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Angel Wings Chapter 5: Ephialtes does Rodin While Four Uninvited Guests Chew Over Strawberries in De
Posted By: Neil Yudsponwy<mark_price@hotmail.co.uk>
Date: 24 August 2008, 7:59 pm
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I sit in silence for about a minute, caught in a dull daze of minimal thinking; the most I've ever managed to call a grieving process.
'Let the dead look after the dead and the living will take care of itself, Marty.'
Mom could be as strange as strawberries in December and crazy as a shithouse rat but when she was right, she was right.
Candy and Ray are gone, but I can still catch their killers and give their tortured souls some closure; something to chuckle about between Hades' chores.
Connie brings me round.
"Heff?"
"I'm fine sweetie, just gotta get a groove on, that's all; we can't sit in Io's chat and tat lanes twiddling our thumbs all day."
Those Spartans were sure behaving peculiar at the end there.
"So what's the plan?" Connie asks, trying to get the ball rolling, but I can't seem to shake the Spartan free-for-all brawl loose.
"Why were they fighting each other like that?" I say aloud and on a tangent.
"I don't know; could it be a difference of opinion on killing strategies?"
With Candy and Ray's death fresh on my mind, I chastise my otherwise wonderful A.I. partner:
"Not the time Con, not the right time." I curtly reply.
"A lack of discipline, then?" she enquires.
"Definitely, but why? Spartans are renowned for their professional approach and rigor; King Leo might as well have been in a school yard for psychopaths."
The penny finally drops and I sing it to the heavens.
"No Cryobeds!"
"Huh?" Connie says puzzled.
"Isn't it obvious? I reply. "A Spartan isn't simply a man in a fancy suit, Con."
"Or woman." She hastily corrects me on my sexist thinking.
"They're special for reasons beyond the way they look. These aren't ordinary men –and women. Their bodies are placed under immense physical strain and it takes a tough cookie to survive."
"Like all great warriors." I lovingly pat the suit that makes me feel special.
"I stand on the shoulders of giants and Krohlm ancestry to achieve legendary feats."
"You've certainly achieved delusions of grandeur, Heff." Connie sardonically quips, and I can't help but chortle at her beautiful timing.
"What I'm getting at, babe –if you'll give me a minute, is that there are unseen elements and people that work behind the scenes to ensure that these guys –and dolls– are able to perform to the full extent of their abilities."
I look down to the connection between the Symbion shell and the power cable protruding from the Aspis wall.
"The suit is just a single piece of the puzzle, Connie, without a charge every once in a while, things can run flat and you don't want that happening on armour that weighs close to a ton; regardless of how inordinately strong you are."
"So what you're essentially saying about this Cryobeds theory is like the Princess and the Pea." Connie stumps me in full flow with a fairytale and it's my turn to sound flummoxed:
"Huh?"
"Well." She opens up. "The Princess was unable to sleep on twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds because of a single pea placed within the mattresses."
I'm stunned that she would pull a fairytale seemingly out of nowhere.
"And your analogy is relevant: how?"
"The pea element of the story is why our Spartans are behaving irregularly; without the aide of their cryobeds, they're not getting a decent night's sleep."
I rub my temples, hoping to massage the fuzzy logic of her reply away, like strawberries in December –but all it seems to do is make more sense.
"I guess seeing as the cryobed is used to maintain the equilibrium of a Spartan's bodily functions and that the super soldiers rely on the suit's reserve during missions. There is a smidgen of relevance if they've gone nine months without a decent kip, I suppose.
"Exactly." Connie beams like a teacher's pet with more knowledge than the teacher.
"That explains why Spartan 525 is behaving like a hyped-up little brat. Arrhythmic sleeping patterns combined with an insufficient diet are probably defining our rebel Spartan's behaviour.
My stomach growls in sympathy.
"Insufficient diet, huh; I'm feeling that."
"It's a long shot." She adds. "But I reckon it's worth checking out."
"Okay, okay, I wasn't thinking that extensively about the Spartan's physiology but you got my attention, Con; so what are you thinking?"
"You said there were unseen elements and people behind the scene. If these Spartans are fighting amongst themselves then they've lost their strong sense of discipline and Gabrielle Vixen has lost control of her squad."
"Go on." I urge, curious for her to tie up these loose tenets.
"Say Gabrielle and the others are aware of what is happening to them; wouldn't they seek to remedy their predicament?"
I can almost feel Connie's eureka moment but wish for her to lay it out clean.
"So what you're saying is…"
"Candera Valance said they were 'setting up shop': the Spartans are behaving unprofessionally: in short, they're seeking someone or something out in the local vicinity that will rid them of their defective behaviour."
"Bingo." I yell. "I knew there was a reason I loved you beyond your culinary skills!"
I hope that if she can get Princess and the Pea from a Spartan killing Candy, she can put my stomach rumbling and the hint of her cooking abilities together and rustle me up some grub.
Connie's playful laughter fills the room and we have our first lead, thanks to her insane deductions.
"Let's get this show on the road. Con, I want you to gather some information about the star system of Lavatoria, and see if you can find anyone or any facility relating to the Spartan project in that area. Then we'll make a move on Lavatoria."
"Dionysus." She blurts.
"Bless you." I offer, even though it's impossible for Constructs to sneeze.
"No, Heff, the name of the star system has been changed by the Council of Commerce to Dionysus. Lavatoria was found to be derogatory; it sounded too much like the formal Latin term for lavatory."
"Well, it is a shit-hole." I counter.
"Why do people have to come up with all these fancy names for things?!"
I pick up a copy of the Valhalla transcript and reel off a couple of the Spartan's nicknames as perfectly stupid examples:
"Echo: Angel of Death: Rodeo?!"
I throw the book back down with a slap.
"I mean, who comes up with this shit? Did they rifle a comic book and randomly pick action words or consult a children's cartoon writer for these pretentious monikers."
"Oh I don't know, Heff." Connie rebukes in a huff, and I can see where she's going with this.
"Being a liddle 'ol Construct by the name of Connie, I wouldn't know about these things!"
I need this conversation again like I need a hole in the head.
"Your sarcasm has been noted, sweetheart, but thank your lucky stars I didn't go with my first choice: Cicely. Now, find me that lead." I say as I head off to the toilet and leave her a casual euphemism to get to grips with.
"While I check the plumbing of my Lavatoria."
"Little more information than I needed to know, but go right ahead." She bemusedly replies.
Before leaving the lounge, I give Connie another couple of items to add to her burgeoning list of tasks.
"Oh, and knock me up something nutritious with proteins in for when I get back."
I figure if I'm gonna be losing half a kilo, I might as well put it back.
"Muzak please, maestro." I order before kicking open the toilet door…
I've decided that Muzak was designed for the human sphincter.
It's why supermarkets and receptions have odour neutralisers and lifts and elevators vary their fragrance between rotten egg, week-old stew and boiled cabbage. Muzak relaxes the bowels and loosens the stool; it's the body's natural response to what it thinks of low quality corporate jingles.
Sitting on the john with me and the muzak ding-a-ling away, I do my best impression of Rodin's thinker while contending with the idea that nine months ago, seven Spartans downed the tools of their trade and skipped town. Not only that but they've laid waste to everyone that's tried to track them down since.
I'm puzzled as to how they might have got into Candy's ship without anyone noticing.
And then it hit me.
'Leeches.'
The thought sends a shudder up my spine and I immediately clam up, the muzak seemingly skips a beat.
Primarily used as a repair vessel, Leeches are a recent development on the black market and the bane of travelling through economy wormholes. Small man-size capsules that latch onto a target ship and burrow a hole through the hull while remaining airtight.
The occupants would then climb out the pods and hijack the vessel, dispatching the crew and making off with the ship and the goods. Then they'd fix the holes that they'd cut into the ship –ironically applying the Leeches original purpose– for it to be sold on.
The trick was getting the Leeches in place, since they don't have much in the way of self-propulsion other than soft jets for ship scuttling.
Usually they're tethered to the ends of a dragnet and positioned over a wormhole entrance or exit, where maybe a freight vessel would fly into the dragnet and the Leeches would munch on the undetected cord to get up to the ship. But even then, the Spartans would have to have known where Candy would be coming through.
I give the Leech theory some serious thought as I leave the john.
A nasty whiff of something repugnant infiltrates my nose on the way out the toilet door –but its not me: it's cigarette smoke.
When you've spent enough time in the company of death, the last thing you want to do is tease him and piss him off. I don't touch cinder sticks and since Connie only smokes when she's on fire, something don't smell right.
I make my way to the lounge, only to be confronted by four uninvited guests.
I guess Candy isn't the only one to have had a Leech problem…
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