I woke up dreaming I had a mouthful of rotten tennis shoes. I'd expected Gloria to be gone, given what she'd told me, and wasn't disappointed.
I went into the bathroom and peed. I brushed my teeth, but they still felt coated with something I didn't want to think about. When I flossed the stench nearly took my head off so I brushed and flossed again and then sniffed the floss up close. The foul odor had dissipated some so I finished by burning up my mouth with fiery mouthwash. I spit it out and gargled a second mouthful of the stuff.
Gloria'd left her number on the table beside the bed. I let it fester there and went to the safe. I took out my card and checked my credits. I took out the slip of paper with the number and name I'd been given before leaving HQ. I needed a weapon. Bringing one in had been too dangerous, but this place was supposed to be backwater enough weapons were easy to get.
I called the number. A man's voice answered with a growl that sounded something like "Yeah." Since all languages but the official Orgulhian English were illegal, I figured the speaker was being a jerk. Or he was a feral.
"I need to see Matt about some merchandise. Raymond said to mention his name."
"Never heard of no fucking Raymond."
"You Matt?"
"Maybe."
"Raymond said you'd remember Mateus."
"That shit sucks. Meet me at dog house. You know?"
"I do." It was one of a number of rotating meeting places I'd been briefed on, deep in the feral ghetto. "I'm on my way."
When I got there the whole scene reeked of ferals. A handful of men stood around a fenced pit where two dogs, one mottled pink and blue, the other a dirty brownish-black, circled each other, snarling and drooling. The mottled one's torn ear ran blood and canine fang punctures freshly scabbed dotted its white muzzle with rips and tears. It had teardrop eyes and delicate pink nostrils, like a rabbit, and it backed away from the other dog.
I thought of Gloria. She'd gone back to the club to sleep. Said all her things were there and the girls all slept there. Just as well; I was pretty much finished with her. I needed to see her tonight, but I hoped that it would be close to the last time.
Four orgasms, she'd said. I thought I was losing it. I needed to get back in shape. As tuned as she was, I should've coaxed more than four out of her. Even barely tuned bitches shuddered through eight or ten in a couple hours. Maybe it was an off night. Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention.
I asked for Matt but the men waved me off. I watched with them as the pink-nosed, mottled dog came in low with a sudden lunge for the dark brute's neck and locked on. With a fast head toss it pulled back with a mouthful of flesh. The other dog's head lolled to one side. It tried to stand but followed its head into the spreading pool of its own blood.
Paper exchanged hands. I realized it was some kind of money. I almost laughed. The Orgulhian overlords had ended the quaint practice of currency ages ago. These were ferals. Only thing better'n coaxing orgasms out of tuned sluts was decimating ferals. My dick was getting hard.
Someone crept up behind me. He hadn't been ringside and he surprised me with a giant hand on my shoulder and what I took to be a weapon in my back.
"Walk where I indicate. This is a big-ass gun. I don't need your business. Smelling like trouble and I put a big-ass hole in you."
He indicated me over to a small shed that looked like it might fall over any minute. Once inside the place opened into a cavernous warehouse. He let out something like a chortle, as if this was a new trick to me. The guy was pure backwater.
"What you want?" he asked. "I hate Mateus. There no such person as Raymond."
"He said you made Orgulhians suck your dick."
He did the chortling noise again and pulled the gun from my back, then turned me around so we were face to face. He was taller, an unusual thing, but skinny. His mottled flesh reminded me of the winning dog's body, pinks and blacks and some peeling white patches. Black hands.
"I need a weapon. Smart one, with mental selection and mental guards. I want the range from explosions to just lead."
"Need t'tune it to ya."
"If you have one, I can do it myself."
He led me to a giant vault that opened when he put his hand on a round glass plaque. Inside we faced a wall of weapons, barrels in, butts out.
"Pick one," he said.
I made a quick round and grabbed the one that called out to me. It almost jumped into my hand. I turned and pointed it at the man. He didn't flinch.
"Won't work," he said.
I pointed it over his shoulder and fired out the open vault door. His eyes widened.
"Sure it works," I said. "I have a genetic communing with these weapons. I can destroy all the other links but this one right now. And I don't need this to kill you."
I stepped up and grabbed his face and pushed until it crumpled like a paper cup in my hand, his brains seeping out his nostrils and his eyes exploding from his head. I left him in a heap. I opened a box and grabbed ten small grenades and dropped the milky marbles into my pocket. I rolled another handful of them into the vault and shut the door. The vault collapsed into a molten pile of rubble in a silent implosion.
Outside the warehouse I blew the rest of the grenades in the box and watched the shed disappear. The men at the pit turned to look at me and I killed them all with the weapon. Then I killed the winning dog.
Fucking cooze, telling me just four orgasms. Maybe the bitch lied.
