The Sacrifice Game

(102)

“Hi, Jed.”

“Hi, Marena.”

“So how are you doing?” she asked. She put down an empty Phlegmy cup, found the food delivery, dug out a slice of salmon, folded it onto a big round water biscuit, and pushed the package five finger-widths in front of me.

“I’m good,” I said. An imaginary mosquito buzzed behind my neck. That thing I’d forgotten. Damn.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Why, don’t I seem good?”

“Well, I don’t want to say you don’t seem good, but you don’t seem exactly happy, you know.”

“Maybe I just have a sad face.” I lifted out a slice and lowered it onto my plate. I took a bite. It wasn’t dry enough and the smoking was different, but it still had that great old taste. I said thanks to Great Grandfather Salmon.

“Oh, yeah… but, you know, you brought back the stuff, we’ll work out the LEON software on the Sacrifice Game, we’ll deal with it, we should all be feeling a lot better than we did two months ago.”

“Yes.” I uncapped the Tabasco sauce and shook five shake-worths onto the salmon.

“I mean, I know it’s hard to believe, but there was a time when people weren’t so blase about time travel.”

“Right.”

“You’re like Neil Armstrong or, well, you know, I hesitate to mention Christopher Columbus, obviously.”

“Thanks,” I said. “No one’s going to know about it, though, right?”

“Come on, don’t make me a schmuck. What’s it look like out there?”

“It doesn’t work too well without the drugs.”

“I know,” she said, “but still… seriously, what’s up with it? Any stock tips?”

“Uh, yeah. Buy gold and ammunition and keep them both under the mattress and stay down there with them.”

“Really?”

“I don’t know. Yes, basically.”

“Do you realize you’ve used up, like, half a bottle of Tabasco sauce?”

“Uh, no,” I said, “I guess I hadn’t noticed that.” I put down the bottle. “Thank you.” I picked up the cup of water and automatically poured a shot out on the floor for No Way. “Oops. Sorry,” I said. I found a napkin and bent down to wipe up the spill. The cup was still in my hand.

“It’s okay,” Marena said. I looked up at her. She wasn’t looking. I knocked the Tabasco sauce onto the tile floor.

“Oops again.” When I stood up I stepped on the bottle. It shattered.

“Damn,” I said. “Sorry. I am such a total mess.”

“It’s nothing,” Marena said. She started to get up.

“No, sit, I’ve got it,” I said. I squatted and picked up the pieces, getting sauce in my hands. Damn. Random perturbation. Okay. Mime washing. I took the pieces and cap thingy to the bathroom, pulling my IV with me. In the bathroom I rinsed my hands and, noisily, dropped most of the bottle in the wastebasket. I kept a nice long shard that, conveniently, had part of the neck on it, making a good handle. I tucked it under the soft inner-arm edge of my cast, sat back down, and picked up the clear sporkf.

“You know, you’ve been stabbing that salmon over and over.”

“Oh. Sorry.” The mosquito was buzzing louder.

“Yeah,” she said, “the way you’re holding that fork, I don’t know, it’s scary.” Pause. “Okay, so, you want to show me what you’re doing with the Game? Is that okay?”

“Sure,” I said. You lyin’, cheatin’ honky-tonk angel, I thought. I am totally onto you. I finished smoothing down the foil and rolled it into a little cylinder. This stuff is incredible, I thought. Color, thinness, pliability, a miraculous confluence of properties achieved by some unfathomable alchemy… in the old days we would have traded ten thralls for something like this. I slipped it into my shirt pocket.

“This tastes kind of weird,” she said, “is there salt in it?”

I looked around. She’d picked up what was left of my ice cream soda and tried it.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “That’s the way we used to have it.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“It’s a chocolate soda,” I said.

She looked up at me. It was one of those moments. She knew.

“Is that blood?” she asked.

“Um-”

“ Is it? Gross! Jesus!”

“Well, no, it’s beef stock, it’s just, like, au jus from Lobel Brothers-”

“Jed, it’s blood, it’s blood and I think I’m going to throw up.” She put the glass down on the table and looked away. Her face was all scrunched up.

“Sorry,” I said.

“I think we have to get you some help.”

“Oh, please,” I said. I looked down at the clotting soda. It didn’t seem quite so appetizing anymore. But I picked it up and took a slug anyway.

“Jed, I’m your good friend,” Marena said, “and I really feel like you might be freaking out just a little bit. Do you have any feelings in that regard?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” I said.

“Would you be willing to talk to the shrink? I mean without anybody else around. Confidentiality city.” She poured herself some water. The moment she wasn’t looking I slid the bottle fragment under the pillow. You could really dig out a pretty big plug of flesh with this thing. I cached the glass ready-to-hand in the near corner pocket of the pool table. Marena pulled out a baby Lurisia, wrenched it open, and drank half the bottle.

“Well?” she asked. “Seriously.”

“Uh, sure,” I said, “I mean, I’ll see what I can do, I’m not sure I want to go into therapy or anything-”

“No, no.”

“But, you know, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life confused either.”

She came over and put her hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes.

“Jed, seriously. I’m on your side. What’s going on?”

“I don’t think it’s anything,” I said. I moved my eyes away from actually looking into hers and focused on a tiny little mole on her forehead.

“Your eyes look like they’re not focusing or something.”

“Yeah, I think, uh, that’s right-”

“Maybe you should take a Val or four and chill.”

“I will.”

“Okay.” She sat down.

“Okay,” I said. I flicked on my screen. “Okay, just a beat, I have to purify the directions.”

“Uh, right.”

“Tin chi’m tex tahlah tex to cal ual tu cal xol,” I said.

“Cantul ti ku cex cantul lubul bin yicnal.”

“My breath is black, my breath is yellow, my breath

Is white, my breath is red. Accept her head.”

“Som pul yicnal can yah ual kak ke

Tix tu ch’aah u kah u chi u sudz.”

“Accept her husk, her skin. We cast her down,

Into the heart of the cave lake, turquoise heart.”

“So look inside,” I said to Marena. “Check it out.” I moved the marker and entered the move. Marena leaned over the screen.

“See the deal?” I asked. I got my glass knife out from under the pillow but kept it out of her sight line.

“I can’t focus on this anymore,” she said. She pushed back.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“Nothing.” She got up and moved away.

“No, you have a problem,” I said. “I can tell.” I pulled out my IV needle and, without thinking about it, licked away the drop of blood. She recoiled a little. I moved away from her, but between her and the door, keeping my right hand down at my side with the glass in the lee of her vision. “Seriously,” I said. “Please don’t make me upset. I know I look like a nerd, but when I do get upset, people say I’m hard to deal with. This is not a threat.”

“I don’t know,” she said. She leaned forward and reached for the speaker button on the phone.

“No, no, that’s not necessary,” I said. I got between her and the phone.

“Look, Jed, seriously,” she said, “I think something serious is happening and we need to talk about it”

“I’m there, I’m all over it,” I said, “yes, I want to help, don’t WORRY!”

“I just want to send one text,” she said. “Just to be on the safe side.”

“No, really, don’t,” I said. “Really, I’m adamant about this.”

She moved back.

“Okay, okay,” she said. She smiled. “Atom Ant. Let’s go sit down.” She went toward the chair. I repositioned between her and the doorway.

Pause.

“Okay, fine,” she said, suddenly shifting gears. “You don’t give a wet shit about the world, or other people, or, or the Maya, or even yourself, or anything,” she said. “You just wanted to see a bunch of ugly pretentious old buildings before the paint came off. You know what you are? You’re a fucking tourist. You ought to be wearing five different cameras and, and Madras shorts.”

“The article in Time. That was a plant, right? For an audience of one.”

“Come on,” she said. “Don’t make me have to get everybody in here.”

“So is that sort of a threat?” I asked. It was getting harder and harder to talk the way Jed would.

“No,” she said.

“How about this?” I asked. I got the piece of broken bottle into striking position, where she could see it. “Is this a threat?”

“Jed, listen.”

“Answer question, is this a threat?”

“Yes, I think it’s a threat,” she said. She started moving away, in the other direction, getting the bed between us. “What do you think?”

“That’s a stupid like question,” I said. I moved to the right. If I went after her she might get around me and get out the door. She paused. I could see her gauging how long it would take to get to the door, thinking it was better to keep the bed between us, that if I jumped over it she’d be able to fake me out and get away. I moved back a bit, to a spot where I could get to her before she got out the door. It was all about pretty subtle trajectories.

Come on, give her a break, Jed thought.

Too late, I thought.

Come on, Jed thought. Anyway, I’m making you up. You got that?

No you’re not, I thought, I’m really really back. THANKS for bringing me BACK! I’m BACK, Jeddy, it’s ME! I’m HERE for YOU! It’s ME, CHACAAAAAAAAAL!!!

You can’t do anything I don’t want you to do, Jed thought.

Of course I can, I’m so much stronger than you are. Wimp. Anyway Marena outfucked you. And now she’s your enemy. She’s going to have you put away for a very long time. You got that?

I guess, Jed thought. He was obviously just feeling too weak to say anything against me. When people like Jed feel all enraged and stupid and betrayed and everything, they don’t have enough stamina to put up with it. The whole world seems so bleak and scary to them that they just gray out.

“Okay, Jed,” Marena said, “come on, you know you’re-”

“Fuck Jed,” I said. “Jed’s gone. It’s me, Chacal, SURPRISESURPRISE SURPRISE!!! ”

Marena didn’t move, but I could see her hair stirring and goose bumps spreading over her face and her nipples standing up under the linen. Her eyes were huge but I could see her already coming out of the initial Oh-my-God-I’m-dead-I’m-dead shock and thinking, What am I going to do to get out Whoa. She was on the chair-and-table side of the room, as I had maneuvered her, so the door and the call button were on my side, with the bed between us. If I went around it to grab her, she could jump over it and reach the door. I feinted as if I was about to take hold of the IV pole to hit her, and I could see from a flick of her glance that she was going to jump onto the bed. Alpinist Marena-no problem. She leaped, just one foot on the edge of the bed, pushing her over. But because I knew it was coming, I swept her feet out from under her and she fell head-down onto the floor. She didn’t move. Alert that she might be faking, I leaned down and grabbed her throat, but she didn’t respond. I put my forearm, the one with the bandaged hand, across her throat and leaned on it, while I picked up the Tabasco bottle and pointed the sharp end next to her trachea. I waited for my arm to kill her. But it didn’t. Could I use her later? Or did I love her? Or did I even care about that? After two-score beats, I pulled over the IV pole and shoved the needle in her arm vein. I wasn’t very good at it, and it took a few tries, but she didn’t react. With the needle in, I opened the flow valve. The drip had been intended to keep me docile, but I was twice as heavy as Marena, so my dose ought to put her out. But to be on the safe side, I pushed the flow valve to max, and watched as the drip rate increased.

Hmm. Well, that all looks stable.

Now all I had to do was get out of here. Well, not all. There were a few things, a few quick, easy, fun things, easy experiments with everyday household objects…