Chapter 17 The Big Bad Love Machine

122.

Bill felt the needle of the tattoo stab his ass cheek rapid fire, like a man-eating woodpecker. He had bit a leather strap, to stop himself screaming out. Amelia who was the ass-artist at the tattoo parlor had the look of greatest concentration, as if she was performing brain surgery. The tattoo was pretty ugly (she wasn’t a machine after all) but it wasn’t supposed to be.

Arcing over Bill’s asshole, stretching from cheek to cheek were the words: I can see you.

With a flourish she finished the tattoo and she sent his ass jiggling with a spank.

‘Done.’ She said.

Bill spat the strap on the floor.  

‘You should really shave your ass, by the way.’ Amelia said, matter-of-factly. ‘You get all sorts of bugs tangled in your hairs down below if you don’t shave.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘You could use your dad’s beard shaver.’

Bill smiled: ‘I’ll do that.’

The two were grinning at each other.

‘What you doing later this afternoon?’

‘Going out to see Monica, I think it’s something like our six month anniversary.’

‘The big one.’ Said Bill.

‘Yeah, I’ve bought her a variety of piercings so that she can fly across the room when they turn on the MRI machine.’

‘Don’t tell me where the piercings are.’

‘Her vagina.’

‘I don’t know enough about female anatomy to know if there’s anything to pierce.’

‘You should watch more porn, my dude.’

‘I read my porn actually.’ He said. ‘The more left to the imagination the better, I think.’

‘Cool, I guess I’ll see you later.’

He smiled.

‘See you later.’ He saluted her.

She saluted him back and he left the tattoo shop, it was night time.

He was whistling, his way onwards and forwards, briefly fishing the phone out of his pocket to check if he had received any messages, he snorted some phlegm that had collected in his nose and spat it out, fondling his nose slightly before he looked up and saw his home had been turned into a maximum security prison.

There was the watchtower, there was the barbed wire, the guards the dogs, the machine guns, the drones which flew in slow orbits around the house seeing everything.

The search light gazed at him like a UFO’s tractor beam.

‘FREEZE!’

He dropped his phone to the ground, and put his hands in the air.

The guards rushed him and tackled him onto the grass.

‘QUICK PULL HIS TROUSERS DOWN!’ one of them shouted.

‘Waitwaitwait, what the fuck is happening!’

‘Shut up!’ they pulled his trousers down and illuminated his pale, hairy ass with their flash lights.

There was a silence amongst the guards, then they shouted.

‘WHO CAN SEE ME?!’

‘I DON’T KNOW!’ Bill screeched.

‘I SAID WHO CAN SEE ME!?’

‘PLEASE HAVE MERCY!’

‘Knock him out, we’ll interrogate him later.’ They said.

They hit him in the back of the skull with a baseball bat and he went limp.

Two guards took a leg each and they dragged his unconscious form back into the house, bouncing his skull on the threshold.

123.

Missy was looking for Suzi, she went to the dining room where they had papered over the windows and the elves (as missy thought of them) went about their job making landmines. They were hunched over their tables dressed in wife beaters and jeans, and aprons.

She walked past the 3D printer which was currently printing circuit boards, past the computer monkeys that were coding python in rainbow colored text. She tugged one of the elves’ sleeves that were making the circuit boards and asked: ‘Do you know where Suzi is?’

‘Haven’t the faintest,’ he said his hand rummaging through a matchbox filled with striped bug-sized resistors. He picked it out compared it to his cheat sheet with all the resistor values, nodded to himself then plugged it into the lime green circuit board. ‘I think…’ he picked up the micro chip that looked like a black 3d postage stamp with silver legs and plugged that in too, followed swiftly by a transistor, another resistor, so on so forth, then he passed it along for his friend to solder in place and amputate the components legs with a pair of scissors. ‘I think I might have saw her in the basement.’

Someone dropped a tray full of dynamite and everyone dropped under the tables.

Nothing happened.

They raised their heads over the desks one by one like whack-a-moles and then everyone started shouting.

‘YOU FUCKING IDIOT!’

‘MORON!’

‘WE COULD HAVE DIED!’

‘ASSHOLE!’

‘WHAT THE HELL YOU PLAYING AT!?’

 ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it’s my first day!’ the bomb-dropper whimpered.

‘So the basement?’ asked Missy.

‘What?’ the elf had forgotten about her. ‘Oh yeah, the basement, she’s probably down in the basement.

‘Okay, I’ll go down to the basement.’

She walked further through the bomb making room, saw the engineers screwing the dynamite into their cases which looked like disemboweled Roombas, before placing them carefully -so so carefully – into a shopping trolley so they could be moved out later in the day.

She entered the hallway, saw more of the elves in the kitchen or canteen, one of the small ones was riding dad like a horse and was hitting his ass with a riding crop, shouting ‘Faster! Faster!’

She saw the entrance to the basement, and began walking down the stairs, which had been transformed into something like a war room, with maps of the local area rolled out across the table.

‘I want drones sweeping the area every ten minutes, up and down the street, an insect does not take a shit without full documentation, the vans should be loaded and moving out later this evening, to the pop-up villages. I want gun men on every corner of a three mile radius. ’

She heard other people in uniform, sat in the corner speaking into her headset.

‘Yes officer, of course officer… sending it now… is that okay officer… very good mister officer… ha ha, so it does…’ there was a silence. ‘Panties and nothing else, mister officer… bigger… no bigger than that… yes bigger than triple G… okay… bingo. Okay bye bye now.’ She hung up and said: ‘what a cocksucker.’

‘Excuse me.’ Missy said.

‘Yes ma’am.’ Said one of the skinny bald middle age fellas.

‘Do you know where Suzi is?’

‘What’s your business with her?’

‘I’m lonely.’

Skinny bald middle age fella unclipped a walkie talkie from his belt and held it to his mouth.

‘Mistress? I’ve got a six year old wanting to speak with you… says she’s lonely… message received, over and out.’ He tilts his face up at the small child. ‘She’s in control room, top floor, first door on the left, I’ll escort you.’

Missy nodded, not really sure what “escort” meant, but then the guy followed her.

‘what’s your name?’

‘They call me Mad Dog, ma’am, ex military, I served in the marines as a demolition man; expert in all things that go boom. What’s your name?’

‘Uh, I’m Missy… I like jumping in puddles on rainy days.’

‘Understood.’

‘Do you watch paw patrol?’

‘Define paw patrol?’

She defined paw patrol.

Mad dog considered.

‘How do they operate all that machinery without any thumbs.’

Missy shrugged.

‘Understood.’ Said Mad dog.

They walked past the room where Bill had been cocooned in duct tape and strapped to the bed. He was still unconscious.

Missy waved at him.

They ascended another staircase, the control room was guarded by two men in bullet proof vests with 3D printed guns.

‘The password is Fizzy Bit.’

They pushed their thumb into the finger print scanner and the door unlocked.

The door opened.

‘The names and addresses of all the police officers in America, just like you asked for.’ Said Suzi to the lady in denim jeans, denim jacket riddled with badges, a beanie hat and a streak of violet through her hair. She was rifling through the papers, smiling, with a can of coke in the other hand.  

‘How did you get them?’ the stranger muttered.

‘I don’t know, I’m just a ditzy bimbo.’ Said Suzi, she giggled.

The stranger smiled: ‘Sure, sure, of course you are. Welp.’ She slapped her knees and rose to her feet. ‘Pleasure doing business and all that.’

‘Ditto.’ Suzi giggled.

‘Who’s this?’ said Beanie-hat.

‘I’m Missy.’ Missy said and stuck out her hand. ‘Pleased to meetcha!’

Beanie-hat smiled, took Missy’s hand in her big manly sized hand.

‘Charmed.’ She said.

‘Uh huh, do you watch paw patrol?’ asked Missy.

‘Can’t say I have.’

‘It’s really, really good, like really, really good, I love it so much, you should watch it.’

Beanie-hat fondled her chin-‘I’ll give it a look, next time I’m on Netflix.’

‘It’s really good.’

‘I believe you. Well anyway, tah tah everybody.’

‘SUZI!’ Shouted Missy.

‘Missy!’ shouted Suzi.

‘Do you want to watch Paw patrol with me?’

‘I’m afraid that I’m a bit busy at the moment, perhaps Mad Dog could watch some with you.’

‘I’d be happy with that.’ Said Mad Dog.  

‘I want to watch it with you!’ Missy stomped her foot.

‘Tough titty said the kitty.’  Said Suzi. ‘Mad dog, watch Paw Patrol with Suzi.’

He saluted her.

Fast forward: Missy was sat on Mad Dog’s lap as they watched the cartoon on his iPad, on the porch.

Together they were singing the theme song out of sync, Mad dog a split second behind because he was reading the sub titles.

‘PAW patrol! PAW Patrol! We’ll be there on the double! Whenever there’s a problem ‘round adventure bay, Ryder and his team of pups will come and save the day!’

Missy paused it.

‘You’re doing it wrong.’

‘No, I got it right.’ Said Mad dog.

‘You said “Ryder’s team of pups.” It’s “Ryder AND his team of pups”.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay, we’ll just sing it again.’

They rewound the video and Mad dog was smiling.

124.

It was 69 Weed smoker lane, and the old man was in his pyjama pants and was currently on the lawn, putting a golf ball into an empty mug three feet away from him, when the UPS van came to a shuddering halt right next to him.

’69 weed smoker lane, delivery for, uh, Mr Fulcrum?’ said the post man.

‘That’s me.’

‘Sign here please.’

The package was passed from one to the other, the pen danced across the paper.

‘Have a nice day.’ Said the postman, smiling.

‘Sure, sure whatever.’

‘I said “have a nice day” you cunt.’ Said the postman, smiling.

‘Uh, I mean: you too?’

‘Thankssssss.’ Said the postman before his car broke the speed limit and he was gone.

Mr Fulcrum shook his head, and carried his package under arm into his house.

He walked past his glass cabinet filled with stuffed cats, past the living room where his wife was failing to play the piano, and into the kitchen where his laptop was open. He dropped the package on the table and picked up a slice of A4 paper which contained the recipe he was to follow, parked the glasses on the bridge of his nose and murmured the words to the recipe as well.

He nodded, got a kitchen knife and sliced open the package. Inside were twelve albino white sachets, with codes on them. He filled a jug with 500 milliliters of water full, spiked it with three tea spoons of sugar; after much fumbling and struggle, he managed to peel open a sachet the poured the powdered proteins into the jug. He gave it a stir.

He snapped a picture on the phone, then there was about thirty minutes where he struggled to upload the picture to his laptop, while the mixture began to fizz as if he had set off ten megatonnes of green flavored Berocca in the jug.

Eventually he managed to upload it, and he sent the email to his anonymous employer.

‘To whomever it may concern, please find attached the proof I have fulfilled your instructions, awaiting money now.

Sincerely

Mr Fulcrum.’

Thirty seconds later, he checked his phone and a small mountain of cash had been dropped into his bank account.

Mr Fulcrum gave a gap toothed grin.

The mixture bubbled.

***

Chapter 18