Free The Machine's Child by Kage Baker Page B

hammering. Finally he said something, a word in a language so old he was the only person living who remembered it, so there would be no point in repeating it here. Its meaning, however, would not be translated as “Abomination,” or “Horror,” or “Alas!”; it would be better rendered as “My eyes are open.”
    Then Joseph marched on under the terrible engine, his own arms and legs carrying him along as determined as clockwork.
    He rounded the corner and passed the broken-down old couch, he saw the sign reading BUREAU OF PUNITIVE MEDICINE and went straight in without pause.
    Something flashed through the air and embedded itself in the wall behind where he had been a nanosecond earlier. He looked down from the beam to which he had jumped and beheld a hulking shape that glared up at him.
    “Hey, Marco, how’s it going?” he said in a bright hard voice, and vaulted to another beam just as an empty beer bottle shattered against his former perch. The only reply he got was a drooling growl and another bottle launched in his direction.
    He winked out and reappeared in the rafters directly above Marco, where he had a fine view of his assailant.
    “Gee, Marco, you don’t look so good,” he said, in genuine surprise. And understatement. Marco’s skin was flushed purple, risen with livid bursting weals. Yellow matter streamed from his eyes, rolled down his face like steady tears and fouled his beard.
    Marco drew difficult breath through his swollen throat and replied, “Rotten motherfucking little Company bastard.”
    “Uh-huh. Say, your body’s trying to eliminate a toxin, isn’t it?” Joseph peered down at him critically. “How’d you ingest a poison, Marco? Trying to commit suicide? Sorry, of course you wouldn’t be doing that, would you? Unless you didn’t ingest poison at all—” He squinted. “Unless it’s a virus. You’ve had a visitor, haven’t you? The Company sent somebody here to take you out. But he didn’t get a chance to finish you off, the way he did with Budu. I wonder why? Did you nail him? Have you got little pieces of Victor stuffed in a trash can somewhere around here?”
    The old monster just stared up at him, breathing hard. He shuffled sidelong from under Joseph’s rafter and backed into a corner. Groping, he found a sponge mop with one hand and held it up before him like a weapon.
    “Take it easy, guy,” Joseph said. “I’m not from the Company. Not anymore. I really don’t feel like tangling with you, either. All I want to know is, where do you keep your prisoners?”
    No reply from Marco, but a light flared in his weeping eyes. He gave a saw-edged smile, bitter and crafty, and looked across at the vivisection table under its hanging light. Joseph, who hadn’t had time to notice this particular feature of the room yet, glanced down and saw it. He looked away quickly.
    “Jesus,” he hissed. He stared down again at Marco, and any sympathy that had been in his face was gone. “So this is the job you loved so much, you wouldn’t go with Budu? Well, well. See how the Company rewarded you for all your faithful service?”
    “You got that right,” croaked Marco. “I’m sicker than shit.”
    “Oh yeah? I hope you rot away where you’re standing, you bastard. I’m only sorry Victor didn’t finish you. Is that him, on the table?”
    “No,” Marco said. “That’s Grigorii Efimovitch. Who the fuck’s Victor?”
    “The Facilitator Victor. He’s about my size, real pale, dresses natty, red beard and mustaches? And he’s more full of poison than a drugstore, pal,which you’ve probably figured out by now,” Joseph said, but Marco’s grin was widening. He chuckled wetly and spat into a corner.
    “No little Preserver did this to me, friend,” he said. “S’a new kid in town. Didn’t you know? New Company tricks. New Enforcer class.”
    “What?”
    “Hee hee, you don’t know,” gurgled Marco. “You’re surprised. But it’s true. Company’s redesigned the