved the picture in tighter on the woman's face.

There were marks there. Seamless and discolored lepromatous lesions. Another screen showed the same room from a different angle. There were about a dozen other people, smoking and reading on cots. All had lesions similar to the first woman.

Jonny let out a long breath. "What's with the quarantine?" he asked.

Ice entered another code on the Zijin and more monitors lit up.

"It seemed like a good idea. Most of the lepers we've seen have been carrying a weird new strain of the disease. It seems to be viral."

Jonny squinted slightly at the monitors. On one screen, a Croaker was moving from cot to cot, using a scalpel to scrape tissue samples from each leper's arm, while a second Croaker took the samples and sealed them in a plastic case marked with an orange biohazard trefoil. "Viral leprosy? Never heard of it," Jonny said.

"Neither had we," said Ice. She pointed to a monitor where amber alphanumerics scrolled up a line at a time. "We cross-checked all our exam data with the Merck software and came up empty. The symptoms match all the known strains of leprosy- skin macules, epidermal tumors, lesions of the peripheral nerves, loss of feeling in the limbs- but the little bugger that causes it is some kind of mutant-voodoo-patch job. It's also killing people."

"How?" asked Jonny.

"Secondary infection. In the latter stages, patients tend to develop high fevers and brain lesions. The pathology could be meningitis. There it is," said Ice. She nodded to a screen at the upper right.

Jonny looked up. The monitor displayed a time-lapse video micrograph of the leprosy virus, surrounded by numbers and biodata graphs. As he watched, the virus inserted its genetic material into the nucleus of a cell. Within seconds, the virus was cloning itself, filling the cell with ghostly larvae until the walls burst, scattering parasites into the blood stream. The virus's shape, the polyhedral head, cylindrical sheath and jointed fibers that attached it to the cell wall, reminded Jonny of pictures he had seen of twentieth century lunar landing modules. But the proportions of this module were all wrong.

"Jesus, the head on that thing's huge," he said. "But it's just a bacteriophage. Nothing weird about that."

"That's what everybody says," replied a different voice. Jonny turned and saw a boy wearing the body portion of a moon suit. In one hand, the boy carried the suit's head covering; in the other, a small case marked with a biohazard sticker. "Ice, you teasing the guests, again?" he asked. The boy's face was luminously white, his head, hairless and smooth. Jonny recognized the look. He was a Zombie Analytic.

As the Zombie shed the rest of his protective gear, depositing it in a gray metal hamper, Ice went to him and kissed him lightly on the lips. She looked back and said, "Jonny, meet Skid the Kid."

The Kid held out one thin, white hand to Jonny and they shook.

Closer now, Jonny could see that the boy was no more than sixteen, and thin to the point of anorexia. He wore a tight see-through shirt and black drawstring pants. The archetypal Zombie, Jonny thought.

However, there were dark patches on the boy's scalp and hands where the subcutaneous pixels had burned out or been destroyed. He obviously had not had any serious maintenance in months.

"Actually, we've met already," Skid said. "I was in the stomping party that found you in the greenhouse."

"Yeah? Those must be your footprints on the back of my skull."

Skid laughed. "Wouldn't be at all surprised." Over his features, he flashed a boxer's face, sweaty and bruised. "Croakers rule, okay! Eat the dead! Totally badass." A second later, his own face was back.

"Course, I also helped carry you up to the clinic, so maybe it all balances out, right?"

Jonny smiled. "Sure. Someday if I have to beat on you, I'll drive you to the farmacia. No problem." He was put-off by the Kid. It was almost a cellular thing. Most Zombie Analytics Jonny had known had worked too hard at being ingratiating, going straight for the hard-sell. No doubt it was some habit left over from their early days in the flesh trade. And it was not helped by the fact it cost each Zombie a small fortune to maintain their electronics. Still, knowing the time and expense they took to have their skin dermatoned off and underlayed with pixel strips, Jonny found it difficult to work up much sympathy.

But Skid the Kid kept on smiling. "Ice tells me you used to be a cop."

"No," said Jonny. "I was in the Committee for Public Health. Completely different organization."

"What's the difference?"

"The Committee knows what they're doing. And cops can't call in an air strike."

Skid the Kid laughed again, and clapped his hands in delight.

"What's a Zombie doing working with the Croakers? You moonlighting or something?" asked Jonny.

"There's lots of Zombies down here," Ice cut-in. "We've got Naginata Sisters on security and the Bosozukos help with vehicle maintenance. The Funky Gurus pretty much run the armory on their own. We're a mongrel group. Everybody's welcome."

Jonny nodded curtly. He sensed a set-up. "Sounds like a great set-up. Think I'll pass, though."

"We weren't trying to recruit you," said Ice quickly. But she frowned so fiercely, Jonny could tell she was lying. And probably disappointed.

Hoping to steer things back to neutral ground, he said, "So tell me more about this virus."

Ice sighed. "Not much more to tell. We don't know what the hell it is or where it came from. It looks like a phage, but it only attacks cells, like a virus. If we catch the infection early, we can slow it down with interferon or interlukin IV. But the virus mutates in a few days, and we're back where we started."

She opened and closer her hands in frustration. "We're just a clinic, you know? We patch people up and send 'em home. We're not set-up to do goddam research."

Skid leaned back against the computer console, fingers busy in his breast pocket. He pulled out a crumpled pack of Beedees, broke off the filter and lit one up. The burning rope-smell of cheap Indian tobacco filled the room. "We've got scouts out, keeping tabs on how the military handles things. Also, we're watching traffic in and out of New Hope. Figure those assholes'll have access to any new vaccines before they hit the street."

"Sounds reasonable," said Jonny. He watched the monitors over Skid's shoulder. They were cycling through a programmed surveillance routine, displaying a series of grainy views of the Croakers' underground lair. The greenhouse, with its newly patched bubble. Machine shops. A young Mestizo girl leading a group of patients to the surface. The surgery. The children. "Listen, I'm sorry if I'm a little of jumpy," Jonny said. "Truth is, I'm hurting and nervous and probably still a little punch drunk. You guys- this set-up- it's a lot to take in at once, you know?"

"You have a talent for pissing people off," said Ice. But it was a small reprove, pouting and indulgent. "You'll be all right though, officer."

"Definitely all right. I sense star quality here," Skid said. He puffed at the Beedee and smiled broadly. "You gonna want to see Groucho?"

"Yeah, is he back yet?" asked Ice.

"About an hour ago."

"Aces," Ice replied. She draped an arm across Jonny's shoulders. "Looks like you get an audience with the most wanted man in California."

"Sounds like fun," said Jonny.

"He is."

Skid the Kid raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, like the riddle of the Sphinx."

Jonny followed Ice and Skid past empty and subterranean shop fronts. Each deserted glass facade presented him with a different and more bizarre tableau. He remembered that Ice had said they were all artists down here. He supposed that had something to do with the strange windows. Behind one, an animated hologram, something like a Mandala or a printed circuit, showed men and women experiencing all fifty-eight versions of the Tantric afterlife. Another seemed to hold a shooting gallery. A vacuumed-suited mannequin was mounted on a revolving wheel of fortune, animal and machine fetishes dangling from its arms and neck. Jonny's legs shook with the sub-sonic rumbling of traffic overhead. He thought of ghost trains moving through the metro tunnels on endless runs, the passengers turning to dust as they held onto the overhead straps. His reflection in a window startled him, and he hurried to catch up with the others.

"Nice architecture you got down here," Jonny said. "I dig the style. Early Nervous Breakdown, right?"

They walked through an empty lobby, behind a semi-circular wall of frosted glass, into the old metro line security complex. Ice knocked on a door of cheap oak veneer and ushered Jonny through.

The smell of sandalwood incense was strong. The room (Actually two rooms; Jonny could see where the sheet rock had been cut away, leaving a ragged white fringe.), was large and mostly empty. It contained an electronic wall map of the metro system, a small lacquered shrine to Shakyamuni, some cheap reproductions of surrealist artwork and a slight, dark-skinned man with the smooth, functional musculature of a dancer.

A blur of gray metal sliced the air above man's head. When he opened his hand, the chain end of a kusairagama flew, curling itself, snake-like, around a bare wall beam. Then, fluid and savage, he started forward, twisting, kicking and feinting, until he ripped the sickle portion of the weapon across the beam at eye level. He stepped back and exhaled once. Then he turned and grinned, acknowledging Jonny and the others for the first time.

"I see our guest has returned from the dead," he said, unwrapping the chain from the scarred beam. Jonny noticed that the other beams bore similar scars. "You look good in Croaker banderas, Jonny. Course, you better not let la Migra see you dressed like that."

"They'll have your ass over the border and chained to some Tijuana work-gang faster than you can say 'green card.'"

Tossing the kusairagama aside, he crossed the room with the same liquid grace he had displayed while on the attack. His eyes were small and dark, but quick, missing nothing. He wore his hair slicked back, chollo-style, and had cross-hatched tattoos extending from his shoulders to his wrists, the mark of a particular Iban warrior-priest class. A gold earring, a Caduceus, dangled from his left lobe. As he shook Jonny's hand, he said, "The name's Groucho, by the way. Please come in."

The anarchist went to a foam rubber mattress set in a corner of the room, and pulled on a black mesh t-shirt. On a cheap plastic folding table lay a crumbling volume of Rimbaud. Near it was an old fashioned metronome with a photo of an eye clipped to the pendulum. Jonny wondered if it was some kind of joke.

"Do you like our set-up?" asked Groucho. "I'm sure these two have been keeping you busy. That's good. Boredom and lack of purpose are the chief problems of our age. Don't you agree, Jonny?"

Jonny, who was still trying to figure out the metronome joke, was caught off guard. "What? Oh yeah, sure. Boredom and getting shot in the head."

Groucho brought over a couple of canvas chairs, and sat down, smiling in a manner that Jonny found unsettling. The anarchist possessed a certain relaxed grace, an unaffected air, that was riveting. It was impossible to take your eyes off him.

"But violence is the choice we've made, isn't it?" Groucho said.

"We accept the uncertainties, our lives revolve around them. As Croakers, we don't kill because we want to. As a Buddhist, it goes against all my principles. But the act of ridding ourselves of the Committee brings death with it. That's why we run these clinics. It's partly revolution, but, frankly, it's part penance, too. When you take life, you are also obligated to try and save it." He shrugged. "And speaking of payback, please accept my thanks, for blowing away that pig, Lieutenant Cawfly. This last bit, Groucho spoke with more venom than the first."

"Did somebody buy a billboard about that or something?" Jonny asked.

He shook his head. "I was a lot younger then. I don't even know if I'd do it now. But I can tell you it wasn't for anybody's liberation but my own. Independent thought and action are essential for a good anarchist," said Groucho.

Jonny slammed his fist onto the table. "Don't call me that! I'm no anarquista and I wouldn't have come here if I thought I was going to get campaign speeches."

Jonny looked at Ice hoping for support, but she was reading Rimbaud over Skid's shoulder. "Abandoning me to the lions," Jonny thought.

Groucho leaned forward, pointing his finger at Jonny. "No monkeys are soldiers, all monkeys are mischievous, i.e. Some mischievous creatures are not soldiers," he said. "Jonny, you're a dealer- You help to undermine a corrupt system. You subvert it and that is a basic function of a revolutionary."

The anarchist grinned wider and held up his hands to indicate that he knew he was moving too fast. Lightly, he rose from his chair and went to a battered desk, where he pulled a bottle of red wine from a file drawer. The sight of the liquor made Jonny groan. His thought was that he would like to have the whole thing for himself, to leave these people and their strange art, their talk of politics and death, and get lost in the sweet oblivion of ethanol madness. On the other hand, his stomach turned to acid mush at the mere thought of alcohol. While he tried to sort out which impulse was stronger, his psychic desires or his physical needs, he gazed at the art reproductions above his head.

When Groucho returned, (Ice and Skid, trailing behind) he said: "Do you like the surrealists? They were a remarkable twentieth century art movement. The first artists to genuinely comprehend the modern age. They applied principles of both psychology and physics to their work, attempting to unite the conscious and unconscious in a single gesture. But more than that, they were the ultimate revolutionaries, questioning everything that was known or knowable."

To Jonny, the Ernsts and the Dalis could have been snapshots from an only slightly depraved tour book of Los Angeles. The empty architecture that Groucho identified as Chirico's standard made him think of crumbling freeway overpasses and stretches of Hollywood in those few hours after sunset, before the gangs took possession of them for the night. The Tanguy reproductions reminded him of the mural of Los Angeles on the train platform. Someone had copied his style very accurately.

Groucho passed around fluted black champagne glasses, then opening the bottle, poured wine for all. The anarchist raised his glass as in a toast, but he did not drink. Instead, he went back to his chair, his eyes distant. Jonny felt relief when Ice sat beside him on the thin foam mattress.

"Forgive me if I seem to be pushing things," said Groucho. "I know about your run-in with Zamora. In fact, I may know more about old Pere Ubu's motives than you. How did you escape?"

"I didn't. Zamora let me go," Jonny replied, sniffing the tart wine. His stomach won the battle over his brain. He set the down glass down beside his foot.

"Yes, that makes sense in light of everything else." Groucho nodded, off somewhere.

"In light of what?"

The anarchist frowned, rolling the crystal glass between his palms. "Things are afoot, Jonny. I don't know the specifics yet. There are layers that are still hidden to me. Did you know that we've been trying to contact you, but couldn't because there was a tail on you for the last few weeks?"

"I had no idea."

"I thought not. Then old Ubu catches you and releases you a few hours later. Nimble Virtue turned you, by the way."

"I know. I saw her at detention center."

Ice chuckled. "I hope you shook that old bitch up. She's playing finger for Zamora, sucking up to old bastard. Got Easy Money working for her now, too."

"The slime leading the slime," said Jonny.

"Exactly," said Groucho. Over the anarchist's shoulder, Skid flashed Nimble Virtue's ravaged face. He stuck a finger up his nose, making a great production out of examining what he found there. He pulled his ears, rolled his eyes back in his sockets. A very un-Zombie thing to do. Jonny laughed in spite of himself.

"I understand that Easy Money's sticky fingers have gotten him in deep shit with Conover," Groucho said. "Did you hear that the Colonel is getting political heat from Sacramento about the smuggler lords? I believe he's getting set for a big move against them. There's talk that the Army's trying to get it together and take the moon back from the Alpha Rats. And somewhere in the middle of all this, you fit in, Jonny. Your name is all over town. Someone even mentioned Arabs."

Jonny rubbed at his sore shoulder. To Groucho, he said, "Look, if this is some simple trick to get me to join your army, you can forget it. The Colonel picked me up because he's trying to queer some deal of Conover's."

Groucho sipped his wine. He stared at the floor. "I doubt that. If anything, Zamora's trying to angle himself in for a piece of the action. That's why his move against the lords is so important. Not only will it satisfy the politicians, but if it succeeds, it will force the lords to deal with him directly. And that's what we're waiting for- when Zamora makes his move so do we. An all out attack on the Committee."

Jonny nodded. Something prickled along his spine as he realized that the anarchist was completely sincere. Jonny smiled and shivered at the same time. He thought of war.

"Why exactly did you come here?" asked Groucho.

"I need to get out town," Jonny said. "You've just said I'm being watched. That means I can't use any of my normal contacts. I heard that the Croakers have some smuggling routes that'll get me out onto the desert."

Groucho smiled and opened his hands. "I'd love to help you, Jonny. You're center stage in fat Ubu's carnival. Whatever we can do to trip him up if fine by me."

"There's one more thing," Jonny said. "I have to get Sumi, the woman I live with. I won't leave the city without her."

"That might be more difficult," said Groucho. He ran a finger around the rim of his glass, producing a clear, high ringing tone. "The Committee must know where you live by now."

"I don't think so. If they did, why would they pay Nimble Virtue to tip them that I was at the Pit? Wouldn't it be better to surprise me at home?"

"Not necessarily," said Ice. "They probably assumed we'd booby-trapped the apartment, so you'd be easier to pick off in the street."

Jonny looked at Groucho. "Your mind is made up?" asked the anarchist.

"I won't go without her."

"You're loyalty's commendable. Ice, what do you think?"

"Sumi means a lot to me, too, Groucho," Ice said. "I don't like the idea of leaving her out there alone. She's not equipped to deal with that kind of craziness."

Ice sat with her legs bent. Jonny looped an arm around one of her knees. It was just like old times. The two of them taking care of Sumi. That was assuming, he reminded himself. that Sumi was all right. That no one had gotten to her yet.

"What's your answer?" Jonny asked.

Groucho leaned back in his plastic folding chair, pointed to the wall over Jonny's head. "You see those photos, Jonny?" he asked quietly. "The one on the right is from the uprising in Paris, nineteen sixty eight. The other is the Spanish war against the fascists, in thirty seven. Yet here we are, over a hundred years later, in a mad city in a sick century fighting exactly the same battles they fought. Isolated, alienated, bored and drugged beyond caring. We're the trained dogs of the Spectacle. Zamora whistles, and we jump through his hoops."

"The Committee is the Spectacle's ultimate tool. It's devoured our lives, all art, our dignity. But existence is not predicated on the whim of politicians." The anarchist took a sip of wine.

"A hundred and fifty years ago the surrealists proclaimed themselves the revolt of the spirit. The spark in the wind, seeking the powder keg." The anarchist nodded in satisfaction. "So, we'll get your friend and we'll get you out of town and, with any luck at all, we'll humiliate fat King Ubu in the process. How does that sound?"

Jonny smiled at the anarchist, he just could not resist. "Yeah, but what if you get caught?"

Ice began to recite, and Skid joined in:

Well, then, rent me a tomb, whitewashed and outlined in cement Far, far underground.

Jonny frowned and fingered the musty volume of poetry.

"Rimbaud, right? Terrific. By the way, where'd that wine go?"