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Kalliope By Jacquie Windsor [email protected] (c)January 5, 2002 Part One Agent Lowry tried to rub the mustard stain out of his slacks as he waited for the Superintendent to arrive for the early morning meeting. He just noticed the ochre spot after he entered his boss's office. He had woken up late, skipped shaving, munched down a half- eaten hotdog that he'd thrown in the fridge the night before, and grabbed a tablespoon of unmixed instant coffee, forcing the substitute for breakfast down his throat with a large swig of Pepsi. Now, in the office, he felt the concoction skewering his insides. And saw the mustard stain on his pants. The office door burst open, and the Superintendent stalked in, rustling an armful of file folders before depositing them on the desk and slumping heavily into the big leather chair across from Lowry. "Jesus, Lowry, you look like shit. Sleep in the train station last night or what?" Lowry tried to coax out an explanation, but he couldn't think of anything convincing in the few seconds he was allowed. "You know, Lowry, you were not my first choice for this assignment. Scharnhorst was supposed to be on this one, but he got popped last week. Of course, this is completely confidential, just between me and you, Lowry. He was working undercover in a big crime ring that operated out of the Saxony. Yeah, shit, I should've had you down there, Lowry, 'cause I don't know if you can handle an assignment like this." "What happened to Scharnhorst? He was a pretty good guy, I thought." The Superintendent adjusted a set of thick-rimmed glasses on his chubby face. "Good guy. Hmm. Good guy. Right, Lowry, he's a damn great guy. Damn great agent. He just needed a couple of shots of the major partners actually paying someone off and we'd be outta there no problem. Instead, the fucking local cops came in and arrested the whole bunch of them." "What? Scharnhorst's in jail? That doesn't sound good." The Superintendent growled under his breath. The agency had set up a mammoth sting operation to catch a ring of thieves who had stolen everything from jewellery to semi-trailers across five states and three provinces. Due to the ubiquitous cloak of secrecy surrounding everything they did, the police couldn't be let in on the operation. Like everyone else, they weren't to be trusted. "Yeah, out of my jurisdiction now, Lowry. Scharnhorst can fend for himself, though. Tough cracker, you know. So I guess I'm left with you." The Superintendent inhaled deeply, his ruddy face revealing contempt for the unkempt agent now in his office. "Trust me, Sir, I know I can handle it. Honest." "Oh yes, Lowry, I know that, just like you handled the Abyssinian Luxury Case." Lowry winced, squirmed, and winced some more. A group of Ethiopian immigrants had been suspected of operating a synthetic psychedelic substance laboratory on the third floor of a walk-up near the downtown. Lowry had full control over the handling of that investigation. The embarrassment of the rescue by fire fighters still made him uncomfortable, and the water damage to the apartment building had been billed to the agency. "The fucking auditors could've shut us down after that one," sneered Lowry's boss. "I'll never figure out why you went and had the power shut off." "Well, well, I figured if they couldn't get electricity, they couldn't produce any of that shit," replied the agent. "Oh yeah, brilliant deduction, Wittgenstein. So with all the power off, you broke into the place and hid. What was that all about?" Lowry sighed. "It was all in the report. I knew if they were coming back with more chemicals, I could hide in the closet and catch them in the act. I mean, Sir, that would've been way effective as far as busting them. Red- handed, I always say." The case had unravelled the moment Lowry decided to get a better look through the slats in the closet door when the Ethiopians returned. They were chattering among themselves in a foreign tongue after they returned to the apartment, and Lowry could tell they had brought several heavy containers of something up the stairs with them. "So you brilliantly used your lighter to take a look. What was wrong with your flashlight?" "The batteries were dead." Lowry didn't want to admit, during the internal investigation or now, that he'd forgotten to bring his flashlight. By the time he knew the power was going to be cut off, it was too late to retrieve it. The agent, hiding in the closet, flicked the lighter and peered through the slats. He watched transfixed as the resourceful drug manufacturers found an extension cord and opened the apartment door to find an outlet in the hallway. That was when Lowry realised there was a strong odour coming from somewhere, not a chemical fog from the distillation of illicit drugs, but a sort of a pungent, plastic smell. Something like burning plastic. The Ethiopians were the first out of the apartment as Lowry plunged through the closet door, followed quickly by a growing blaze, ignited by the lighter and fed by burning plastic. He'd accidentally lit some thin clothes coverings, the kind used by dry cleaners, and soon all the drug manufacturers' suits were aflame. As Lowry stumbled into the darkened room, he tripped over the pails that the immigrants had brought upstairs, spilling them onto the carpet. Someone in the hallway had already pulled the fire alarm when the flames reached the spill. Unable to find the door out of the apartment, Lowry decided to smash out a window with the butt of his gun. He knew that there were some trees growing near the building, and hoped to be able to make his way to one of them and lower himself, undetected, to the ground. As sirens sounded nearer and nearer, he'd realised that the one window he'd picked for his escape route was several yards from the nearest tree branch. And evacuees from the building were already gathering on the lawn, three stories down, pointing up to his prospective escape route. Afraid that he might injure someone if he simply leapt, he gulped for fresh air as the fire swept through the apartment and into an adjacent suite. "The newspaper got a pretty fucking stupid quote from you too, Lowry. What the hell was going through your tiny brain? I mean, yelling, 'Hey, don't look up here. Go away. I'm a secret agent.' What were you thinking?" "Boss, I'm almost a hundred per cent sure I didn't say that." "Right, the newspapers also made up the picture of you half-conscious being pulled out the window and hauled down the ladder? My ass!" "Well, at least the lab was shut down. I mean, in the end it kind of worked out," Lowry shrugged meekly. "Youssef is running the biggest fucking goddamned RippleWrench lab on the continent right now, thanks to you. There's kids dancing their brains into mush from here to goddamned Denver thanks to you, Lowry. I'd have your agency card in shreds if it weren't for the union!" The Superintendent was worked up into sweaty caricature by this time. Lowry cast his eyes to the floor, wishing the volcanic tirade were over. He'd put so much dedication in trying to shut down illegal operations like the manufacture of RippleWrench. And that case had literally gone up in flames. "You'll be working on a team for this one," snorted the Superintendent. "Oh boss, I work best alone." Lowry immediately fell silent as the Superintendent shot darts at him. "You will do what I say, Lowry. I can't afford your bungling. Resources are pathetically rare right now. Apparently our insurance, for some reason, just ain't as cheap as it used to be." More darts. "Well, who am I working with, then?" "Swisher and O'Neill. Gentlemen?" Lowry creaked his chair about to see the other two agents enter the office. A tall fellow with wavy brown hair entered from one doorway. He was dressed conservatively in a brown suit and mismatched black shoes. From a separate entrance, Lowry watched as a husky, short man came into the room. He wore what appeared, at first, to be some kind of stage make-up, and a gaudy outfit composed of short, silvery, billowing pants and a thin lavender shirt that nearly looked like a woman's blouse. "This is Gaylord Swisher and No-Hands O'Neill," the Superintendent intoned. Lowry suppressed a nervous laugh. Then he slowly rose to greet his new team. He walked over to the tall man and extended a hand. "O'Neill? I'm Lowry. Guess I'll be working..." "I'm Swisher," grinned the tall man gently. "That's O'Neill." "Oh, okay. Glad to meet you, um, Swisher." After shaking his hand, Lowry moved over to meet O'Neill. "So why do they call you No-Hands?" The smaller, stout agent extended his arm, revealing that his right hand was missing. Lowry gasped audibly and reddened slightly. He instinctively looked at the agent's other arm. The other hand was missing too. "Don't be alarmed. I'm used to it. You'll get used to it too." O'Neill flashed a toothpaste grin, and Lowry saw, as those close quarters, that he was poorly adorned with an amateurish application of mascara, rouge and lipstick. "Lemme guess. You're undercover." "Not at all," O'Neill said softly. "I'm a transvestite. Oh, I hope that's all right with you." "Uh, sure, I guess," Lowry smirked. "Well I'm not sure it's fine with me," barked Swisher. "I don't want to have to work with some kind of freak." The Superintendent glowered at the tall man. "You'll work with him. We've got a job to do, boys, and I don't want any stupid jealousy getting in the way of your duty to the agency." "Besides," added O'Neill, "your name is Gaylord Swisher. What the hell is that all about?" "Hey, my parents happened to be big Cleveland Indians fans. Wanna make something of it? Let's go!" Swisher stood in an ungainly boxer's pose. O'Neill raised his handless arms in front of him, partly concealing himself behind Lowry. "I'm afraid I might not be much of a challenge for you, though. Gaylord." Lowry and the Superintendent shouted at the pair in unison. "Stop it. Stop this foolishness." "Swisher, you, for one, oughtta be ashamed of yourself. You were pretty goddamned convincing when you helped roust the Rapid City Sodomiser last January. I don't think working with O'Neill is gonna be any worse than that was for you." The Superintendent's booming admonition forced Swisher into silence, and he dropped his combative pose. "All right, all right. No fucking problem, okay?" "And O'Neill. Would it be too much to ask that you don't come to work dressed like that? I mean, just for this caper. Obviously it bothers Swisher, so maybe you'd just at least consider it for the good of the agency." "Yeah, all right," agreed O'Neill. "So Lowry, you're the lead on this one. Swisher and O'Neill, you're both here to help. This is all about success, planning, execution, and all that shit. Onwards and upwards. Whatever." The three agents listened half-heartedly to the unconvincing clich?s. Part Two The agency was surreptitiously located in a modest brick structure downtown, sharing the space with several small shops and caf?s. The three agents met in one of the caf?s for breakfast, the morning after their original meeting. "Pig-Head is always late for these planning deals," Lowry stated, bringing his tray of espresso and pastries over to a small table. He figured that his own disparaging view of their boss might unite the team in some slight way. He was pleased to see that O'Neill was dressed more modestly, or more like a man, anyhow. "Got to admit you have a point there," agreed Swisher. "Say, anyone know what we're supposed to be doing?" "It's got to be something special," Lowry answered, watching curiously as O'Neill handled his coffee gently with the ends of his arms where his hands had once been. "After all, he apparently really wanted Scharnhorst." "Sheet. Always Scharnhorst. That guy must be pretty good to get all the great jobs. I sure seem to get a lot of ugly ones." "What the hell was that thing about Rapid City?" Lowry asked Swisher. "Never heard of that one." "Yeah. I think I would've preferred Scharnhorst being on that one." "What happened?" urged O'Neill. "First tell me about the hands," Swisher challenged. Lowry, too, looked over lazily at O'Neill. "Okay, no problem," he smiled pleasantly. "I used to be a performer on the Tyrrhenian Coast circuit." "What--as a clown?" Swisher snickered. "No. As a musician. I was the singer in a band called 'Klaxon Manatee'. Ever heard of us?" Lowry and Swisher shook their heads. "We do these sort of performance art morality plays, only with Marshall stacks and triple bass drums and all kinds of great stuff. Lots of re-enactments of things like thirteenth-century feminist sado-masochistic poetry and other stuff you probably never heard of. Bogomil plays. Great costumes and everything." "I'm lost," shrugged Swisher. "What's this got to do with your hands?" "Well, there's this one song, you see, where I get to raise these two incense burners, and I think the words were something like: 'The signs of the cross make you feel real boss'. And the censers are really flashpots that are supposed to go off in a bright big popping bang. Well they really popped and banged a lot more in this one concert in Liguria and that was it." "Blew your hands off at a concert performance?" asked Lowry in nominally suspended disbelief. "That's gotta be embarrassing." "Yeah, it sure was. But I probably never could've got a job with the agency if I still had both hands." "That's it? That isn't much of a story," Swisher mumbled. "Yeah, I know, but yours sounds so much more interesting," said O'Neill. "Tell us all about Rapid City." Swisher looked straight down at his coffee cup, at his mirrored reflection undulating in a concentric ripple within the dark liquid. "You sure you really need to know?" "That was our deal," Lowry replied. "Not much to it, really. I mean, there was a stalker roaming the Dakotas last year and the agency needed to find him. I guess they must have thought the guy was a possible informant, at least that's the story I got." "We're on a need-to-know basis. I can understand that," Lowry nodded, slurping at his coffee. He noticed that a splash of espresso had found its way onto his shirt. "Yeah, get to the good part, Swisher," added O'Neill, clutching a pastry between his gnarled stumps. "Well, the whole thing was pretty simple. Pose as a victim and find the Sodomiser. Not exactly brain surgery. It was all over in about a month, except for the trial. The judge needed some kind of proof, after all. My agency lawyer insisted on recreating the entire incident in court." "What incident?" wondered Lowry aloud, shifting his coat over the coffee stain on his shirt. "The sodomy, of course. Well, my lawyer played the Rapid City Sodomiser, and I played me. If it was any consolation, you know, we got the guy a three to five year sentence." "You don't sound any worse for the experience," added O'Neill. "I mean, you didn't lose your hands or anything." "The Dakotas are one of the few places around that really has a strong D.U.F. presence any more. Most of that stuff went out with the popper dress and the reticular isoscope." Lowry looked askance at Swisher. "The Democratic United Front? Is that what D.U.F. stands for?" "No, 'Der UberFrauen'. One of those political experiments out there on the plains. You've heard of FemDom; well this is FemDom with a social agenda." No-Hands interrupted briefly. "Hey Swisher, what do you know about that stuff anyhow? I can see domination of guys as a way to make money and all that, but I don't get it how the woman would feel better about dressing up a guy in women's clothing. That part always kind of confuses me." "It isn't about feminisation at all," Swisher replied. "There would be no attraction for a woman to feminise a guy without there being some kind of payment involved. So, that's not at all what the D.U.F. was up to anyhow. They're really a FemDom social action group that's not so much partisan. I mean, they're in each of the major political parties, and they tried to vote together on issues about women's rights. Like the Dakotas are the only places that defy the Supreme Court and have laws about equal pay." "Nothing too sexy about that," Lowry asserted. "Pay for housework and shit like that?" "Yeah, so needless to say the marriage rate is quite low there and so is the divorce rate. And if your wife's from, say, Montana, she's exempt from those laws. As a result there's a lot of women moving out of and into the area. Means the whole project's a little like a big fucking waste of effort." "So was the judge there a woman?" asked O'Neill. "Nope. I mean, for women there's no big deal seeing a guy take a cock for God and country, so to speak, but the legal system is still mostly men. And they say there's nothing a guy likes better than to see another guy bend over and take it hard in the ass." "Maybe in your group of friends," muttered Lowry, "but sure as hell not mine." "Are you trying to make excuses for actually liking it?" cajoled No-Hands. "Hey," Swisher protested. "I didn't say sheet about liking it. Just that we won the case." "Yeah," Lowry said slowly, in a false and mocking tone. "You didn't want to do it. You kinda had to, that's it. Ri- i-i-i-ght." Swisher knew it would be futile to try and convince these two men of anything. "Anyhow, I'm done breakfast, so maybe we better go. And don't really spread that around. I don't want to be known as the guy who bends over for justice or anything like that." "Bending over for justice? Hey, that's pretty good," said Lowry. "I've gotta remember that one." The agents left the caf? and returned to the Superintendent's office. "South Dakota law sure sounds pretty strange," offered Lowry as the three men sat outside the office. "You won't let this go, will you?" Swisher whined. "The cross-examination was tough, but I lasted through it. Of course, after doing that in public and everything, the defence attorney thought he had me, like telling the judge I must have asked for it or something. Well, the toughest question was answering what my favourite movie was." "Whatcha say?" asked O'Neill. "'A Fistful of Dollars', but only for the opening montage," Swisher stated emphatically. "Easily the best," agreed Lowry, smiling. He noticed O'Neill appeared to be either unimpressed or confused. "What's your favourite movie?" "'Deliverance'. Then I'd say anything with Meryl Streep. And of course 'Slapshot'." "What a bunch of nostalgia buffs. Aren't you into the 'Sniper' series at all?" asked Lowry. Swisher rolled his eyes upward. "Yeah, um, Sniper IV was so convincing when The Sniper climbed up an elevator shaft with a uranium-edged sword in his teeth." "Hey, it's well known from Sniper II and Sniper VIII that he actually has lead-capped incisors." Lowry fell mute, noticing that the Superintendent had arrived. Besides, getting into an argument over whether Meryl Streep was a better actor than Moe Mantha, alias 'The Sniper', sounded like an invitation to catastrophe. The Superintendent looked right at the espresso stain on Lowry's shirt. "Saving some of your coffee for later, Lowry? Hey, O'Neill, nice to see you've decided to 'come out' as a man today. And, well, Swisher, tough to recognise you walking upright. Looks like the therapy helped that mince in your gait." "Fuck, he's in a sour mood," Lowry whispered to O'Neill. The four men were all seated in the spartan office that could have easily doubled as a janitor's closet. "Shut up, Lowry," admonished the Superintendent. "I still have those aural implants from my days in the field. I mean, thanks to Queue." Lowry nodded, embarrassed. "Is Queue working on this case?" asked O'Neill. "Abso-fucking-lutely," intoned the Superintendent. "In fact, he's got some incredibly great shit to make it so even you three can't bollix this case. And this case has a title now: 'The Salacious Senator Surveillance'." "How alliterative," grinned O'Neill. "A-what-erative?" asked Swisher. "Never mind the B.S. smart-talking shit, No-Hands," growled the Superintendent. "Let's all get on the giddy-up and go see Queue." "Short meeting. Nice." Lowry was pleased that the encounter went so quickly, and rose to exit the small room with his team and the Superintendent, closing his jacket strategically over the brown coffee stain on his shirt. He didn't need to be reminded any further of his clumsy dining habits. Architects, thoroughly blotto on RippleWrench, must have designed the building inhabited by the agency. Each twenty metres or so there was a bend in the corridor, steps up or down, or a sloping passageway. By Lowry's count, they had marched almost half a kilometre behind the Superintendent before arriving at Queue's laboratory. And they had done that without leaving the confines of the building. "Queue!" announced the Superintendent, roughly shoving open a door into a space not much larger than his own office. This area, though, was jammed with filing cabinets, beakers, containers bearing skulls and crossbones, computer equipment, and strange paraphernalia of all kinds. "It's not 'Cue'," sniffed the scientist, and older fellow with ragged white hair and beard and an orange jump suit as a uniform. It read "Prisoner #38492" on the pocket label, and had the imposing logo of the "Coeur d'Alene Punishment Orb" on the back. "Sure it is, isn't it?" asked the Superintendent. The scientist held his fingers close together on one hand, bringing them to his lips, and extending his arm as he slowly pronounced his name: "Kway. Wuh. Not 'Q'. Kway. Wuh. Kway-Wuh." "Okay, that makes a lot more sense," smiled O'Neill. The Superintendent shot darts at him. "So, Kway-Wuh, what d'you have for us here? The boys are eager to get on the case." The slow-moving researcher held his hands out in front of him as he spoke, drawing parallelograms in the air. "In the Great Patriotic War, the US Army developed a wonderful device, a truck-mounted rocket launching device, having forty-eight firing tubes on it, each one capable of launching a 280-mm deliverable." "The Great Patriotic War?" Swisher nudged Lowry and spoke under his breath. "World War Two," Lowry whispered. Queue drew trajectories to illustrate his point. "These rockets were entirely primitive by our standard, guidance- less, essentially like firing a shotgun." The Superintendent blinked, half believing. "You're giving these, um, agents, a Second World War rocket launching truck? Are you nuts?" "Wait, wait," urged the unflappable scientist. "That vehicle was only my inspiration. It was known as 'The Calliope', although I'm not sure what that reference is from. Sounds Greek or something. Anyhow, the weapon was virtually useless in combat, since the aim of each of the warheads was atrocious. But it was good old Yankee ingenuity that discovered an actual use for it. Almost every town in France has a cathedral in it, and they all have stone steeples that rise a considerable way over the countryside. The Huns were fond of leaving snipers in those towers, and there was just about no way to get them out of there. "Enter the Calliope. All they did was drive this thing up to the edge of town, aim it at the steeple, and... Blam! Whumpa-whumpa-wump! Boof! No more sniper." The agents watched in wonder as Queue's ragged hair flipped this way and that as he shouted and waved his arms about, simulating the arcs and crashes of dozens of warheads into a stone, stationary target. "The Calliope was responsible for the fact that almost 300 cathedrals in France and Belgium had to be almost totally rebuilt after the war," Queue announced gravely. "But in the spirit of resourcefulness, this is my version. I call it Kalliope. With a 'K'." He walked a short distance to remove a white sheet from a dull, black, complicated-looking piece of machinery. "So we supposed to wreck a cathedral with this thing?" asked Lowry. "No. Fool. This machine will enable you to survey, track and subterfuge the target that your boss has probably already told you about. It handles everything from infrared, to laser targeting, to silhouette composition video recording, um, terraform probability deconstruction, vertigexation, wide-vision ultrascopy, gee, just about everything you can imagine." "Sounds pretty cool," Swisher nodded. "Just point and click or what?" Queue smiled and adjusted the lapels of his lab coat. "There'll be a training curve built into the deployment array, so you shouldn't worry about it." Lowry blinked. Was it just him, or did anyone else in the room understand even half of what Queue was talking about? He noticed that even the Superintendent's head bobbed approvingly as the scientist rambled on. Lowry figured that he would nod approvingly too, and would get filled in on the details later. "Not only have I developed the Kalliope for the purposes you've had arranged for you by your superiors, but I have brought a bonus surprise for one of you." Queue brought a metal box from a shelf to the countertop in front of them. He opened it and withdrew a mechanical device with seven protruding digits. It looked similar to a prosthetic hand, but was visibly accented with a shiny metal finish and thousands of working parts. "This is something our team's been working on for more than seven years, and we went way over budget on it, too. But the product is completely worth it. This, gentlemen, is the FD-7n, a fifteenth-generation cybernetic hand. The FD-7n is pre-digitalised for multi-purpose applications and installation is nothing but smooth. This is really the Lamborghini of prosthetics. All we've got to do is surgically remove one of your hands, from any one of you three agents, and implementing the FD-7n takes about an afternoon, including neural synchronisation." O'Neill leapt to his feet. "But, Queue. I have no hands. You wouldn't even have to do an amputation!" He was practically squealing and crying at the same time. Queue stood back in mock horror, then smiled broadly. "Of course, you know I've seen from your file, 'No-Hands'. You'll never know you had that hang-gliding accident. Now, not only is this single device superior to any single prosthetic, it's a vast improvement in manipulatory hypertronics over any single natural hand. Plus, it's very close to possessing a superiority over two natural hands. For instance, using just seven digits, and the programming in the neurological brains of the thing, you will be able to play the entire Liszt archive, on the piano or the harpsichord, at a level of a Mark III concert pianotroid." Lowry leaned over to Swisher. "Didn't O'Neill say he lost his hands in a concert performance? What's that he said about hang-gliding?" Swisher shrugged. "Sheet, I was kind of looking forward to having one of my hands replaced." The Superintendent abruptly challenged Queue to speed up his presentation. "How long is all this crap going to take to get ready?" "Two days." "Including O'Neill's hand?" "Without a doubt. I am bestowed of both science and efficiency." He waved his arms energetically in furnishing a defence of his abilities, nearly knocking a tray of test tubes on the floor. "We'll set up on Thursday, then," the Superintendent told Lowry. "Your group needs to recon with me at the office." "Thursday morning?" Lowry asked. "No, Saturday," snarled his boss. "Of course Thursday. We didn't maintain our efficiency rating in the Bureaucratic Challenge Cup by dawdling. And wear a damn clean set of clothes, Lowry." Part Three Wednesday had been Lowry's extended nap day. Thursday arrived just has Wednesday had, with a similar sunrise, and similar neighbourhood dogs marking the arrival of the newsdroid with the morning paper. A thick briefing manual sat on the nightstand by his bed, yet it remained in a pristine state, unsullied by careful examination. Briefings, reviews, Bureaucratic Challenge Cups, and doing his laundry on a regular basis cramped Lowry's style. Since most of the cases they'd solved were suddenly conceived and hurriedly executed, there didn't seem to be any point to fine-tuning the details. Besides, all the manuals appeared to be based on a standard template, with simple substitutions of the nouns for the place names, time, any fabulous new inventions from Queue, and the agents' surnames. Cookie-cutter. The car radio blurted out the lyrics from a faintly familiar tune on the way to the Superintendent's office: My little girl was born on a ray of sound. My little girl was born on a ray of sound. Sleeps on water, walks on ice. Sleeps on water, walks on ice. Got no father, immortal wife. I'd exchange my soul for her. There's no antidote for her. "Damn music's getting harder and harder to understand these days," Lowry mumbled, checking his clothes one last time for coffee stains before entering the building for the meeting. He ran into Swisher along the way. Good. If he were late, at least Lowry wouldn't be alone. "Good to see you again, Lowry. Have a chance to read the manual?" "Uh, sure," nodded Lowry. As the team leader, it wouldn't be appropriate to appear ignorant of the details of the case. "I didn't." "Uh, well, just follow my lead and we'll be too fine for words." O'Neill was already in the office. He beamed, proudly manipulating his new mechanical hand. The Superintendent was already there, too, frowning heavily behind the desk. Part of his demeanour was due to the time--Lowry noticed the clock showed they were about a half-hour late--and to his visible displeasure with O'Neill. The one-handed agent wore a spandex-leather-rhinestone atrocity that seemed more appropriate for the dance clubs than on a serious assignment. "Fuckin' unions," he grumbled as Lowry and Swisher said their hellos. The meeting went quickly. The surveillance was to be set up at Sharkey Building on Hubbard Street, across from the Thetan Hotel. "You set up the Kalliope, get the goods, and that's it. As simple as the manual says it is. There's no possibility of error, the way I see it. Good luck, I guess." "Thank you, Sir. You can count on it," said Lowry. The Superintendent grunted. His cell phone beeped noisily. As the three agents murmured apathetically amongst themselves, he answered the call. "What!?" he yelled, scarcely a minute into the conversation. "Scharnhorst!? No way! How?" "What happened?" cried Lowry, immediately after his boss snapped the cover on the phone, ending the call. "Scharnhorst's dead. Some kind of reprisal, they said." "You know, Sir, I always thought it would get that guy in trouble, being so arrogant and everything," Lowry stated dispassionately. "Fuck, Lowry, it wasn't that. It was the goddamn swastika he'd tattooed on his forehead." "It wasn't a swastika," Swisher interrupted. "He always said it was a Hindu symbol of unity." "Right," snapped the Superintendent. "And what about the Stuka dive bomber tattoo on his arm? What kind of Hindu symbol was that?" "The Hindu symbol of air power?" Swisher suggested weakly. "Enough! I have plenty of paperwork to do to cover up his death," barked the Superintendent. "You know what you gotta do, so be off with you. Now! The Kalliope is in the Buick. Get going." The agents left the Superintendent to seethe, climbed into the Buick, and drove towards Hubbard Street. The radio kept them entertained, while Lowry drove, exchanging glances with O'Neill: Like a dancing flame on a bed of nails. She is one thing that you cannot buy. With Swisher in the back seat, listening intently to the 'bristling, glist'ning, and raucous list'ning' sounds of KKOW, Lowry chanced a verbal exchange with O'Neill. "Nice outfit. Cost much?" he asked. "Oh, not really," answered O'Neill. "It's a Kierkegaard copy, you know. For some reason, cheap, imitation stuff looks better on me than the real McCoy. This is the Franxious line. Remember their commercials? 'So anxious you're Franxious.' And then the backlit figures of historical military dudes from years ago, all glittered out in something like this, strolling on the beach with the sunset behind them." "Yep, I've seen a few of those spots on Channel 1,342 during 'Depressed Poets' Suicide'." "Hey, did you see that one guy hang himself after writing Haiku? Well it sounded like a limerick anyhow. Good riddance!" They both laughed. "Seriously though, O'Neill, why'd Queue mention a hang- gliding accident? I don't mean to get personal, but you told us that you lost your hands during a musical festival or something." O'Neill sighed. "I was in a kind of an institution for a while. I never mention it usually, but I had to on my application, or the agency would've never hired me. I know about the quotas and all that. "The basic fact of the matter is that I went in voluntarily, but the pharmaceuticals weren't what I expected. I happen to enjoy a bit of shock therapy, and I was told that the Gilligan Gulag used that shit. I met a dude there called 'The Rubberhead', and he convinced me that we could escape." The song on the radio faded as the DJ announced a contest for the first caller who could decipher the lyrics in the next song. As the turgid ballad began, Lowry thought he heard the words: Pev't o' tay merlong gumin gots Untle yun furly pazzen ye Confre an' ayzor, ayzor ots Bither de furloss bochre blee! Lathered in a boisterous pudding of jackhammers and zithers, however, he couldn't be sure that's what he heard. "And with only two-by-fours and vapour barrier, we successfully built the thing from scratch. We managed to use only the materials from the interior walls of the barracks, and hid the work from the guards by hanging drapes over the spaces left behind. "On a certain Monday, we jumped together, but I figure it must have been just a one-man glider, even though the Rubberhead's drawings had two people holding on to the thing. It was about a fifty-metre glide to the base of the cliffs surrounding the Gulag. But this was more like a fifty-metre plummet, really. "They recovered the Rubberhead's corpse in Omaha, since the river was pretty high, and running pretty quick. But I was able to save myself finding an tree branch to hang onto." "So you lost your hands from frostbite or something?" Lowry asked, surrendering on his chance to win the KKOW-sponsored contest. "No, they were amputated by the recovery team from the Gulag, to prevent me from doing that kind of thing again. Well, with this thing," O'Neill smiled, brandishing his new hand, "I just might try it again some day." Lowry turned the Buick up Hubbard Street. He fumbled for a piece of paper, on which he'd scribbled the address for their rendezvous, and a rough timetable for their operation. "Swisher, you grab the Kalliope," he demanded, pointing at the black case in the back seat. "We're on the fourth floor and the elevator, I guess, doesn't work any more. So it's the stairs." Swisher was able to manhandle the bulky case up two flights, then asked O'Neill to help him get it up the rest of the way. "Listen, could you do it, Lowry? I was just thinking it might be better if I go on up ahead to make sure there's no ambush or anything." Lowry nodded and began to help Swisher lift the black case. At the landing on the third floor, he wondered to himself what sort of ambush O'Neill had in mind. "Maybe I ought to go check out the ambush too," muttered Swisher. "You seem to have all this under control." "You're right," agreed Lowry. "I don't want any surprises." Swisher bounded up the rest of the stairs with O'Neill, and they were both waiting in a large, empty room on the fourth floor by the time Lowry got there with the Kalliope. "Everything safe?" he puffed. "Oh yeah," answered Swisher. "If you need a hand unpacking it, O'Neill's just dying to use his new one." O'Neill burst out laughing and sauntered over to where Lowry had deposited the Kalliope on the floor. As they were unpacking the surveillance instrument, he mentioned to the team leader that the Kalliope looked slightly different than the one in Queue's lab. "Maybe that one was a prototype or something," explained Lowry. "Oh, true," nodded O'Neill, peering closely at marking on the side of the device. "Yeah, I guess it was, because this one says 'KAL-9000' on the side of it. It must be the field model or something." "That makes sense to me," said Lowry. He wandered over to a high, narrow window overlooking Hubbard Street. Across the way, xenon bulbs wrote out the name of the Thetan Hotel. He worked out a mental calculation to determine which window of the opposite building was the senator's. Part Four Darkness filled the sky outside as the trio of agents set up the Kalliope inside the Sharkey Building. "Power must be out," said Swisher. Lowry looked up from the complicated piece of machinery, realising that the interior of the fourth floor suite had no apparent lighting fixtures. They'd be working without the benefit of illumination if they were to keep to the schedule. "I've got some candles in my handbag," offered O'Neill, "but I left it in the car. Maybe I better go get them?" Lowry frowned but gave O'Neill permission to retrieve them. "Yeah, this thing hardly looks at all like the Kalliope," Swisher mumbled. "It's all too complicated. Jesus, I sure hope you know how to work the damn thing." "Oh, um, sure," Lowry lied. He peered at the dizzying array of tubes, chutes, wires, buttons and cables on the Kalliope. He wasn't even sure that the equipment was pointing the right way. Swisher watched as Lowry placed his eye next to one area of the device after another. As the darkness deepened, the team leader practically jumped in excitement. "This is the eyepiece. The viewer. The range finder. Whatever. Can't remember what Queue called the fucking thing. Right here." "Great," smiled Swisher. "See anything yet?" Lowry squinted and looked directly at a window in fa?ade of the Thetan Hotel, pivoted the device a little, and cried: "That's it! And there's something moving. Hard to tell, really. Just a shadow. The curtains are in the way and all that." "Hey, that's easy then. I guess all we need to do is get the imaging data and we're home free." Lowry eased back from the eyepiece. There was some sort of console on the side of the instrument, near the 'KAL-9000' label. Unfortunately, the various buttons and switches were not identified. "I remember Queue saying something about that," Swisher acknowledged. "Something about what?" "The console wouldn't have any identifying markings on it, so we wouldn't be in danger if we got caught with it." "That doesn't make any sense," Lowry sniffed. "Why would we be in any danger? The imaging police would imprison us for operating a surveillance device without a licence?" "Well, that button there is the biggest one," Swisher pointed. "I'll bet that's the one you have to push." Lowry nodded in agreement, placed his thumb over the button, and squinted through the eyepiece once more. "I can't see much except shadows because of the drapes. And it's worse because it's so damn dark outside." He pushed the button anyhow. The Kalliope emitted a terrible hum, not unlike the frequent offerings of some new industrial art band featured on KKOW, and Lowry's hand froze on the button. "Havin' some trouble with that, Lowry?" Swisher leaned over to help, grabbing the senior agent firmly by the upper arm. "What are you doing?" Lowry cried, whirling to meet Swisher with a terrified look in his eyes. "Calm down. Is the thing working or what? Lowry?" "Who the hell's Lowry? I'm Giselle. Where am I?" He broke loose from Swisher's grip and ran to the tall window nearby. Wheeling suddenly, he rushed through the darkness towards the elevator, frantically pushing the buttons. Swisher heard him scream that he had to get back to the senator's room. "Back to the senator's room? What on earth are you talking about? Lowry?" The taller man followed the panicking agent to the fourth floor landing, just as the elevator doors opened. Before he could stop Lowry, or whoever it was, he stepped into the darkness and screamed. A second and a half later, Swisher heard a convincing thud at the bottom of the shaft. O'Neill arrived at the top of the stairs, with a lit candle, only to find a perplexed Swisher rubbing his chin and peering downward through the open elevator doors. "What's up, buddy?" asked O'Neill. "Lowry went nuts and jumped down the elevator shaft," Swisher explained. "Something about Giselle this or that, and that he had to get back to the senator's room. This isn't going to be an easy thing to explain to the Superintendent. Is it?" O'Neill exhaled deeply. "Nope." "We better get back and report this immediately." "What about the machine?" asked O'Neill. "We can leave it here overnight. This building is obviously abandoned, so I doubt anyone's going to touch the Kalliope. Say, O'Neill, do you have the keys to the Buick?" "Nope. The doors were left open, so I just got my handbag. Lowry has, or had, the keys." The two agents retreated down the stairs to try the elevator at the ground level. The doors remained shut. "Well, I guess we can take a cab, if you want to split the fare," Swisher suggested. They found a cab, conveniently available, in front of the Thetan Hotel. As they were leaving, they noticed a minor commotion in the lobby. An attractive blonde girl, completely naked, struggled with a pair of security guards, who were in the process of covering her with a long coat. "Youse can always tell when the politicians are in town. Crazy hookers everywhere," smirked the cab driver. "No kidding. I'd like to get me some of that," agreed Swisher. "I've gotta be in the wrong business." "Oh yeah? What d'youse guys do?" "I'm a transvestite fashion model," O'Neill lied. "Like my Kierkegaard original?" The cab driver shrugged and kept driving. "I'm a secret agent," said Swisher. "Everyone's a comedian," intoned the driver. Part Five The Superintendent was deeply unimpressed. The two surviving agents had telephoned him at home, urgently requesting a meeting, late at night, at the office. In the intervening hour, O'Neill decided to take a detour to his home, to change into something more appropriate for the evening. "I hate wearing the same outfit all day," he explained lightly to Swisher. "I'll take another cab and be there in plenty of time." Swisher was further annoyed once he realised that the entire cost of the taxi ride was completely out of his own pocket. He stiffed the driver on the tip and ambled into the office to wait there for the Superintendent. After a half-hour, he heard a sudden frantic slapping sound from out in the hallway. He rose and went out to discover its source. He could see someone slapping their hand against the glass door leading into the agency. Stepping cautiously nearer, he saw a rampant shock of blonde hair. "The chick from the hotel lobby? Must be my lucky day." He walked over towards the entrance and unlocked the door. "Hey miss..." "Don't fuckin' say that!" screamed the girl. "It's me, you fuckin' a-hole!" "And you are?" shrugged the agent. "Lowry. I am Lowry," she squealed. "Where am I now? I mean, where is the other Lowry?" "Oh hey, this is starting to make sense," nodded Swisher, rubbing his chin. "You must be Giselle. Pretty cool. Come on into the office." Lowry followed Swisher to the Superintendent's office. He, or she, was still in a state of near frenzy, hurling questions and demands at the other agent in an incoherent flurry. "You're the chick from the hotel. That's all I know." Lowry grimaced. He decided to sit down, keeping the trench coat closely wrapped around his naked female form. Even so, he caught Swisher looking at his chest and legs. "You are Gaylord Swisher. We only met a few days ago. We were on a surveillance mission. We had this Kalliope piece- of-shit. Well, now I'm...this. Got it?" Swisher nodded casually. "So. Where's Lowry? The other Lowry?" "Dead, probably. Fell down the elevator shaft at the Sharkey Building." "What? How could you let that happen?" "Well, if it's any help, I think your actual name is Giselle. I mean, Lowry was screaming something about that and the senator before he died." "Well, that's about as big a help as nothing," cried Lowry. "What's a big help?" came the familiar growl of the Superintendent. "Swisher, you call me down here at ten p.m. to show me some dame in a trench coat? What's the meaning of this?" "Oh, I'm glad you're here," offered Swisher. "Believe it or not, this is Agent Lowry. Something happened to the Kalliope and, well, long story, but apparently he got turned into a naked blonde chick." The Superintendent took a seat in his chair, pulled a small flask from his coat pocket and drank liberally from its contents. "That's your tale. So, if you are Lowry, then, what's with the babe's body?" He turned to the girl. "Truth of it is, sir, I clicked the button on the Kalliope, and the next thing you know, I'm inside the hotel room, in this body, kind of, um...how do I say this? Sort of riding on the senator, I guess you'd say." The Superintendent laughed out loud. "So you're the senator's whore, is what you're saying." The girl was deeply embarrassed. "Shit, this is better than burning down that goddamned apartment building, Lowry. You are one fucking ace, aren't ya?" "Listen. How do I get out of this mess?" "Out of this mess?" roared the Superintendent. "Hell, this ain't no mess. This is whatcha call the best of all possible worlds. I can't think of any better way to keep tabs on the politicians. Can you?" "No way!" squealed Giselle. "You couldn't mean that!" "Hey, if your other body is dead, honey, we ain't getting you back. You're the perfect little infiltrator." "And, you know, if you aren't busy next weekend, maybe you'd like to go out to a movie or something," suggested Swisher. "Ick," replied Giselle. She frowned deeply at the drooling agent, and turned back to face the Superintendent. "Can we just have a minute in private?" Her boss nodded and ordered Swisher out of the room. He closed the door behind him, reluctantly. "If you double my pay I'll do it. Otherwise, I quit," the blonde girl stated seriously. "You know this is worth it, don't you?" "Agreed. On all counts. Agent Giselle, welcome to the wonderful world of espionage." She shook his extended hand, heartily, and beamed sensuously from her seat. "One other thing," she added. "From now on, I definitely work on my own." "No problem here," said the Superintendent. He sat back and sighed as Agent Giselle rose from her chair and left the room. "Note to self," he wrote on a blank piece of paper. "Double Lowry's salary." He crossed out the name 'Lowry' and wrote 'Giselle'. Then he wrote: "Bonus for Q." THE END Excerpted quotes: Skafish: "Signs Of The Cross"; The Pop Group: "She Is Beyond Good And Evil."; Lem [via Trurl's Electronic Bard]: "The Cyberiad". Jacquie Windsor Fantasy Pages: E-Mail: [email protected]