In the glowing light of neon signs torn from
porno shacks along the city’s main strip, the
Hi-Fi queen finally opened her mascara-smudged eyes
a second after all the little monitors Remy had hooked
her up to started beeping, buzzing and humming.
“Miss?”
Blue and green and red crossed her eyes, distortions of triple-x phrases warming
her pale skin. She sat up slowly, dragging the strips of wire that had been monitoring
her life signs for the past three months with her. She had become a chemical
interchange with one set of tubes pumping fluids into her and another set pulling
it all back in again. The scars has mostly disappeared but a few remained, shiny
and white on her naked skin.
“What happened?”
Her vision slowly came into focus again. “Remy?”
“Oh Miss, it’s so good to have you back!” the man exclaimed,
moving quickly around her as if expecting to see some crack in the reality of
her return. “You … you were gone for so long.”
The Hi-Fi Queen touched her head where her flowing
black hair had been partially shaved away to make
room for more of Remy’s tubing. “Where … did
I go?”
“Into the Static, consumed by the cosmic worms, who knows, Miss,” Remy
said, plucking one of the tubes from her. She jumped at the spark of pain but
was still too dazed to lash out at him as she might otherwise have done. “What
matters is that you’re back and we can begin our revenge.”
“Revenge?” She looked down suddenly as something flashed in her memory
and saw the large, perfectly shaped tattoo that blemished her skin from her belly
to just beneath her left breast. It had been imprinted upon her upside down so
that it only truly took shape when she looked down at it from above. It was an
Ankh. “Ramo-Tep,” she murmured.
“You remember? Oh that is so good, well done Miss – yes, Ramo-Tep.”
Remy scuttled around her, continuing to pluck the machine-veins from her as
she took in her surroundings, recognising the lab piece by piece. First the
workbenches littered with stained test tubes and beakers, then the cracked
wooden shelves piled high with loose sheets of paper. And the digital clocks,
huddled in one corner like sick dogs or refugees, the boxes of needles and
circuitry that were to be her weapons in her life of warfare.
The battles. The gangs.
Ramo-Tep.
She hissed as Remy stuck her with a needle in her thigh. “Concentrated
vitamin doses, Miss,” he said by way of explanation. “I’ve
been giving them to you ever since I brought you back here.”
Strobing blue light from one of the hijacked signs
flickered across the metal plate that bisected his
head where it emerged just above his forehead.
The Hi-Fi queen swivelled and sat upright, then climbed down
off the operating table. Her muscles felt as if they were plated
in lead or filled with the heavy air that surrounds broadcasting
stations. She had to concentrate to place her long legs correctly
so that she might walk, Remy hurrying after her.
“Miss, do you remember? Do you remember what they did to you?”
The Hi-Fi Queen ran her hands across the rusted joints of the chemical clamps,
skimmed the surface of beakers with the tip of her finger to remove the scum
that had been forming there. “You’ve not been looking after the lab,
Remy,” she said in that slow, mechanical manner she had as if she were
reading from an autocue that was moving lazily.
“But Miss, I’ve been looking after you. All the others – they’re
gone. It’s just me now. And you, Miss.”
The Hi-Fi Queen didn’t answer. She remained with her back to him, the drops
of sweat that were cooling on her skin shining like tiny jewels, as she upturned
a plastic baggy of angel dust. The drug sparkled as she let it run through her
fingers and inside every grain was a tiny fragment of memory.
“Miss?”
Finally she turned, unconcerned by her state of total undress in front of
Remy, the Primary Slave. “They’re all gone?”
Remy nodded emphatically, his painfully thin form almost
lost in his boiler suit.
“Fine,” the Hi-Fi Queen announced, standing proudly upright. “Then
we have work to do.”
Remy smiled widely as he realised his hard work had
finally paid off.
She was back – and now the whole world was going to suffer.
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$13.95• 172
pages • December
2003 • ISBN: 0972959874 • 8.5
x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
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