chapter
There were a few many of them, lurking around in circles. Urban vultures. Overgrown beasts of prey, the few living creatures to have survived the depraving expansion of humanity. They hunted for the left overs of Saturday night, forgotten kebabs, that’s what they used to call them back in the day. The mist floated on the water, like a puffy cloud come to rest for a while, before having to return to its duty somewhere else, high up in the sky above the city and them all. The sun was a distant mirage. A sign of hope in the grey infested place.
The blazing wind blew into his collar as he tried pointlessly to protect himself from the cold. Families with young kids were out feeding the dam seagulls.
He sat there watching the horrible sight, his stomach growling within him. Among the cries of laughter and joy one could, if eager and attentive enough, distinguish the low desperate tone of the damned as they froze slowly in the weather. Black fingers and toes turning to stone as the crowds rushed past. A lonesome gypsy kid played away at his trumpet by the fountain. A couple of miserable coins lay in a cap on the floor in front of him. His knuckles glowing blue in the cold morning air. Only the sculptures of heroes past seemed to pay him any attention as his monotonic tune played in loops. A silent audience. Perhaps the best kind.
Jack Landan’s body wasn’t doing much better. They’d released him in the early hours of the morning after a few more beatings and assured him they hadn’t even scratched the surface yet. He was going to bring them Maleba’s head whether he liked it or not.
The muscles in his jaw contracted uncontrollably as he reached into his trouser pocket hoping to find something. They’d ripped his trousers to shreds and with it the money he had hidden in them. All he had now was the pittance he had put together since being released. Ecstatically he made contact with a few cold metal objects. He pulled out a few coppers and began to count them, slowly. Very slowly.
The severe headache which had started to settle in only added to the sense of pity he was feeling for his sorry self. All he needed, all that lay between him and freedom were 127 Kredits. How repugnant, he thought, that it should all eventually boil down to that miserable figure. 127 Kredits. How many times had he been in possession of the same amount and blown it all on some cheap high?
As he reached down to the lady, who’s shoes had been stolen, by a cross dresser in a yellow mini skirt and displaying visible signs of fever, he was met by the screeching sound of nails on a blackboard. His vocal chords struggled to fight the slow paralysing effect he was undergoing. As if damned by some higher power, to bear witness to all that was happening, unable to do anything about it. And just as she had appeared, so did she begin to rot away. She turned all shades of blue, before black, before then starting to scale like an eroding cliff, until there was nothing left of her existence but the ashes that soon vanished in the wind.
The cold tears collected under Jack Landan’s eyes as he was forced by his frozen chains to witness yet more outrageous acts of folly. Surely, he thought to himself, someone must remember how it was back in the days when the world was round and there was wealth and hope for all. Before they’d turned the world into a seven sided cube in order to control the spread of warmth and make life easier for the accountants. It was easier that way, they’d said and explained in all manner of incomprehensible yet very convincing ways. No more countries, no nations. Just seven sides equal sides. That was never true of course. They said the sun was relatively abundant up there, just like the wealth. That’s why so many fled there. Desperate to find a place in one of the many Notobian mines, in the hope of partaking, in however small a share, of the fortune which had blessed that warmth forsaken place. No one told them though that wealth was for the few, and that for all the sunlight in the Universe it was no use that far up North, where the cold winter reigned apart from a few warm days a year. The harsh cold would welcome them and pester them. And when their dreams had eventually been crushed they’d be cast to the streets of the underworld inevitably forced to scratch out an existence from the breadcrumbs and undigested peanuts left lying around in unsavoury lumps of shit.
A young looking kid, no older than fifteen. Bare footed and rather green in complexion made his way, stumbling across the fountain square before him. The life had all but been sucked out of him, but for a little fire which still burned within him. The fire of life, the hardest of all fires to put out. Were it not for the awful smell which his untreated body gave out, he would have gone unnoticed by the blessed ones which avoided him like some inconvenient puddle of mud. He dragged his right foot behind him, miserably letting out grunts of pain, starvation and despair. One hand held to his aching belly and the other to passers by. He called out at anyone who was willing to listen, but nothing. For lack of a better word, he was alone. The sombre happening unfolded before Jack Landan at a menacingly slow rate, as if someone had hit the slow-motion button. The knife came out of nowhere as the kid pulled down, begging for mercy at the arm of middle-aged man with a finely trimmed ginger beard and a slim-tight dark black suit and that silver skull and bones insignia on his collar, an agent of the state.
The cold blade made contact with the kid’s stomach, piercing his skin and abdominals with ease. There was however, very little reaction on the part of the victim who only proceeded to stand still, not quite grasping what was happening to the fabric of his precious little reality. Again the agent jacked at his victim’s stomach, inflicting a number of deep wounds. They exchanged glances, for a brief breath before the vicious attacker pulled the kid up close to him and whispered something into his ear. The child went tumbling over and backwards, lying there staring at his cold aggressor with the dread of someone that has met his maker. Jack Landan watched incredulous as the poor kid’s skin changed colour, from a sickening pale green, to purple then black before his skin started to peal. He withered from within, with flabbergasting speed, as the agent stood there watching, judging, probably enjoying. The look of despair on the kid’s face turned to one of sadness and defeat.
As if having attended some kind of show, the agent then reached into his pocket, picked out a large bundle of notes and flung them at the remains of the poor child. And he too, just as he had come, left. Back on his way to wherever he was due.
When he eventually came unstuck Jack Landan took the money. He noticed the stiff dark grey suits following him from a safe distance, behind them in the mist were also some of Maleba’s gang. He didn’t have the luxury of contemplating the lunacy of his situation. He had to think fast and straight. Something he hadn’t been allowed to do for a while. Where he was going they would not be able to follow according to Rudcock Nutter’s hasty explanations.
He took a left from the city hall square, by the old university building, now a deranged circus of multi-limbed slaves, that were sold to the highest of perverted bidders. He continued along the same street, by the building that had once hosted the national gallery, then past a second-hand shop who’s ageless products he had never really taken the time to inspect.
The dark suits still in close pursuit, he pushed at the old glass door to the shop. A bell rang a few inches above his head. An instant time machine into a world he had seen before and some part of him still remembered. The smell of dust, like the old instant coffee his great Grandfather always insisted on making. The whistling sound of a kettle on a stove. The squeaking sound of a door from a time bygone.
“Good afternoon. You looking for anything in particular?” he heard a gentle voice calling from beyond some bookshelves and more clutter than he had seen in a long time. Still unable to come to terms with the treasure he had walked into he struggled to answer and so made slowly towards the source of the voice.
All manner of wonderful objects. A lightbulb, a record player. Books and paintings, pens and pencils and rubbers. Paper and flower pots. Binoculars and phones. Spectacles and batteries and it. Packed under a cluster of old newspapers paper and dust. Snoozing silently, as if awaiting for
his arrival.
“1972 Olympia travel typewriter. One of the number keys has a bit of glitch on it but the rest works just fine,” spoke an old figure of a man with curly white hair and round glasses hanging for their life on the edge of his little red nose.
“I think I’ve still got some ink roles round here somewhere.”
As the voice disappeared under the desk before him, Jack Landan stood there in full admiration of the little gem of a shop, wondering how many times he had walked past the place, never having noticed it for what it was.
“Ahh, here it is,” spoke the elderly man, appearing from within a mild cloud of dust.
“She’s got your name all over it. It’d be awful rude of you not to take her.”
“Here, I’ll throw in the ink roles for free and a toast. A glass of wine. To new friendships and new adventures. What do you say?”
“How much you asking for it?” he managed to mumble.
“Oh well, I hadn’t really thought about a price. What would you be willing to offer?”
“Tell me good man, you wouldn’t happen to have one of those old style back exits would you now?” Jack Landan asked forcing the conversation to more pressing matters.
“Sure do,” he answered with a smile all of his own. “How about a glass of wine before you leave though? I would hate to see you go without a proper toast. Your Grandfather wouldn’t have had it any other way you know.”
“You knew my grandfather?” Jack Landan asked incredulously as the shopkeeper reached for a bottle.
“2021 Malbec should do? Over 80 years old. What do you think? Gazillion sure liked a good Malbec.”
“How you get to know my grandfather,” he inquired again.
“Your Grandfather Gazillion had many friends. However, the question you should be asking now is how do I know you’re being followed by two Potzato agents and a couple of Maleba’s scumbags?” he said as he reached for a bottle opener and began to screw it carefully into the old cork.
“Your grandfather and I go back a long time. He took care of me as a youngster. First trip over from Pazanna. Your old man was captain. Took me under his wings. Showed me the ropes. And when the authorities saw it fit to have us off with our heads he got me out of there like a bat out of hell. Saved my skin.”
“You from Pazanna?”
“Got the third eye to prove it and all. I just can’t remember where I’ve put it,” the old man said bursting into a cough clustered laugh that forced him to seek the refuge and support of a stool.
“Not long before it all went cone shaped. He asked me to keep an eye on you. On you all. And I have.”
“What do you mean all of us?”
“I mean all of you. All three of you.”
“You mean, my sisters...They’re still...”
“Yes,” he said with a proud grin. They’re doing just fine. And they love you. But we never get to choose the destinies that are laid before us. That, you should have figured out by now. Now drink up. You’ve got a boat to catch.”
Their raised glasses touched slightly and they kept eye contact as they sipped softly at the beautifully rich, red wine. Looking back towards the shop window Jack Landan could see the oncoming scene of trouble approaching from outside.
“You’ll need her where you’re going” the old man said nodding at the dusty typewriter. “I think I’ve got some paper round here somewhere. Oh and one of those old shoulder strap bags to go with it.”
“But...my grandfather, I still don’t understand how you could possibly ...”
“He knew a lot of people,” the shopkeeper replied smiling.
“Here, you better be on your way my boy,” he said as he showed him into the back of the shop and down a trap door behind a kitchen sink.
“Oh and, you’ll enjoy it.”
“Enjoy what?” he asked as he was handed the Olympia down the hatch.
“The past. I think you’ll fit right in there. Oh and I nearly forgot...” he said handing him an envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Don’t worry about it now. You’ll figure it out. Now get the hell out’a here before it’s too late.”
The shopkeeper winked at him, threw him a torch light and slid the hatch down over his head. Only the time to light the damn thing and put in a few steps before hearing the deafening roar of a double shot fired in the shop above him.
rchapte
A green jacket moved across the space before him and landed on the brown carpet in the far corner of the room. Reaching over for it, he wondered whether it tasted of grass. The last thing he could remember was running through the rabbit hole with his newly purchased typewriter. It was still there with him, lying in the corner across the room. The envelope too, was still in the inside pocket of his coat.
He recognised his surrounds, having been there not too long before, only this time he could not vouch for how he had gotten, or rather, been forced there.
Maleba’s shaky hand rummaged around in one of his pockets until he pulled out a wrapped up role of 1000 Kredit bills. They gathered round him in a crazed like, quasi holy manner. No one seemed to notice the six legged rodent galloping across the living room. No one would have noticed an elephant herding in the background. Funnily enough, an elephant stormed into the room. It was only Jack Landan who appeared the least bit concerned, pulling his legs up to his chest onto the sofa and dropping the glass of velvet drink as the pachydermous lunged across the room sending the chandelier into a tumultuous spin. The dust rose from the uneven floor as all around him the world shook as the beast turned to face him.
“Calm the fuck down over there,” some angry voice called out. The elephant took an interminably long look at him. They exchanged a brief moment of understanding. A mutual recognition of each other’s presence and their unique place in the Universe. Then, as easily as it had come into the room, it left. Nothing he couldn’t keep under control.
The big man himself, Kayan Maleba unwrapped the Kredit bills and chucked them into the blender. One of his accomplices was still trying to figure the switch to the thing. It was all a bit too old-style for them. A third skinny individual with leprosy-like lumps all over his face, rummaged around in the room next door before turning up with a bottle of something which looked disturbingly like rat poison. It was obviously used for other purposes round that way. Rats still existed and bred. In spite all the damage caused by humanity rats were doing just fine. It was some survival instinct they had.
They handled the stuff with the paranoid focus of drug addicts handling explosives. Hands shaking. Holding the bottle above the blender and pouring the mesh carefully into the plastic container.
“Get fucking going, already,” Maleba cursed. The tick in his jaw had moved up to his neck and eye which had started to flicker back and forth uncontrollably. The sound of the damn thing spinning and the colour and wave-like movement of the Kredit bills being torn and swished around in the rat poison were starting to drive him round the bend. The noise from the antiquated kitchen appliance continued to grow higher and higher in their skulls. For a second Jack Landan thought he could feel the sound waves hitting the inside of his skull as they moved on through him.
“Perfect,” Maleba declared, after dipping a finger into the mesh and taking a long suck at his finger.
A chap with a lump-infested face rough-handled the shaker jar and emptied its content into a silver bowl lying on the low, black table in the middle of the room. The nonchalance with which he treated the concoction was admirable now that they had overcome the initial mixing procedure. They would soon be injecting it into their worn-out veins. And perhaps just maybe, they might make it out the other side in one piece. All that was left, was for one of them to add one more all important ingredient to the meshy mix. The powdery orange coloured substance. A distant relative of its purest form which the resistance proudly recognised as its greatest money making product. Not only did its control and distribution grant them the means to pu
rsue their seemingly aimless war, but it simultaneously allowed them to do so whilst holding some of the most powerful figures in politics to ransom. The senator’s nasty habit being only the latest example of how they had turned the power of the OrAngE stuff to their advantage. Blackmail will forever be a crook’s best tool, some murdered senator had once said.
“Thats it pal. Spray it on it nice and thick. Get it up yaaa,” someone yelled.
The wave of madness soon began to take shape as they all appeared to go visibly doolally. Screaming and screeching like orangoutangs at a strip show. They still hadn’t touched the stuff. Looking down at the small silver container Jack Landan spotted a couple of numbers from the residues of the Kredit bills which were now destined to be injected into his bloodstream. The potion was served. The big man got first servings of the mesh. No other would have dared touch the stuff before he had. The ugliest of the lot eventually got a nod from the man himself and walked over to the table to where Jack sat, sinking into the stained sofa behind him. He felt his left sleeve being pulled up past his elbow and a rubber band being wrapped tight around his arm.
“This’ll ruffle your tight ass feathers.” Boy was he in deep. He knew Maleba knew the feds knew. Chances were they’d all known all along. There was no two ways of phrasing the simple fact that he was pretty much fucked.
“I’m from Pazanna,” Jack Landan managed to declare ever so slightly, seconds before the mist took over, “we piss worse stuff for breakfast.” It was a confused expression that descended upon his face but it conveyed his confidence just enough for them all to relax.
“It’s interesting you should mention it,” Maleba talked with a calm, confident voice as he relaxed back into his chair. “A man can learn a lot about himself during his fall from grace. Take me for example. For years, decades, I was forced to slave in the quasi perfect world they’ve depicted for us in Notobia. Then one day, just like that, they took it from me and threw me to the beasts. Come to think of it, I guess I should thank them,” he said giggling to himself.
Jack Landan tried to follow Maleba’s words as best he could, he knew it would be a struggle the moment they’d inject him with the stuff.
“Gazillion Zorga,” Maleba cried out as he rose to his feet. “The name’s quite a legend in some circles of the underworld, did you know Landan?”
Jack Landan kept his eyes fixed on Maleba’s.
“Course you did. Turns out your old grandpa took my old man under his wings and showed him the stars, made him a man. Never met the man myself but sure sounds like one hell of a partnership. Shame though, I thought you’d show more concern for the cause, being it in your blood and all. Goes to show, you never can know who to trust.”
The blunt needle pierced his skin like a knife through a door. Hard work. He held the purple velvet up to his mouth with his other hand and hoped he’d live to see the sun again. He toasted to himself and threw the glass smashing across the room. The wind blew in from the window. The new kitten was making itself at home. It stared at him, curiously. He felt the injection reach into his inner core as the pest-infested looking skunk pressed the mesh into his veins. His heart skipped a couple of beats and did a double backside summer salt then went into a steady gallop before taking off for what would be an 8 hour odyssey of madness of which he could not be accountable for. His jaws arched open and back, nearly dislocating themselves from the rest of his face as his tongue reached out a whole foot in front of his face. He felt like he would have to reign it back in with his hands.
The giggles moved around the room like some contagious disease. And so it began. He was in deep. Seriously deep. Sat only feet away from the most wanted terrorist in the known worlds. He could reach over and strangle him. Embrace him and push them both out of window. 63 floors would surely take care of them both. It would solve a few problems.
He shook his head uncontrollably between his knees, not sure of the effect he was trying to induce or achieve. Kayan Maleba, enemy of the States number One, was smiling at him. Many would read that as a discouraging sign. All Jack Landan could do was smile back given the circumstances. Then he heard the words that sent the shivers running down his jagged spine.
“Bring in the girls.”
He remembered them differently. As the OrAngE mist descended upon him. He squinted his eyes and bit down on his tongue with incredible force whilst his two long, lost sisters, aged and withered by the struggle of life and time, stood there before him, frozen by the invisible force of fear. Their eyes bulging painfully from within their beaten up faces. He felt the sudden urge to lash at Maleba and rip the tongue straight of his mouth and feed it to his arse, but the force of a thousand tons pushed down hard onto his shoulders and he felt himself sink back into the sofa.
“Wasn’t easy getting hold of these two. But when we heard you’d had the honour of meeting the mad scientist, what’s his name, Rudcock, well then we put all our efforts into this little endeavour of ours. And you’d be impressed what one can achieve when one’s really burning for it.”
He heard words floating in the mist but his brain struggled to extract any useful meaning from them. They were just sounds. Like the sounds the two estranged women made from behind the tape that sealed their lips before a fist of fury silenced them both.
“Here’s the thing,” Maleba explained with tyrannical condescendence, “it’s no secret you had somewhat of a chat with the crazy scientist before he took off and left.”
Still he struggled to comprehend anything that was being said to him as he gazed through the looking glass that surrounded him.
“Don’t worry boyo, you’ll soon talk. That stuff in your veins does miracles. It’s kind of put good old torture out of business.”
Jack Landan felt the chilling pain as a knife entered the top of his thigh. And still he sat there, the chills down his arms, incredulous as the blood slowly dripped from his navy blue trousers. Then a slap across the back of his head. It looked like they were close to getting his attention.
“So, in your own time, what did you and the nutcrack talk about before he got up and left?”
“Tai, thai, ta-time. Time machine,” Jack Landan managed to complete under the powering will of the drug that had now taken over his every thought process.
“Excellent. Time machine. We like that. What else?”
“Time machine. It’s, it’s. The, it’s...on the. It’s,” his head buckled back and forth before another slap stabilised him again.
“The time machine, where is it? Where did that crazy son of a bitch hide the thing?”
“Gim, gimf, gimfe... Across the bay. Gimfrey’s. Acro, acro, acrosss the, the, the ba, the bay. The time machine, he put it, he’s ahh, in the wall. In the wall. He’s still in the wall.”
Talk of the wall was lost on the rest of them all.
“As easy as that,” Maleba spoke with satisfaction as he motioned to one of his men to hand him something. Then it happened like a flash. The blaze and the racketing sound of two shots being fired mercilessly into the side of each of the girls’s heads. The blood splattering onto one of the men as their bodies yielded to the force of gravity for the very last time. There he sat. Only his eyebrows reacting to the violent and sudden end his sisters had met without even being able to exchange a proper glance.
“Think of this as my insurance policy,” Maleba explained. “After all we’re dealing in time here, are we not?”
Something deep within Jack Landan thanked whatever powers to be that he was heavily sedated and truly unable to feel the sheer pain among the induced numbness. And yet, out of the void came a lonely tear. Like a spark from a dormant fire.
“I wouldn’t worry about them my young friend. All you have to do now is get me that time machine. You do that and not only will I not rip the skin from off your head but I’ll make sure get those two lovely sisters of yours back. Then you can all go back to living happy families again, what ya think?”
erchapt
He handed the ticket inspector the money and boarded the ship, making his way to the main deck, where he waited for it to set sail. He was numb in the gut. Still coming to terms with the brutal reality destiny had painted him. Some ten minutes later the horns blew and they were on their way to the open sea. They left the mist of the foggy harbour behind and steered off towards the unknown sector. Where few ventured and where so many had come from. The unofficial recruitment field of many a million Lactobian mine workers. To where the crazy professor had hidden his life’s work.
Forty disheartening minutes separated the miseries of more than thirty million people from the hopes and aspirations of a better existence. That’s all it took, and before he knew it they were setting foot onto the sandy beaches of the lower southern territories. The OrAngE had started to wear off and he felt the misery take over as he caught a glimpse of the masses trying to go in the opposite direction. Packed like old rubber tyres before the gates which gave into the departure area. Enforcement officers poking at the poor people with electric rods sending the weaker ones into uncontrollable frenzies of muscular spams.
The fact that Maleba had decided to make the trip across the bay proved how important an issue this was. Like the most evil of demons, Kayan Maleba had the nonchalant ability to walk the streets in clear daylight without anyone recognising him. Enemy number One of the state was indeed faceless. A ghost. An invisible cancer. An uncomfortable freedom fighter. More a symbol than a man. To Jack Landan however he was more man than anything else. And men could bleed alright.
It disgusted him to think he’d admired the guy for a short while. The cold blooded murder of his sisters had done little to prolong that feeling. It had been replaced by a deep desire to annihilate the vicious individual and all he stood for. No one, who had such little appreciation for the gift of life, he reasoned, should have the privilege of being referred to as a freedom fighter. Murderer, that was all he could think. That one word thumped away in the rattled cage of his mind. Pounding away at his forehead.
It was then, as he stood on deck, looking over the acidy flat surface of the bay that a quiet feeling of calmness and wholeness descended upon him and he was free. When he felt into his shirt pocket and felt the envelope the old shopkeeper had handed him. Free from the menacing feeling of fear that had accompanied him over the years. Now that he had nothing left to lose the big picture seemed to come into focus and he could only smile. The road that had until then seemed all so twisted and filled with unknown hazards seized to be. Instead, he felt before him just the light of existence. And later, when he would try to put those feelings on paper he too would look back and wonder what the hell it was that he was talking about.
He would show Maleba to the machine. It wouldn’t cost him anything. He could have so much for free. A peek. That is all he would get though. If he’d learned one thing from his conversation with the unusual scientist‚ it was that his sisters were as good as dead. It didn’t work like that. He wouldn’t have been able to explain it any better himself, but the professor had been clear enough. Time travel was a one way game. Kayan Maleba still couldn’t accept the fact. That’s why he was so eager to see his latest plan into action.
His point in time and space had somehow been decided for him. He’d experienced enough odd episodes to know better than to question that latest one. As he ripped open the envelope he noticed the antique odour emanating from a dull yellow coloured piece of paper, which upon further inspection turned out to be a ticket.
There it was. The decision had been made for him. He would travel back to the year 2001, to Munchen, Germany, Europe. Somehow he would make his way across town and up to the Munchen arena and at 8pm local time he’d be there. Rocking and raving. For the concert of the millennium. He would witness a moment in time like few others. And perhaps someday he would write about it. Man, maybe he’d even meet a beautiful girl and marry her. They’d argue and fight. But their love would grow strong. And at times he would wish he could be with other women, but every time he would fall for her even more and they’d make love and then argue some more. And they’d eventually have kids and he’d write and people would pay to read the stuff he wrote. And it would be good. They’d build a house. And one day, when he too would have grandchildren, he would tell them about his own Grandfather and the stories he’d been told. And they’d probably think he was lying about the part with the time machine. But it wouldn’t matter because the best part of his story would be how on the on warm summer’s night, he’d been to see ACDC play live. And he’d gotten drunk on litres of beer. And he’d heard the great song. The one his Grandfather Gazillion Zorga had sung to him. And the life had boiled in his veins as they played their electric guitars, and he’d cried. And he had met the love of his life that day. Their grandmother. What a story. It was his story. His name was Jack Landan. He’d lived in a house with no windows. He’d travelled back in time and lived to write about it.
EL fiNaLe
final 1.0
The place stank like he had imagined it should. Like the places his Grandfather had told him about. The fights and black eyes and knife stabbings. It looked like a few places he’d written about in some of his short stories. The ones no one had ever read. The creaking floorboards where shoes would stick to the floor. A big tattooed barman with a black leather jacket and a pump shotgun tucked away behind the bar. There was sound of rock’n’roll playing illegally in the background. He noticed Kayan Maleba looking a little tense. Jack Landan felt right at home.
“Let’s get the thing and get the hell out of here.”
He didn’t have a clue. He didn’t know how big or small the thing was. It plagued Maleba to be at the mercy of such a useless being as Jack Landan.
“You do realise you’re not exactly going to be able to walk out of this place with it, do you...” Jack explained as he looked about the place.
“The hell you talking about?” Maleba said as he held a dark shotgun up to Jack Landan’s ribs.
“Just don’t you be getting too fancy with me boyo. Now lets get this over and done with.”
They walked cautiously across the creaking floor boards. The locals pausing whatever they were doing to take a good look at their next victims. One of Maleba’s dumwitts ordered four whiskeys. They stood with their backs to the bar looking out over a sea of deranged individuals. It was no social club, to put it lovingly. The smell of herb and bad doing was all over. The blood stains in the corner where more than one had met their end over a simple misunderstanding were testimony to that.
They hit back the cheap polluted whiskey. He slammed his glass back on the bar and wiped his mouth with the side of his sleeve. Then he made for the piano across the room.
“What the hell you think you’re doing boyo?” Maleba enquired irritated.
“You want this?”
“Sure.”
“Then let me get the fuck on with it,” Jack Landan answered. Maleba backed off. It was in the piano. Part of it anyway. He placed his typewriter on the floor next to his foot. Then he opened the lid to the piano keys and coughed as the dust rose off the untouched instrument. Maleba and his men watched from a distance. He closed his eyes for an instant and tried to remember exactly what the professor had said.
He pressed down with his feet on two of the pedals. That was the ignition for the code to begin. Then he triple tapped the last key to the left, skipped three and two more. The machine was in lock. Next was the date. The ten keys from the right acted as numbers one through nine and a zero on the end. Slowly and precisely he tapped in, zero seven, zero seven, two, zero, zero, one. He repeated the process a second time to lock the date in and confirm. All he had to do was play the final melody to kick start it all.
The C blues scales. It was a C followed by an E flat, then an F, a G flat and a G. And as he hit the B flat he felt the indescribable juiciness the gods had given the blues scale. The unique power that sound had to drag the emotions out of the hardest of hardened rocks.
He rejoiced in the feeling for a brief instance. Then, before holding down the final C key to complete the scale and rocket off through space and time, he looked over his shoulder to Kayan Maleba and winked at him. That was it baby. He struck the last key and it was lights out.
Final 2.0
Ain’t no love in this part of the city. They used to sing that back then, when there was probably still a little left, he thought to himself. Sure ain’t like that nowadays. Ain’t no word for love, there ain’t much of a city left to talk about either. Ain’t no love in the heart of the city. Ain’t no love to show me the way. Guess that went a long time ago. Back in the days when the world was a sphere and the sun shone across all known sectors. Look at it now!
There was a kid across the street with a rusty old trumpet. “He seen anything?”
“Nothing sir. Ain’t said a word ever since we got here.”
Too many bits of flesh lying around the place for them to be playing puzzle time, he thought. His shift would be over in less than an hour, then he’d head down to the titty-bar for a Piñacolada and some cheap hugs. That’s all he could afford. His wife hadn’t long kicked him out of the house and his ex girlfriend wasn’t going to have anything to do with him anymore. Calmly he lit a cigarette, holding his hand up to the wind as he pulled with his thumb at the old zippo. He adjusted his collar so that it stood up high and proud, the skull and bones insignia shining in the dim light, then stepped into what remained of the bar.
“Gimfrey’s Rocking Jar. Neighbourhood hangout for the riff-raffs, pimps and the no-gooders. Went up like a fireball. The explosion collapsed in on itself and this is all that’s left. That’s all that seems to have gone untouched sir,” his young partner pointed out as they looked down onto the untouched black piano.
“Not a scratch on it. Damn thing still plays like the day it was made by the sound of it,” he said as he tapped a key.
“Any signs of Maleba?”
“Forensics are pulling some pieces together. We think we’ve got a positive ID.”
“Landan?”
“No sign of him sir.”
The agent pulled in a deep puff from his cigarette as if it were the last one he’d have for a while.”
“The crazy professor wasn’t bluffing after all.”
“Sir?” the young gun asked perplexed.
“Landan and Nutter. We had them locked up together. Figured a chit-chat might lead us somewhere. Nutter said something about a time machine in a piano. We figured he was bullshitting Landan.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Beats me. But that’s that.”
“Should I put out a warrant for Landan sir?”
“No point young blood. Landan’s gone.”
“Gone sir?”
“Gone. Wrap it up cadet. I’m checking out.”
The end
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