The street outside was a wasteland of broken dreams and shattered commerce. Storefronts gaped like empty eye sockets. Signs hung at crazy angles, their messages incomplete. One caught Bill's attention: ADULT BOOKS & VIDEO above a door that hung open, revealing darkness within. Spilled magazines littered the sidewalk—not the normal kind, the other kind, their covers promising pleasures that Bill couldn't imagine and didn't want to.
He was so focused on the horror of pornographic comics that he almost missed it.
A shoe.
A single shoe, lying in the gutter like a discarded hope. Pointed toe. Strange construction. Not Earth-made.
"Splock's," he breathed. He picked it up. Turned it over. It was empty. No foot. No blood. Just a boot, abandoned like a shed skin.
Ham Duo looked at it. Looked at Bill. "I hope he hasn't gone crazy. Started undressing for no reason. That would be—"
"Maybe he wanted to swim?" Bill offered weakly. "Is there water nearby?"
Duo pointed at the burning buildings. The cracked asphalt. The complete absence of any body of water larger than a puddle. "Do you SEE any water?"
"I mean, he could have taken it off for a reason. Maybe his feet hurt. Long walk. Unfamiliar terrain."
"His feet don't hurt. He's a Fortinbrasian. They don't have pain receptors in their feet. It's a known fact. I think. I made it up, but it sounds right."
They ran on.
The square opened before them—a wide plaza with a fountain at its center, dry now, filled with debris. Around it, more ruined shops. Another sign caught Bill's eye: ADULT SUPERSTORE - WE NEVER CLOSE. The door was ajar. Something fluttered in the darkness within.
And there, by the fountain's edge, another discovery.
A sock.
Striped. Strange material. Definitely Splock's.
Next to it, crushed but visible, a small square plastic package. Bill picked it up. Turned it over. The wrapper had a slit in it, as if something had been removed. Words on the side: EXTRA STRONG and FOR MAXIMUM PLEASURE.
Bill squinted at it. "What's this? Some kind of gum? Extra strong gum? Must be Earth candy. Maybe he got hungry and—"
Duo looked at the package. His eyebrow rose. His lips twitched.
"Bill," he said slowly, "you are the most innocent creature I have ever met. And I've met newborn babies. Unborn babies, even. You make them look worldly."
"What? What is it?"
Duo took the package, examined it with the air of a connoisseur, and dropped it back on the ground. "Nothing. Forget it. Let's find the rest of your friend."
Bill stared at him. "What? WHAT IS IT?"
"Later. If we survive, I'll explain. If we don't... well, you'll die ignorant, which might be better."
They ran.
Fifty meters. Maybe less. The street curved, and there, spread across the pavement like a sacrifice to some perverse god, lay a pair of pants.
Splock's pants. The unmistakable one-piece jumpsuit, now in two-piece form, neatly folded and placed on a low wall. As if someone had taken them off with care. With intention.
Bill stopped. Stared. His brain refused to process.
"His pants," he whispered. "His pants are... here. On the ground. Without him."
Duo tried. He really tried. "Maybe he... got hot? Running generates heat. Fortinbrasians probably overheat easily. Taking off pants is logical in that scenario. Very logical. Classic Splock move."
Bill looked at him. "Do you believe that?"
"No."
"Neither do I."
Bill looked at the pants. And remembered the shoe. The sock. And the torn package with the mysterious promise of maximum pleasure.
"No," he whispered. "No, no, no."
The radio crackled. For just a moment, they heard something—a voice, Splock's voice, saying words they couldn't quite catch. Then static swallowed it again.
Bill ran toward the sound.
Duo followed, the empty pants fluttering behind them in the ash-choked wind.
The buildings grew seedier, the signs more suggestive, the debris more personal in nature. High heels. Broken mirrors. A velvet rope trampled into the asphalt.
Music pulsed from somewhere ahead. Low. Throbbing. Menacing.
They rounded a corner and found the source.
A strip club. Or what had been a strip club, before the apocalypse. The sign, hanging crookedly from one remaining chain, read GOLDEN PHEASANT EXOTIC DANCING. Garish posters flanked the entrance—women in impossible poses, their painted smiles faded by smoke and time. The building itself was half-crumbled, but inside, somewhere, a radio played.
From the broken windows, sound bled out into the daylight. Muffled. Distorted by distance and rubble. A voice from the radio—growling, angry—cut through the afternoon haze:
"...this twisted, tortured mess..."
And then, from the same building, closer to the windows, another voice. Human. Male. It lunged at the melody like a drunk trying to catch a moving train.
"Thish... twistted... tor-churred..." He was rushing, gulping syllables, struggling to keep up. When he hit the last word, he grabbed it and STRETCHED, voice cracking, the vowel bending and warping as saliva thickened his throat:
"...MESSSSHHH—"
He held it until he ran out of breath, the sound degenerating into a wet, rattling gasp. Heavy breathing. A cough. Then the radio again, tinny through the distance:
"...this bed of sinfulness..."
The human voice crashed in immediately, desperate not to fall behind. He grabbed the first word and pulled it apart:
"Bedda shiiiiiiinful—"
He stretched it long, the pitch wavering, losing the melody, finding it again, losing it. His voice cracked on the way up, then settled into a thick, slurred drone. Then he tore into the last word, holding it until his throat gave out:
"—NESSSSHHH—"
The sound echoed across the rubble, fading into a wet sniffle. A pause. Heavy, phlegmy breathing. Then the radio:
"...who's longing for some rest..."
From the broken window, a voice scrambled to catch up, words tumbling out in a rushed, slurred panic:
"Who'sh loooongin' for shome—"
He dragged "longing" out until it dissolved into a mumble, consonants disappearing, the word barely recognizable. Then he lunged at the final word and WRUNG it, voice bending sharp then flat then cracking entirely as he pushed harder:
"—REEEEEESSST—"
He held it too long. His voice broke, folded in on itself, fell apart into a coughing fit—wet, hacking, painful-sounding. When the coughing stopped, there was only heavy breathing. Then the radio, faint and final:
"...and feeling numb."
A beat of silence. Dust settled in the daylight. The last word from the radio hung in the air for just a moment.
Then from the broken window, a voice—cracked, desperate, saliva-thick—ROARED:
"AND FEEEEEELING NUMMMMMB—"
Then softer, as if trying to catch an echo that was already fading:
"...nuuuuumb..."
Softer still, the word dissolving into a thick, sleepy mumble:
"...uuuumb..."
A whisper now, barely audible:
"...uub..."
Bill pressed himself against the wall. "Someone's in there. Singing. Badly."
"Multiple someones," Duo agreed. "The bad singer and—whoever that is on the recording. Sounds familiar."
"Depeche Mode," Bill said darkly. "It's always Depeche Mode. That band is everywhere. They're like the cockroaches of music."
They edged along the wall, peering into shadows, trying to find a window that wasn't completely shattered. Behind a dumpster, something moved.
Bill's hand went to his weapon.
The something emerged.
Fur. Lots of fur. Matted, multicolored, familiar fur. Chewgumma sat in a tangle of undergrowth, chewing contentedly on something green and pointy. A hat, Bill realized. One of those little bell-topped hats that belonged to the pipe-smoking friends of the hippo creatures. A pipe stem protruded from the corner of his mouth.
Chewgumma looked up. His small red eyes widened.
The Kookie swallowed. Grinned.
"Bill. Ham Duo. Kookie found you."
Duo's jaw dropped. "Chewgumma? You're alive? You're—what are you eating?"
"Snack." Chewgumma held up another hat. "Tastes like... tiny creature sadness. Very flavorful."
Bill grabbed his arm. "Never mind that. Is that you singing? In there?"
Chewgumma shook his massive head. "Kookie no sing. Kookie eat. Singer is inside. Singer is... loud. Bad."
Duo crouched beside his old companion. "The Disruptor. Do you still have it?"
Chewgumma patted a bulging pocket. "Kookie kept safe. Kookie also kept self safe. Eighteen years, Bill. Eighteen years Kookie run from police. Hide in sewers. Eat garbage. Steal hats." He held up another little green cap, this one with a particularly festive bell. "Newspapers loved Kookie. 'Talking Bear Still Free!' Kookie was famous."
"Famous," Bill repeated. "You were famous for eighteen years."
"Kookie had good run. Kookie still has Disruptor." He patted the pocket again. "Kookie ready to go home."
Bill turned back to the dirty window, crusted with years of neglect, but with a gap where the curtain didn't quite meet. The music thumped on. The bad singing continued. And through the grimy glass, he could see shapes moving.
He crept closer. Pressed his face to a crack in the boarded-up window.
What he saw would never leave him.
A room. Dimly lit. A couch in the center, its cushions flattened by decades of use. On the couch, sitting bolt upright with the posture of a man whose spine had been replaced by a titanium rod, was Splock.
His jumpsuit was torn to the waist, hanging open like a discarded skin. His chest was pale, hairless, utterly alien. His feet were bare. His legs were bare. His expression—
Bill had never seen that expression before. He didn't know Splock's face could make those shapes. The eyes were wide. The mouth was slightly open. The ears were flattened completely, pressed against his skull like a cat caught in a rainstorm. It was the expression of someone whose brain had left the building and wasn't planning to return.
Beside him, with her back to the window, stood a woman.
Bill's gaze dropped involuntarily.
Her backside was immense. Monumental. It occupied the eastern half of the room like a separate country. Bill's mind, trained in basic galactic geography, immediately made the comparison: Asia. The continent where the bloody communists and the dirty Asians lived. This woman's posterior could house them all. Could give them citizenship. Could charge them rent.
The woman turned.
Bill's eyes traveled up. Past the impossible curve of her hip. Past the waist that somehow, against all logic, still existed. Past the—
Two... things... protruded from her torso. They were not breasts. Breasts were soft, natural, appealing. These were engineering projects. Inflatable rafts, perhaps, capable of supporting an entire fleet of space troopers. They rose and fell with each breath, and Bill felt something stir in regions he had long thought dead to such influences.
For a moment—just a moment—he understood why Splock looked so shocked.
Then he looked at her face.
The stirring stopped.
The face was... wrong. It had once been the face of a child—annoying, precocious, boundary-violating, but recognizably human. Now it had stretched, distorted, taken on qualities that Bill could only describe as reptilian. The jaw was too wide. The eyes were too far apart. The mouth was a slash of red, lipstick applied with the enthusiasm of someone painting a barn.
It was Delia. Adult Delia.
And she looked like an alligator that had learned to walk upright and discovered makeup.
Bill's mind flashed back to his own alligator foot—the scales, the claws, the way it had felt when he wiggled his toes. He understood, suddenly, what it meant to be trapped in a body that didn't quite fit. He felt a moment of sympathy.
It passed.
"Duo," Bill whispered. "Duo, look."
Duo crowded next to him, peering through the same gap. His breath caught.
"Is that—"
"The same."
"She was a toddler. A little girl. She had pigtails. She—"
"Look at her now."
Duo looked. His face cycled through several expressions—disbelief, horror, reluctant admiration, more horror.
"She was a swan," Bill breathed. "A beautiful little swan. And she grew into—"
"A duck," Duo supplied.
"Worse. A platypus. An overgrown, mutated, lipstick-wearing platypus."
Inside, Delia reached out and stroked Splock's head. Her fingers traced the curve of his flattened ear.
"There, there, bunny," she cooed. Her voice had deepened. Smokier. It carried the weight of ten years of practice and possibly several packs of cigarettes. "Did you like that? Did my little bunny like what his good girl learned?"
Splock's mouth moved. No sound came out.
"Because I learned so much," Delia continued, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Daddy—my real daddy, the computer—he put so many programs in me. So many things I didn't understand when I was little. But now?" She smiled. It was not a reassuring smile. "Now I understand everything. And I want to show you. All of it. Every single program."
Splock's eyes darted toward the window.
For just a moment, they met Bill's.
And in that moment, Bill saw something he had never seen in a Fortinbrasian before.
Pleading.
Actual, genuine, desperate pleading.
Then Delia's hand moved, and Splock's attention snapped back to her, and the moment was gone.
Bill pulled away from the window. His face was pale. His hands were shaking.
"We have to go in there," he said.
Duo grabbed his arm. "Are you insane? Look at her. She's—that's—"
"Our friend. Our pointy-eared, logical, insufferable friend. Who is currently being—" Bill couldn't finish.
"Programmed," Chewgumma offered helpfully. "Kookie watched through other window. Very educational. Kookie learned things about humans. Disturbing things."
Bill had seen enough.
He drew back his foot and kicked the door with every ounce of strength the Space Troopers had drilled into him. The wood splintered. The frame cracked. The door flew inward, slamming against the wall with a sound that cut through the grinding music like a gunshot.
"GET AWAY FROM HIM, YOU—"
He stopped.
The room was worse than the window had suggested. Much worse.
There was the couch, yes. There was Delia, yes, her impossible proportions somehow even more overwhelming at close range. There was Splock, still frozen in that expression of cosmic shock, his jumpsuit in ruins, his dignity in even greater ruins.
But there was also someone else.
In the corner, slumped against the wall, sat a figure. A man. Young, perhaps twenty-four years old. Long chestnut hair hung to his shoulders, lank and unwashed. His skin was the color of old parchment—pale, almost translucent. His frame was so thin that Bill could count ribs through his stained t-shirt. His eyes, dark and hollow, stared at nothing with the profound sadness of someone who had seen too much and felt too deeply.
His hands trembled. Constantly. Rhythmically. Like leaves in a wind that only he could feel.
From the radio on the windowsill, Dave Gahan's voice poured out like black velvet—smooth, controlled, menacing: "Is there something you need from me?"
The man in the corner jerked his head up, mouth already opening. His cracked voice followed the music, but wandered far from the melody, arriving late, slurred, wrong:
"Ish there... shomething you need..." He paused, head lolling, a string of saliva connecting his lower lip to his stained collar. His eyes struggled to focus on something that wasn't there. Then his face twisted with desperate effort, and he SCREAMED the next words, spit spraying:
"...FROM MEEEEEEEE?"
The radio continued, indifferent: "Are you having your fun?"
The man giggled—a wet, gurgling sound. He tried to nod along with the beat but his head moved wrong, too slow, too loose. He pointed a shaking finger at nothing, at everything, at the ceiling.
"Are you... are you HAVING..." He coughed, hacked, swallowed thickly. When he opened his mouth again, his voice cracked into a high, keening wail that had nothing to do with melody:
"...YOUR FUUUUUUUN?!"
Saliva ran down his chin. He didn't wipe it. His chest heaved with the effort of the scream, and for a moment he just breathed, wet and rattling.
The radio: "I never agreed to be your holy one..."
The man's face crumpled. Some flicker of recognition—of pain, of betrayal—crossed his vacant features. He tried to stand, failed, slumped back against the wall. His trembling hands came together in his lap, fingers twitching.
"I never... I never agreed..." His voice dropped to a whisper, confused, childlike. Then his jaw tightened. His eyes, unfocused as they were, suddenly burned with something broken and defiant. He threw his head back, cords standing out in his thin neck, and SCREAMED at the ceiling until his voice cracked and died:
"...TO BE YOUR HOOOOO-LEEEEEE OOOOOOONE!"
The scream degraded into a coughing fit that doubled him over. When he looked up again, his chin was wet, his eyes were empty, and his head began to loll gently to a beat that only he could hear—a beat that had nothing to do with the music still playing from the radio.
On the floor beside him, half-hidden by his trembling hand, lay a photograph. Bill's eyes caught it—a teenage boy, dark-haired, short-cropped, leather jacket, smirking at the camera with the confidence of youth. A younger brother, maybe. Or a victim.
Bill's nose wrinkled. The guy was a walking pharmacy. Or a walking warning. Or both. He looked like every bad decision Bill had ever seen, rolled into one shaking, miserable package. Hippie? Junkie? Wannabe Casanova? Refugee from a boy band? He was impossible to categorize, which made him even more repellent.
"What in the nine hells," Bill muttered, "is that?"
Duo edged closer to him. "Drugs, I think. Heavy stuff. The kind that makes you think you're a fish for a week."
The man noticed them.
His eyes focused—or tried to. They swam in their sockets for a moment before landing approximately on Bill's face. His mouth opened. Drool escaped. He didn't seem to notice.
"My name..." A thick rope of saliva suddenly spilled from the corner of his mouth, stretching down to his chin before breaking. He didn't seem to notice. "...ith Carlton... Morrow."
His head lolled on his neck, eyes struggling to focus on the wall. He blinked slowly, as if each eyelid weighed a ton.
"That—" His hand flopped up, finger wavering in the air like it might fall off. He pointed vaguely in the direction of the photograph, missing it entirely at first before his aim drifted to the right spot. "—ish my brother. Bobby."
His jaw went slack. For a moment, he just breathed, a wet, rattling sound. "My... little brother." He nodded, a loose, uncontrolled motion. "I... I got him hooked. On the sss—" He spat a little, the sound wet and thick. "—stuff. The bad ssstuff."
He tried to wipe his mouth but just smeared the spit across his stubbled cheek. "Now he... dances. Yeah. He dances." A vacant smile flickered. "In a club. A... gay club." He whispered the word 'gay' as if it were a dirty secret, then let out a single, gurgling chuckle. "To Depeche Mode."
His face suddenly crumpled. A single, fat tear detached itself and traced a slow path down his waxy, pale cheek. He didn't move to wipe it.
"He thinks..." He hiccupped, a dry, convulsive jerk of his torso. "He thinks Alan Wilder... is a genius." His voice cracked, rising to a trembling shout that immediately fell back into a whimper. "A GENIUS. And me?" He looked down at his own trembling hands, at the filth under his nails. He seemed confused by them. "I'm nothing."
His head drooped, chin hitting his chest. A long, silent moment passed. Then, without lifting his head, he mumbled into his own shirt, the words muffled and wet: "He's right. I'm nothing."
Bill exchanged a glance with Duo. Neither spoke.
Carlton's gaze drifted to Delia. His face transformed—a pathetic mixture of longing and worship, the look of a dog that keeps coming back to an owner who kicks it.
"I... love you, Delia." The whisper was hoarse, a struggle. His lips moved, but they were numb, smacking together uselessly. "I... did ev-verything..." He had to stop, swallowing hard against a dry throat, the sound painful. "...for you."
His head wobbled on his neck, eyes losing the wall, finding the corner of the room, losing it again.
"EVERYTHING." The word came out as a thick, spitting shout that immediately died into a wet cough. He gagged a little, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a glistening trail.
"My brother—" He jabbed a thumb towards his own chest, missed, tried again. "I... I deshtroyed him." He stared blankly at his thumb, as if wondering what it was doing there. "My soul..." A long, vacant pause. He blinked slowly. "I sold it. Piece... by... piece." He made a counting motion with his fingers, but the numbers were wrong, clumsy. "Pieces."
His face, slack and sweaty, suddenly tightened. A flicker of something like focus, or pain, crossed his features. "And you—" His voice cracked, a pathetic, reedy sound. He tried to point at her, but his shaking finger wavered in the air, pointing somewhere to the left of her head, at a lamp. "You're... playing games... with THAT?"
He squinted at the end of his own finger, then at the lamp, confusion washing over his face. He lowered his hand, defeated, and a fresh tear spilled over, mingling with the spit on his chin. "With... that," he mumbled again, to no one.
He jabbed a finger towards... something. At first, the direction was wrong, his hand twitching helplessly, but he corrected it, pointing his trembling finger at Splock, sprawled on the couch.
"That..." His lip curled, spit bubbling at the corner of his mouth. "That asshole alien!" The words came out thick, tangled, sprayed with saliva. He wiped his chin with his shoulder, a clumsy, lurching motion.
"With his..." He squinted, trying to focus on the face of the Nocturnian from the planet Fortinbras II. His face contorted with genuine disgust. "...crappy jumpsuit." He gestured vaguely at his own stained, rumpled clothes, then back at Splock. "Mine's worse now. See? See what you did?"
His head wobbled, eyes losing the photograph, finding it again with visible effort. "And his... his hatchet face." He made a chopping motion at his own nose, missing, almost poking himself in the eye. He blinked, confused.
"And his ears..." A wet, gurgling laugh escaped him, degenerating into a coughing fit. He hacked for a moment, phlegm rattling in his chest. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse, almost wondering, as if the comparison had just occurred to him in its full brilliance.
"Like a—" He paused, mouth hanging open, searching for the words. His eyes went distant, then lit up with the dim flicker of what might have been triumph. "—a pregnant kangaroo!"
He nodded to himself, satisfied, the motion too loose, too many nods. A fresh rope of saliva stretched from his lower lip to his shirt. He didn't notice.
"Pregnant... kangaroo," he repeated, quieter now, giggling to himself. The giggle faded into a vacant stare at the floor. His finger, still extended, slowly lowered, trembling the whole way.
Splock's ears twitched at the description. It was the only movement he made.
Delia didn't look at him.
Carlton tried to rise from the floor. His knee buckled before he finally managed to rise, as if something had gone wrong, all sharp corners and loose joints. He swayed for a moment, head down, breathing heavily.
When he looked up, his eyes were wrong. Unfocused, but burning underneath. The kind of dangerous that came from having nothing left to lose. From having already lost it.
He stumbled toward her. His foot caught on nothing—just air—and he corrected with a clumsy sideways step that brought him too close. His hand shot out, grabbing her arm. His fingers were damp, clammy, and they dug in with a desperate strength that surprised even him.
"Look... look at me, Delia." His breath washed over her face—stale, sour, chemical. He blinked hard, but his eyes kept drifting, losing her, finding her again. His grip tightened.
"LOOK AT ME." The shout started strong but dissolved into a wet cough at the end. He gagged, swallowed, his throat working painfully. A thin string of spit connected his lower lip to his chin.
"I love you." His voice cracked on the word love, splintered into something small and pathetic. "I did... ev-verything." He shook her arm slightly, a loose, jerky motion. "Everything."
Now his face was inches from hers, giving her the fullest view of the broken capillaries in his nose, the trembling in his jaw, the way his pupils, despite the dim light, were like pinpoints.
"You can't just—" He stopped. His mouth hung open. For a long, terrible moment, he simply stood there, frozen, having forgotten what came next. His brow furrowed in confused concentration. The word hovered somewhere in the fog, just out of reach.
"You can't," he repeated finally, lamely, his voice small. His fingers were still clamped around her arm, trembling. "Just... can't." He nodded, agreeing with himself, the motion too loose, too many nods. "With him. With that. You just... can't."
Another tear rolled down his unshaven cheek, leaving a dirty trail. He seemed unaware, standing beside Delia, holding her hand too tightly, breathing his sour breath into her face, waiting for her brain, which was struggling to function, to comprehend the rest of her sentence.
Delia finally seemed to remember his existence, slapped his hand away without looking, and turned to him with the patience of a being who had all the time in the world and intended to make the most of every second.
Her eyes began to glow.
Not metaphorically. Actually glow. A sickly yellow light that seemed to come from somewhere behind her pupils, illuminating her face from within, casting strange shadows across those unfortunate features.
"Carlton," she said. Her voice was calm. Almost kind. "You've been a good toy. Very obedient. Very eager to please." She smiled. It was not a nice smile. "But children outgrow their toys, Carlton. They throw them away."
Carlton's face went white. Whiter than it had already been, which was saying something—the guy looked like death warmed over on a good day. His eyes widened. His mouth opened, but at first, only a wet, confused sound came out.
He stepped backward.
One step. Two. His heel hit something—the base of a glass door leading to another room. He stumbled, caught himself, looked behind him at the frosted pane. Then back at Delia. His brow furrowed.
"Wha—" He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a glistening trail across his cheek. "What're you... doing to me?"
Then his body moved forward again.
Not by his choice. Bill saw it clearly—Carlton's muscles tensed, fighting, but something else was pulling him. Something invisible. Something inexorable. His feet dragged slightly, like a puppet with tangled strings.
"Delia...?" His voice was small, confused. Not scared yet. Just... puzzled. Like a dog hearing a strange noise. "Delia, stop. I'm... I'm talking to you. About him. About that... that alien asshole with his..." He lost the thought, head lolling, then found it again as his body carried him closer to the glass. "With his ears. You... you did it with him, didn't you? I saw. I'm not stupid. I'm... I'm—"
His head hit the glass.
A dull thud. The pane spiderwebbed with cracks. Carlton bounced back, dazed, blood already trickling from his forehead. He blinked. Touched his face. Looked at his fingers. Red.
"Did I...?" He swayed. "Delia, I think I... I think I'm bleeding." A tear traced down his cheek, mingling with the blood. "Is this because I... because I yelled? About the... the pregnant kangaroo? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, okay? I just... I love you. I did everything. I—"
Then forward again.
Another thud. More cracks. The glass held. His nose smashed against the pane this time. Blood sprayed. He gasped, a wet, choking sound.
"Delia! Delia, make it stop! Please! I'll be good! I'll—I won't talk about him anymore! I won't! Just—"
Forward again. Harder.
This time, his head punched through. Shards of glass surrounded his face, cutting his cheeks, his forehead, his lips. A piece lodged in his eyebrow. Another sliced his ear—the one he'd been mocking just minutes ago. He hung there, impaled but alive, his eyes still fixed on Delia with that terrible, dog-like devotion.
Blood poured into his mouth. He coughed, spat, sprayed red across the broken glass. "I... I still love you," he mumbled, the words thick and wet. "Even with... with the alien. Even with... with everything. I just—I just want you to look at me. Like you used to. Before—"
He pulled back. Glass scraped bone. More blood. He barely seemed to notice. His eyes were already unfocused, pupils pinpricks, but still searching for her face.
Forward again. His skull hit the frame this time.
The sound was wet. Final.
CARLTON SCREAMED.
Not the confused mumble from before. Not the pathetic whining. This was something else—a sound that came from somewhere deep and animal, a shriek of pure agony that tore through the room and made Bill take an involuntary step backward.
"AAAAAGH—"
His body kept moving. Back. Forward. The scream cut off as his head hit again, then resumed, higher now, desperate, the sound of something being destroyed while still alive.
"DELI—AAAAAGH—PLEASE—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—MAKE IT—AAAAAGH—"
Back. Forward. Each impact weaker. Each scream shorter.
"—STOP—PLEASE—I LOVE—AAAAAGH—"
Back. Forward.
"—WHY—WHY—AAAAAGH—"
Back. Forward.
"—DELI—AAAA—"
Back. Forward.
"—AA—"
Back.
Forward.
Bill lost count. Six, maybe seven impacts. Each one weaker than the last. Each one painting more red across the floor. Each scream quieter, hoarser, until finally—
Finally, Carlton stopped moving. His head rested on a bed of broken glass, his body crumpled beneath him. The trembling hands were still. The sad eyes were open, but they saw nothing.
His mouth moved once. A whisper so quiet Bill almost missed it.
"...pregnant kangaroo..."
A bubble of blood formed on his lips. Popped. And then nothing.
Delia watched the whole thing. Her expression didn't change. Not once.
When it was over, she reached up and adjusted a strand of hair that had come loose. Turned back to Splock. Smiled that terrible smile.
"Now then, bunny. Where were we?"
Splock's mouth moved. No words came out. He tried to scoot backward on the couch, but there was nowhere to go. The cushions bunched behind him. Delia's bulk filled his entire field of vision.
Outside, Chewgumma's voice drifted through the broken window. "Kookie thinks bunny is in trouble."
Bill had seen enough. More than enough. The blood. The broken glass. Carlton's empty eyes. Splock's shattered dignity. Delia's glowing crocodile face looming over their friend like a predator about to devour its prey.
Something snapped.
"HEY! BUTT-FACE! ASIA-BUTT! PLANET-SIZED REAR END!"
Delia turned.
Her head rotated slowly, mechanically, like a turret tracking a target. The glow in her eyes flickered. Her crocodile mouth opened, then closed. For a moment—just a moment—her face crumpled into something that didn't belong on an eighteen-year-old predator.
It was a child's face. A hurt child's face. The expression of a little girl who had just been called names on the playground.
Her voice, when it came, was high and wobbly. "Stop it, you weenie! Your breath smells bad! Why are you being so rude? I don't even know what you're like in bed!"
Bill blinked. Of all the comebacks in all the universe, that was the one she'd chosen? He drew himself up to his full height, puffed out his chest, and let loose with the most devastating insult he could muster.
"I'm the Galactic Hero, and you're a POOP NOSE!"
Delia's mouth fell open. Her eyes widened. For one beautiful second, she had absolutely nothing to say.
That was all Chewgumma needed.
The Kookie burst through the broken door like a furry missile, his massive form filling the room. He didn't hesitate. Didn't slow down. He bounded across the floor—over Carlton's body, around the pool of blood, past the sagging couch—and grabbed Splock by the scruff of his torn jumpsuit.
The logical one didn't resist. He couldn't. He was still in that state of cosmic shock, his eyes unfocused, his mouth slightly open, his ears doing something that no Fortinbrasian ears had ever done before.
Chewgumma hauled him toward the door.
Delia's head snapped around. The glow in her eyes intensified. Her crocodile face twisted with fury. She raised one hand, fingers spread, and Bill felt the air pressure change. Something was building. Something like what had happened to Carlton—that invisible force that had smashed his head against the glass until it broke.
Nothing happened.
Delia tried again. Her brow furrowed. Her hand trembled with effort. The air hummed with potential energy.
Chewgumma kept walking. Splock bounced along behind him like a sack of potatoes.
Ham Duo appeared at Bill's elbow, watching the scene with professional interest. "It's not working," he observed. "Her mind thing. The psycho-whatever. It's not working on Chewgumma."
"Why not?" Bill asked.
"Kookie brain. Too simple. Too primitive. All those years of eating hats and running from police—they've made him immune to sophisticated mental attacks. You can't push what isn't there to push."
Delia shrieked. An actual shriek, high and frustrated, the sound of a toddler who had just been told she couldn't have dessert.
Bill paused at the door. Turned back. Looked at her—really looked at her. At the crocodile face. At the impossible proportions. At the rage and confusion warring on features that had once, briefly, been almost cute.
"You know," he said, "you were kind of pretty as a kid. In a creepy, predatory way. What happened? Did your computer dad install the wrong programs? Mix up 'femme fatale' with 'monster from the black lagoon'?"
Delia's lip curled. "You don't understand anything. I'm the daughter of the Quintiform. I was created for greatness. For power. For—"
"For sitting on?" Bill interrupted. "Because with a butt that size, you're not conquering anything except maybe furniture. You could be in commercials. 'Delia's Derriere—now available in queen size!'"
Delia's face went through several colors. None of them were good.
Behind Bill, Ham Duo's voice cut through the moment. "I love what you're doing, really. The insults are inspired. But we need to MOVE."
Bill took one last look at the scene—the blood, the body, the sputtering monster, the empty space where Splock's dignity used to be—and ran.
He burst through the door just as Chewgumma disappeared around a corner, Splock still dangling from his massive paw like a broken toy. Duo was right behind him, laughing despite everything, laughing because that was what you did when the universe got too absurd to process any other way.
Behind them, Delia's scream echoed through the ruined streets.
"I'LL FIND YOU! ALL OF YOU! ESPECIALLY THE BUNNY! HE'S MINE! MINE!"
Bill ran faster.
The music from the bar followed them for a few blocks, then faded into the general soundtrack of apocalypse—the crackle of flames, the crash of falling debris, the distant howl of mutant dogs. They ran without looking back, without checking if she was following, because looking back was how people in horror stories died.
Chewgumma led the way, Splock's limp form bouncing against his furry back with each stride. The Kookie moved with surprising speed for something his size, eighteen years of running from police having apparently turned him into an escape artist of considerable skill.
They wove through collapsed buildings, jumped over craters, ducked under hanging debris. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Bill's lungs burned. Duo's breathing was ragged. Chewgumma showed no signs of fatigue, which was either a testament to Kookie physiology or evidence that he'd been eating performance-enhancing hats.
Finally, when the ruins had grown quiet enough that their own footsteps seemed obscenely loud, Chewgumma veered into a collapsed structure—what might have been a warehouse, once—and deposited Splock on a relatively clean patch of concrete.
The logical one didn't move. His eyes were open but unfixed, staring at something that wasn't there. His ears were still flat against his skull. His mouth hung slightly open, as if he'd been mid-sentence when his brain had simply... stopped.
Bill collapsed beside him, gasping. "Is she—did we—"
"Kookie doesn't know." Chewgumma peered back the way they'd come. "Kookie doesn't hear her. Kookie doesn't smell her. Kookie thinks maybe she stopped."
Duo leaned against a broken wall, sucking air. "Stopped? She had us. She had him. Why would she stop?"
The answer, had they known it, was both simpler and stranger than they could have imagined.
Back at the Golden Pheasant Exotic Dancing club, Delia had reached the doorway just as they disappeared around a corner. She'd taken two steps into the street, ready to pursue, ready to catch her bunny and never let go—
And stopped.
Her hand had gone to her face. To the smeared lipstick. To the mascara running in dark rivers down her cheeks.
She'd caught her reflection in a shard of mirror still hanging crookedly from the doorframe.
"I can't," she'd whispered. "I can't let him see me like this. Not my bunny. Not looking like... like this."
She'd turned and walked back inside, already planning her next move. A change of clothes. Fresh makeup. Something that would make those ears twitch with something other than terror.
The music played on.