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From: Andrew Roller <roller39@IDT.NET>
Subject: The Fading Universe part 1 of 7 (NND)
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_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Andrew Roller Presents
THE FADING UNIVERSE
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Prologue
“If someone sells smokes to kids, call them on it,” Frankie
chortled as the bus passed. Casually he injected the needle into his
arm and pushed the heroin into his vein.
“Don’t shoot up too much, Frankie,” Marvin said. He glanced at
the dwarf beside him. “You’re already fucked in the head.”
“It won’t mess up my aim none, Marvin. I shoot straighter when
I’m high.” Frankie grinned up at him. Harrigan reached over as Frankie
withdrew the needle from his arm. Harrigan released the torniquet and
daubed Frankie’s arm with a premedicated pad.
“He’s not straight, though,” Harrigan cautioned Marvin. Marvin
smiled and looked away. Harrigan was an “adult,” in the lingo of the
day. Gay, a pedophile. Frankie was his lover. Frankie was a mere
child, perhaps gay, perhaps straight. And, thanks to kidney disease,
and bad genes passed down from the War, he was also a dwarf. Marvin
didn’t know Harrigan’s age. Probably, Harrigan didn’t know it either.
Harrigan was a little “touched” in the head, as one might say, but a
big, hulking figure. He would have scared people except for his
perpetually stupid, gap-toothed smile and his small, John Lennon-like
glasses. One of the lenses in his glasses was cracked, but it didn’t
seem to affect Harrigan’s vision any, at least when it came to shooting
at people or admiring little boys.
Perry waved a handkerchief across his face. Marvin glanced
over at him. Another pedophile, but “underage,” as one might say,
except he was 15 and liked girls half his age. Perry wore large
squarish glasses and had a shock of hair cut into a regular haircut that
seemed perpetually uncombed. In his rumpled busisiness suit he looked a
little like Adolf Hitler on the cheap, which, considering his
self-image, was probably an entirely accurate description.
“This whole job is taking entirely too long,” Perry scolded
Marvin. “I mean, it’s a fucking bank. We’ve hit banks before. How
long until the safe blows?”
“Frankie did a good job of sneaking in the explosives. Any
minute now we should see something.”
“Harrigan, what kind of a fuse did you put on that damn thing?”
Perry called over to Harrigan. The four of them were sharing a bench,
beside a bus stop. Every time a bus went past it left a cloud of dust
and exhaust in its wake. Perry was obviously irritated. He took baths
frequently. He never managed to iron his suit, but he was addicted to
keeping himself clean.
“I put on a good long fuse so dear Frankie wouldn’t get blown
up,” Harrigan said. He pronounced each word distinctly, then hugged
Frankie when he was done speaking.
“A good long fuse to protect my good long pecker,” Frankie
chortled. Marvin shook his head. Frankie, as they all knew, routinely
had to resort to a strap on dildo to properly bugger Harrigan’s ass. He
had a two-incher in the penis department, but Harrigan didn’t seem to
mind, as long as Frankie wore the dildo.
“I made a deposit, you might say,” Frankie said, nudging
Harrigan. The two of them broke into giggles, staring across the street
at the First Universal Bank. Perry raised his arm aloft and looked
punctiliously at his wristwatch.
“Well, you may have made the deposit, but you may as well have
not made it at all if the safe doesn’t blow soon,” Perry said.
“Try to be patient, Perry,” Marvin said quietly to him. “If
worse comes to worse, maybe the thing will blow up tonight, when
everyone’s gone home.”
“The payroll arrives at noon. People start cashing their
paychecks at noon. By six all the money will be gone!” Perry
exclaimed. “It’s one o’clock already! Every minute I sit here watching
people go in, and people come out, all of them happily withdrawing MY
money!”
“It’s not ours ‘til we steal it,” Marvin cautioned him.
“Successfully.”
“The operation will be a success. The gas should kill
everyone. It will be like taking candy from a baby,” Perry said
testily.
“I want to be in Playboy,” Elsa announced. She was sitting on
the sidewalk, behind the bench, her back pressed up against it.
“Me too,” Harrigan guffawed.
“When we started for our drive the sun was shining brightly on
Munich,” Elsa read aloud.
“Oh, God, story hour,” Frankie moaned.
“Well, if you set the fucking timer right I wouldn’t have to
read you a story, Frankie darling,” Else replied testily.
“Not my department. Harrigan’s department,” Frankie replied.
“Well, you’ve got your cock up his ass so often I can hardly
tell the two of you apart,” Else snapped. She tossed the Playboy to the
sidewalk.
“If you won’t let me read to you, I’ll play my radio instead,”
Else said. A moment later and all five of them were enveloped in the
strains of some long-ago song, rediscovered and repackaged as ‘new’ by
some d.j. who’d just found a copy out in the ruins. The War had almost
wiped out the human race. But in the thousand years since then, it had
slowly begun to rebuild itself. It was a tough job. By the time of the
War, the humans had spread quite beyond one Ringworld, or two, or
twenty. All the stars had been ‘ringed,’ their trajectories
anticipated, and the rings interconnected as much as physics and
space-time would allow.
Marvin looked up from the back of the matchbox. “History of
the Universe in One Volume,” it declared. A likely story. And what was
all this bullshit about ‘ringworlds?’
“Some people will sell anything to get a dollar,” Marvin said
aloud. He passed the matchbook to Perry. Perry studied it intensely.
He seemed relieved not to have to think about all the money ‘he’ was
losing at the moment, as the proletariat made their withdrawals from the
First Universal Bank.
“Total shit!” Perry announced. He tossed the matchbook into
the gutter. “We’re just rats in a giant machine. Man built it, man
blew it up, we live in the ruins, with some places built up again. I
have no idea what they mean by rings around stars. What? Around
Elizabeth Taylor?”
Marvin grinned. Some distant part of their past, something
some called ‘The Twentieth Century,’ with certain vid-episodes hosted by
some announcer named Cronkite, had been especially well preserved.
There was even a Church of Cronkite, devoted to studying ‘The Twentieth
Century,’ whenever that had been, whoever he had been.
“The stars and rings and planets and shit is all just part of
that Twentieth Century crap,” Perry said. He struggled for an analogy
and, predictably, could only come up with a Cronkite-laced one.
“They’re like the Moonies, you know? They put out these free matchbooks
and then you light up AND get converted. After that, once you’re a
believer, you give them all your money for the rest of your life.”
“Some say the history’s true, but I don’t believe it,” Marvin
shrugged. He kicked a pebble into the street. “There’s nothing but the
ruins, you know? Some of it’s been built back up, most of it hasn’t. I
mean, if we were living inside some kind of Ringworld thing, that would
mean, uh, out there, somewhere beyond all these ruins, there would
be...”
“Fucking empty space,” Perry said. “We’d be floating in empty
space, or connected to lots of other rings, all interlocking, adjusting,
moving, like parts of an old clock. It would mean that the War, even
though it blew everything to Hell inside the ringworld, had somehow left
mostly intact the overall structure, the Ring itself, or its hide, or
its joints. We’d be breathing purified air in a ... in a bubble, like,
with empty space someplace out, you know, out wherever the ruins finally
end.”
“Well, as I Liberaltarian, we believe in Freedom of the Press
and Freedom of Speech, for Parents,” someone with the dubious name of
Bob Anthony was proclaiming on Elsa’s radio.
“For Christ’s sake, if you’re going to play that damn thing
keep it on MUSIC!” Perry hollared at Elsa.
“Yeah, please, not the news station, Elsa,” Marvin said.
“Oh, fuck it,” Elsa relented. She turned the dial back to
In-A-Gadda Da-Vida. “This new song is too long,” she pouted. “They
should have left this one in the ruins, as far as I’m concerned.”
“They’ll play something that’s actually new next song,” Marvin
mused. “Perry, you want to start a rock band?”
“Who’ll be lead singer?” Perry asked. “I can’t sing. And I
don’t want anyone else to be our leader.” Marvin shrugged. Perry was
their leader, although Marvin did most of the real work these days.
Perry had been great once. But he’d caught syphallis from one of his
little loves. Now he was mostly insane, although in his insanity he
sometimes had great flashes of brillance. At least, Marvin told himself
he did. Otherwise, there would be no real reason to stick with Perry.
They’d grown up together, in the slums that ringed Ontario. Some kids
had taken to calling Ontario ‘Bellona,’ but Marvin had no idea why.
Little kids, Frankie’s age.
“Hey Frankie. How come the little kids call Ontario
‘Bellona’?” Marvin asked the dwarf. He saw that it was useless to ask.
Harrigan and Frankie had taken to amusing themselves by masturbating in
public. Their zippers were zipped, but their belts were loosened and
they each sat on the bus stop bench as casually as they could, while
meanwhile putting a hand in their pants and massaging themselves.
“Perry, if your bomb doesn’t blow soon we’re going to be
arrested for corrupting the public,” Harrigan chided Perry. Frankie
broke into a series of insane giggles. Marvin eyed their bag on the
sidewalk. Inside were all their guns, their gas masks, grenades (if
anyone was still alive once the gas was released). Marvin’s portable
bazooka, Frankie’s rifle, longer than the dwarf was tall. Perry wore
his pearl handled pistols under his suit coat. Elsa had a Magnum in her
deceptively furry purse. Marvin wondered if he and Elsa should just run
away together. After all, he was 15, she was 14. They could make a new
life together. He could steal just for them, instead of trying to
implement Perry’s grandiose plans that would make them all rich for
life. (Until, that was, Perry and Frankie and Harrigan and yes, even
Elsa, somehow managed to spend their take from Perry’s latest scheme in
two weeks or less.) Well, Marvin decided, it would be no use running
away with Elsa if she was going to keep spending money like water.
Better to let Perry keep coming up with his nutty plans. They worked,
mostly, although not as well now. Hopefully this one would be okay.
Marvin heard a slurping sound. He turned his head. A fat boy
wandered up to their bench, carrying a Slurpie cup, the half-gallon
size, along with a half-eaten burger.
“Ahoy, mortals!” Flaherty greeted them. Marvin shook his head
again. Another nut case that was his responsibility. Flaherty wasn’t
gay, or a pedophile. He was just a ‘jerk-off.’ Somewhere he had the
world’s largest collection of porno, and he’d disappear now and then to
amuse himself with it.
“You’re late, Flaherty,” Elsa snapped.
“No, your bomb is late. As I knew it would be. I’m early,”
Flaherty said. He grinned.
“Perfect timing, Flaherty,” Marvin said with wry amusement.
Flaherty had told him the bomb would not blow at its appointed hour.
Flaherty was a genius, but he kept his genius mostly to himself rather
than contest Perry’s leadership. Marvin had started with Perry, and
he’d end with Perry. Flaherty was even more of a screwball than Perry,
Marvin figured, and he’d rather die for one of Perry’s plans than for
one of Flaherty’s. Flaherty was a covert Cronkite, in Marvin’s
opinion. He believed in ‘night,’ whatever that was. It was just the
time of day when everything closed and everyone was supposed to sleep,
in Marvin’s opinion. But Flaherty claimed that ‘night’ had once
existed, in something he called ‘a natural environment.’ And, beyond
that, Flaherty claimed they were floating in ‘space,’ which was
something that was nothing where it was ‘night’ all the time. So much
for the Cronkites. Marvin had decided he didn’t care if Flaherty tagged
along with them (there seemed, in any event, no way to get rid of him)
but he didn’t (nor did any of the rest of them) want Flaherty in charge.
The blast was deafening. It even drowned out the voice of Bob
Anthony, whom Elsa had mischievously tuned back to in the final moments
before the blast. So unexpected, it washed over the proletariat lumpin
as they moved in or out of the bank, carrying their pay packets or just
arriving to take possession of them.
“Masks on,” Marvin said. It was one command he knew he
wouldn’t have to repeat. Nobody argued with him. They all grabbed
their gas masks, well hidden ‘til now, and pushed them onto their faces
even as the first smells of cinnamon laced their way into their
nostrils. It was an ambivalent smell, neither entirely sour nor sweet.
But its impact could be quick and deadly once it hit you in full force.
Marvin watched, briefly, as the surviving workers, rising dazedly from
where the force of the blast had pushed them to the sidewalk, suddenly
seized up and fell tumbling and writhing back down. Choking, gasping.
They died like pigeons do after enjoying an unexpected feast on
strychnine. Marvin had no pity for them. There was no time. Even in a
corrupted city like Ontario the police were not about to overlook a bank
robbery.
Marvin distributed their guns. Frankie’s rifle, unweildy in
its length, except for a dwarf who seemed to relish it as if it were
some phallic icon. Marvin hefted his bazooka. It fired pulses of green
Lazarfire that made holes in walls, automobiles, and (not
coincidentally) any people in between. Harrigan pulled the pin from a
grenade to amuse himself. He put his thumb over the hole.
“Get up, asshole!” Elsa snarled at Flaherty. The fat boy sat
blinking on the pavement. He had spilt the remains of his drink and
burger on his white-shirted chest. His bow tie, formerly blue in color,
now had pink polka dots of mustard. Marvin, about to shoulder his heavy
bazooka, thumped it down on the bus stop bench and leapt over it. He
jammed a gas mask into Flaherty’s face before the boy had the bad sense
to inhale.
“Thanks, Marv. You’re a pal,” Flaherty sighed into the mask.
It fogged slightly, then the inhalEx took over and cleared the mask.
“Try to do something useful in there,” Marvin growled, thumbing
at the broken bank behind them both. “There’s no need to stand around
filling out a deposit slip, like you did last time.”
“I was just playing a joke...” Flaherty grinned sheepishly.
“Do me a favor and kill somebody.” Marvin replied.
“Who?” Flaherty asked.
“Anyone that moves. The guards probably have masks. They may
have had time to put them on... hopefully not.”
“I’ll do my best, Marv,” Flaherty answered.
Marvin pulled a revolver out of a deep pocket in his pants and
handed it to Flaherty. Elsa’s arm swung out and blocked him.
“Don’t give him a gun!” Elsa screeched through her mask. “He’s
more likely to kill one of us than anyone else!”
“Have faith, my dear,” Flaherty snorted. His fat hands managed
to grope past Elsa and he seized the gun from Marvin.
“All right, let’s go,” Marvin announced. His voice was bold,
certain. He turned and led them across the street. Traffic was
stopped. The drivers who’d not stopped from the blast had gone
careening into storefronts, victims of the gas. Flames began erputing
from stores within the strip mall that ran along both sides of the
street. The bank, its faux-granite walls shattered, stood amidst
billowing clouds of gas.
“Parking is such a problem,” Frankie smirked. He glanced at a
car that had left the street to lodge in a storefront.
“Perhaps he had to go to the bathroom real, real bad,” Harrigan
laughed.
“Marvin, speaking of that very thing, I have to use the
bathroom!” Flaherty announced.
“Super Chicken makes the play,” Frankie grumbled.
“I’m sure they...” Marvin began. He glanced at Flaherty. The
boy tagged just behind Perry, his breath coming in gasps. Perry strode
like Hitler; purposefully, as if reviewing squads of troops. Perhaps
they existed, somewhere deep in his psyche. Here, though, there were
just the bodies from the blast. Marvin had to pick his way through them
but Perry somehow managed to find a path that kept him from having to
alter his fantasy. Eyes ahead, lifted, even, as if inspecting the
bank’s ruined architecture, he led them inside.
Marvin heard a shot ring out. He wheeled to his right. A
guard toppled forward. The woman’s mask was on securely, but she had a
sudden problem containing her guts. Frankie. The little boy was often
unseen by the enemy, but his own eyes spotted danger before Marvin, at
least, could even apprehend the possibility of its presence.
“Wait!” Flaherty hollared. He got out in front of Frankie,
blocking the dwarf’s next shot. Somehow, perhaps out of mere
irritation, the dwarf held off making his second shot at the guard, his
killing shot, in order to let Flaherty by. Frankie liked his shots
clean. He’d have as soon killed Flaherty, but he’d have wanted to set
it up that way, not hit the fat boy by accident.
Flaherty scurried up to the female guard. “Miss! Uh, madam!
Could you please direct me to the lavatory?” Flaherty asked her in a
breathless voice. The fat boy yanked up his pants and let his heels
dance a little, as if to further express his urgency. The woman stared
up at him. Her final thoughts, sacred even to the damned in the
hangman’s noose, were being interrupted by a request for directions to
the toilet.
Somehow the woman managed to lift a hand and wave it vaguely
toward the left side of the bank. Flaherty craned his neck up, bobbed
his head. “Oh yes. Why, thank you. I see. There’s a sign there. A
lot of soot on it... I hope the bathroom itself is clean!” Flaherty
dashed away from the woman, past Frankie. “All yours, thanks!” Flaherty
said to the dwarf.
Marvin heard the death-knell shot ring out. The woman screamed
and made a final, face-flat acquaintance with the floor.
Marvin glanced around for Harrigan. “Where’s Harrigan?” he
asked Frankie.
“Night depository,” the dwarf said.
Suddenly Harrigan dashed inside the bank. There was a foolish
grin on his face. “Sorry, Marv, I had to make a deposit!” Harrigan
called. He no longer had the pinless grenade in his hand. An explosion
erupted beyond the bank’s shattered glass doors. A portion of the blast
vetted through the back wall of the bank and shot hunks of it toward
them.
“Fuck, you could injure US doing that!” Marvin scolded
Harrigan.
“Sorry, couldn’t resist!” Harrigan chortled.
They made their way through the bank. At the back, the bank’s
safe stood open. It was a grand gesture of the bank’s faith in its
security during business hours. Or it had simply been a necessity, with
all the withdrawls being made. Or perhaps the employees had simply been
working in there. In any event, Perry’s prediction that it would be
open (and Frankie’s earlier report, while making his “deposit,” that it
was), had proven right. They moved inside of it. They unfurled bags
and began loading them.
“Just big bills,” Marvin warned. There was no time to fool
with the white-collar stuff. Passwords, key codes, and the like. This
was a direct, messy, old fashioned job. ‘Gas and Go,’ as Perry liked to
describe it. In the distance Marvin thought he heard sirens. He
motioned for them to wrap up their chores and move out. They hefted the
bags of money and filed out of the safe and back across the bank’s
interior. Flaherty came out of the bathroom as Marvin heard a whooshing
flush erupt from somewhere beyond the bathroom doors.
“They got some great graffiti in there!” Flaherty laughed.
“Now, that is, that I’ve written it!”
“What did you write--our phone number?” Elsa snapped.
“It says, ‘Payment required. Please see bank manager for exact
change,” Flaherty chortled.
“Carry my bag,” Elsa said. She dumped her bag of cash at
Flaherty’s feet.
“What about women’s lib?” Flaherty asked in a pained voice.
“It just died,” Elsa replied. She stalked out of the bank
behind Perry, who held just a small bag, one appropriate for a Fuhrer,
while Marvin struggled to carry two bags and his bazooka.
“Pick it up or I’ll kick your ass,” Marvin snarled at
Flaherty.
“Money is dirty, Marvin!” Flaherty whined. He articulated with
his hands as he spoke, as if being asked to dissect a frog.
“It’s in a fucking bag!” Marvin shouted.
“Oh, yes, but you handled the money, then you handled the bag,”
Flaherty replied.
“Pick it up or I’ll rip your gas mask off!” Marvin told
Flaherty.
“Well you don’t have to be mean about it,” Flaherty whined. He
hefted Elsa’s bag and trundled out of the bank behind Marvin.
Across the street, in a parking spot reserved for the
handicapped, stood their van. It was an old bread-truck delivery van.
Elsa dashed ahead and slipped inside. She started the engine and pulled
the truck round in front of the bank. Marvin could hear sirens
distinctly now. They loaded the money in the back of the van. ‘If you
steal money in the middle of a street where everyone’s dead, will anyone
see you?’ Marvin asked himself. It didn’t matter, really. The police
were not big on investigative work. There was plenty of face-to-face
work to keep them busy. And that, in fact, is what Marvin intended to
avoid, if he could.
Elsa got out from the driver’s seat to allow Harrigan to take
the wheel. He was the best, well, pedophile driver in the city. He put
the van into gear and they rolled over the sidewalk, avoiding a cab.
Its driver had lost his hurry some 10 minutes ago, and was unlikely to
regain it. They rolled down a side street and were soon lost in the
back stretches of the city that made up its slums.
30
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