signal two
Old Man Gum recorded this image in the year 2100 with Midjourney.
Thinking about it now (not always my strong suit), the beginning was farther back than I realized:
I just remember staring at the Johnny, all slabbed-up, his skin peeled back and bones exposed, the pinkish rainbow of organs. Beneath the blood smears was the dyed-yellow-fleshy lettering of a barcode and serial number.
“Gross.” I flicked through the layer options on my headset and scanned the code. It made a sort of frustrated tone: dung, dung.
“Really gross.” I pushed something aside (intestines maybe?) and shoved my hand deeper. I was not doctor, for sure. There were more yellow letters, another barcode. “This really isn’t my thing.” I scanned the organ.
Dung, dung.
“Dammit, like, what’s it even look like?”
Old Man Gum stood a few feet away, hands resting on the grip of his long gun, eyes on a pair of security screens in the far corner. “Change the settings on the visor.”
“I did that. Piece of shit is like forty years old.” (Hey now) “Keeps saying everything is a pancreas, but Lunchbox said kidney.”
I squished farther into the Johnny. “Poor dude.”
“Nothing poor about it. Chode here knew what he was getting into.”
“Still. Shit way to get done, like this.”
Gum dragged a finger backward across one of the screens, scrubbed the feed in reverse. “Don’t take the job next time.”
“I owed Freddy one.” I flinched when I said it, felt Gum’s exasperation from across the room, knew I’d let too much info slip.
“For what?”
My backpack was on the floor beside me, I tapped it with my boot. “They hooked me up with a new stemlink. Straight off the truck from OneTech.”
“You gotta ditch those fucks, Lo. Lunchbox is an dumbass. A dumbass working for an idiot. They’re like the Russian dolls of fucking morons.”
I glanced at him though the headset. “The hell is a Russian doll?”
“Fuck off.”
“That what you call your ex?”
“I call her a lot of things,” he said, played the image on the security camera forward a bit. Slowed. Paused. The dark blob of a cat froze on screen in the motion light outside. He flicked back to live view.
“Job wasn’t supposed to be so hands in. I’m not a hands in kind of person. I miss my deck.” I glanced over to Gum, “See anything?”
He shook his head. “No factor.”
I squished father in, as if people were actually deeper on the inside than the outside. More letters emerged beneath the blood, part of another barcode. Its lines curved into a fleshy knot. I zoomed in with the visor.
“Shit. This barcode is glitched. The printer screwed up.”
I scanned it anyway: dung, dung.
“Try the other one.”
“What?”
“Did Lunchbox say which one they needed?”
I picked at the fleshy knot with her fingertip. “No. Either one could be golden.”
Gum leaned closer to the screen, mumbled quietly to himself then said,“We have a visitor.”
“Can you tell who?”
He moved his long-gun aside and smoothly pulled a small pistol from its holster. “Looks like one of the Punch Bunch.”
I struggled not to roll my eyes. “Fiending probably. Out for ghosts.”
“Either way, just cut this fucker loose. Get the thing they need. Then you can get back to your more meaningful work.”
“Yeah, sure.” I thumbed the knot on the printed organ, probably spit-out of the back of a truck some where. “Never touched a Johnny in school, but here I am elbows deep in this fucking chode.” I put my hands back between the organs and stretched the flesh, scanned the code.
Dung, dung.
“Dammit.”
“Just take both,” the Old Man whispered fiercely.
Glass shattered in the room next-door. A square-outline on my visor appeared, labeled with UNKNOWN on the little name line. A circle-outline on indicated GUM had already moved into the same room.
I paused, watched the circle slowly approach the square followed by two bright flashes of light. The square tumbled down. The circle moved back toward me and Gum reappeared.
He holstered his pistol, spun his long-gun back around. “We need to go.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I scanned the twisted organ again.
Dung, dung.
“Seriously, Lo. They never fiend alone.”
Dung, dung.
“I’m not going to just dump this Johnny on a slab because some hack fucked his print job.”
Gum flicked the safety off his long-gun. “We’re going to be slabbed-up if you don’t.”
“Dammit. Stupid Punch Bunch. Fine.” I ripped off my gloves and dug around my backpack for a laser scalpel. It was down at the bottom under all the other stuff I’d thought I’d need, but didn’t. After a couple clicks the scalpel ignited.
I dragged the laser over the dotted lines. Flesh pulled apart, sort of like an organic zipper, and I stuck my finger inside.
Nothing.
“It’s empty.”
“Shit.”
I hustled around the table. More glass broke. Gum grunted in the irritable way old men seem to on the reg, and disappeared into the other room again. More sounds of a scuffle; a couple more flashes.
I squished with an intensity I’d never squished before and found the other kidney. This time, I skipped the barcode and went straight to the scalpel. The flesh split apart with a fine sizzle line and I bagged the kidney, put it on dry ice in an old lunchbox I’d brought special for the job.
I gave Gum an all-good thumbs up.
He nodded. “Let’s move.”
“I need to staple the guy up.”
“We need to move. Punch Bunch are like roaches. Look.” He pointed to the security monitor.
About twenty Punch Bunch twitched and glitched their way across the screen, a shadowy mass of bug-eyed men marching in black hats, looking to fight anything for the sake of...I wasn’t really sure, but it felt like probably drugs or some sort of abstract or unidentifiable fear.
“Typical.” I rummaged through some shelves and found the staple gun and an adrenaline injectable.
Metal pinged from the other room and Gum switched the suppressor from his pistol to his rifle, scoped up and clack clack clack.
Outside, one of the Punch Bunch screamed for the rest to follow. “Georgie B got sprayed! Fiend! Fiend!”
Gum moved toward their planned exit. “Ditch it, Lo.”
Clack clack clack.
I dumped the adrenaline and stapler in front of the Johnny. Set the visor to Triage: A Step-by-step Guide and slipped it on the Johnny’s head.
“Best of luck, dude.” I grabbed the lunchbox and my backpack and caught up to Gum at the end of a long hallway. He knelt down, flicked out a blade.
“This is not the backdoor,” I said.
He ignored me, tuned into the task at hand, stuck the knife into a gap in the floor and levered up a panel. He wedged his fingers beneath it and pried it up. “No shit.” Beneath the panel, a ladder stretched down into darkness.
“This is pretty elaborate for a couple kidney thieves.”
“Get in the hole, Lo.”
I did, clanking down the ladder while holding the lunchbox in one hand, my pack strapped tight to her back. Above, Gum closed the hatch and sealed us in darkness.
I splashed down in shallow water. Gum twisted the dial on a detonator and then followed suit.
“For the record,” he said, “You’re the kidney thief.”
“What’s that make you, then?”
He put put on a pair of NV frames and clicked them ON. His eyes glowed green. “I’m just an old man, out for a walk. Stretching my legs.”
“With a tiny arsenal.”
“Can’t be too careful these days. Your generation’s ruined everything.”
I frowned. “Get to walking, old man.”