“Aren’t you going to tell me I’m a fucking stupid fuckwit,” said Zeb, “for doing such a stupid fucking dickwit thing? Though not in so many words, I guess.”
“It was a little spontaneous of you,” said Adam, “but worse things could have happened. In the event, it was fortuitous that he didn’t recognize you.”
“Wait a minute,” said Zeb. “You knew he was walking in the door? You didn’t warn me?”
“I counted on you to act as the situation would dictate,” said Adam. “Nor was my confidence misplaced.”
Zeb was outraged: his cunning bastard of a big brother had set him up, the shit! But he’d also trusted Zeb to be competent enough to deal with whatever mayhem might result, so in addition to the outrage he felt all warm and vindicated. Thank you didn’t really fit the case, so instead he said, “You fucking smartass!”
“Regrettable,” said Adam. “And I do regret it. But may I point out that, as a result, that man is permanently off our case. Now, and this is important: get them to collect as much of him – of it – as they can. Put it in a CryoJeenyus Frasket – Katrina always keeps a few on hand for clients with CryoJeenyus contracts. The full-body model would be preferable to the head-only. Many Scales customers who are no longer young have made such arrangements. The protocol is that if they have a – what CryoJeenyus calls ‘a life-suspending event’ – and when speaking of those who have had their lives suspended, please do avoid the word death, as CryoJeenyus employees do, since you will shortly be impersonating one of them. If such a life-suspending event occurs, the client is flash-frozen immediately in the Frasket and shipped to CryoJeenyus for re-animation later, once CryoJeenyus has developed the biotech to do that.”
“Which is when pigs can fly,” says Zeb. “I hope Katrina’s got a giant ice-cube tray.”
“Use buckets if necessary,” said Adam. “We need to get him – we need to get the effluent to Pilar’s cryptic team, out on the east coast.”
“Pilar’s what?”
“Cryptic team. Our friends,” says Adam. “They have day jobs in the biotech Corps: OrganInc, HelthWyzer Central, RejoovenEsense, even CryoJeenyus. But they’re helping us at night, cryptic being a bio-term for camouflage in, say, caterpillars.”
“Since when are you so palsy with caterpillars?” said Zeb. “Are you warping your brain lurking in that dumb MaddAddam Extinctathon name-the-dead-beetle game site?” Adam overrode him.
“The cryptic team will find out what it was, inside the pills. Or is. Let’s hope it can’t go airborne; we don’t think it can yet, or anyone who was in that room will have been contaminated. It appears to be very rapid-acting, so they’d be showing symptoms. As things stand, we believe it’s contact-only. Don’t let any of the – of the residue touch you.”
And don’t stick my finger in the goo and then shove it up my ass, Zeb thought. “I’m not a fucking idiot,” he said out loud.
“Live up to that pledge. I know you can,” said Adam. “I’ll see you on the sealed bullet train, with the Frasket.”
“We’re going where?” said Zeb. “You’re coming too?” But Adam had rung off, or hung up, or logged out; whatever you did on the other end of a tooth.
While the plastic-film-dressed and face-masked cleanup team was water-vaccing the Rev into enamelled pails and then funnelling him into sealable freezer-friendly metal flasks, Zeb headed off to become a tidier and sweeter version of Smokey the Bear. He disposed of his black outfit, doomed to incineration, and took a quick antimicrobial-enhanced shower – same product the Scalies used – lathering his face, sanctifying his pits, and Q-tipping his pointy ears.
I’m gonna wash that Rev right offa my head,
’Cause he’s not only dead, he’s red,
He’s a red red goo, and a good thing too,
’Cause Daddy I’m through and so are you,
A boobity-doop-de-doop-de-doop-de-doo!
He did a little two-step, a little hip-wiggle. He liked to sing in the shower, especially when danger threatened.
One more river, he sang while putting on a fresh black suit. And that’s the river of boredom! One more molar, There’s one more molar to floss.
Then he resumed his duties, standing sentinel behind Katrina WooWoo – now dressed as a fruit cluster with a fetching set of tooth marks embroidered on one apple-shaped boob – while she and March the python broke the lamentable news to the three OilCorps execs, having first ordered frozen daiquiris on the house, all around, and a platter of mini-fish-fingers, PeaPod Good-as-Real Scallops – No Bottoms Dragged for These, said the label, as Zeb knew from mooching them in the kitchen – some Gourmet’s Holiday Poutine, and a plate of deep-fried NeverNetted Shrimps, a new lab-grown splice.