LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY SAAB X
It's half past nine - weak sliver of a moon hanging low on the Slime Lake.
Let me tell you about my Saab. It's half past nine - weak sliver of a moon hanging low on the Slime Lake. I'm standing on the dock, listening to the low groan of the wind on the slime. It's the dying end of summer and there's a spectral steam hanging over the lake, thick whorls of green spiraling up into the night sky. A dead tadpole lies on the dock's creaking boards, its black guts spilling out of a slit belly.
"Help me," it says. Its tiny vestigial arms flap feebly at the viscera cooling on the timber. Guess it's not dead.
I peer at it suspiciously. "Take it easy," I say. "You want my advice? Even if you could stuff it all back inside you'd still be dead. What's gonna happen the minute you hit the water again? You're fish food. My advice to you is ride it out."
"Don't need to get back in the water," it grunts. "Just need to last until the Captain gets here." It looks out at the green lake and closes its eyes. Dead NOW, I think. But it opens them again: big filmy eyes, dilated to hell, but with a slight crease of amusement. The corners of its rubbery lips are twitching. And it's not looking at me. It's looking out at the lake, at the ruby halo of a ship's light cutting through the steam towards us.
This is not a problem for me. Not inherently. Doesn't have to be. See, I'm waiting for the Captain too. The Captain’s running the boat with my Saab on it. I’m waiting to take receipt. It should be simple. But a dead or dying tadpole isn't part of the plan. I look down at it. I'm conflicted. It's the size of a human head and juicy. I could just push it into the lake and let the slime dolphins take care of it. There's a big buck cruising around the dock right now, its milk white dorsal fin cutting stickily through the deep green goo. It can smell the tadpole. I can hear the bass crackle of its echolocator. So can the tadpole. "Please don't," it says.
I sigh. "What's the Captain got for you?" I ask. It could be anything. The Captain's a double-crossing son of a bitch. The main argument in favour of the Captain is that she’s the only freakshow crazy enough to run contraband over the Slime Lake. Not that that’s much. The Captain isn't the type to call a business deal done until she’s squeezed you dry, betrayed you, been caught, begged for her life, wrestled the gun from your hand, squeezed off a few rounds, caught a bat to the head, offered you money, beat your skull in and bought you a tequila.
The tadpole wheezes. "It's what I have for the Captain." It chuckles hoarsely. A messenger. The worst possible answer for me. Now if I boot it into the lake the Captain might pull up beside the dock, ask for its message and start World War Five when it isn't there. On the other hand, if I left it, it could deliver a code phrase of which I may be unable to parse the import until it’s too late, with results lethal to my interests. Alternatively, it could be a Sheriff's Deputy, here to watch the deal go down between the Captain and I and throw cuffs on us the instant money changes hands. It could be a secret agent from a prominent buyer, or a public agent from a secret buyer. The tadpole may not even be mortally wounded. The guts could be a prop. The wound could be latex. The dolphin could be a drone. I lurch towards it in sudden paranoia and sink a hand into its displaced guts. They're cold and smooth, like wet chiffon. I vomit a little in my mouth. The tadpole moans. I raise a hand to my nose, sniff, retch again. Most certainly the guts smell real. I stand shakily and point a finger at it. "Who are you?" I glug.
It smiles weakly. "I should have introduced myself," it says. "I'm Bullwhip. And you're never going to believe this, but..." it trails off into weak coughs. I peer at it incredulously. Nothing about this tableau warrants credulity. I won't believe what it says. How could I? - I refuse. It gets a hold of itself and starts to say "I've got a...", but I've still got a gut-wet finger pointed at it, and I guess the gut pheromones are stinking up the air around the dock because the rumble of echolocators is rising to a maddening crescendo. I look up and see not just the white wedge of the big buck in the lake but four, five, six, seven others whipping the slime into a stiff froth. I can't hear Bullwhip's explanation for all the clicking. It feels like being inside a Geiger counter on Moonbase 4. It feels like standing inside the resonance cascade that destroyed the waifus and sparked the Anime Riots. It feels like mutant leather running over my brain folds. I get down on my hands and knees, real close up to the tadpole. "What is it?" I roar.
It smiles serenely, which pisses me off, and in a delirious tone I can barely make out, tells me it has a key inside it calibrated to tadpole body temp and if he gets fucked up or eaten by a dolphin or if I try to retrieve it from his body the boat gets blown sky high. Fuck. Not a message. I’ve spent the last 45 seconds assuming that what he has for the Captain is a message. “Are you sure it’s not a message?” I scream at it, and in the same dreamy voice it says "When the captain gets here, she'll authenticate it and the bomb will disarm." I have questions - who did this, what's in it for him, what's on the boat - but unfortunately I also have answers. Knife Gang, a family who remain unmurdered and a symphony of Swedish form and function, in that order. My Saab. The boat's close enough for me to see its silhouette now. "They're coming," Bullwhip gasps. And of course they are. The timbers of the dock are shaking with the dolphins roiling underneath. I whirl around, and there they are. Knife Gang. Of course it’s Knife Gang. I expected Knife Gang - that’s my secret weapon. That’s the good news. I expected the tadpole, too, if you were to be generous in the way you understood “expected” and “tadpole”. It was just like Knife Gang to have an insurance policy, and a bomb on a boat with a kill switch hidden inside a mutilated tadpole was right out of the textbook. It wouldn’t be a covert exchange of property at 9:30 on the dock on the slime lake without Knife Gang showing up to cut everyone into ribbons of dolphin food. It wouldn’t be a night in Apex Corporate City without everything going wrong. It wouldn’t be our green and stinking Earth, coated in ash and algae, weighed down with money and machinery, overburdened with fine trinkets and mementos, choked with deceit and gluttony, without a hero’s intentions being thwarted. They come hotstepping down the dock towards me, clicking their fingers. I stand my ground. “Get in the lake,” I shout at them. They’re beastly with a knife, but given to suggestion. They ignore me and press forward.
“Return to your holdings,” I order them. “The Saab is my property.” They don’t hesitate. Ten metres from me and closing. Normally a statement this direct would make them re-evaluate. But it’s their Saab. That’s the problem. I just want it. They want it too. They continue their approach, delicate and mincing, as always. They say the ritual knives that pierce their flesh and muscles allow them to reach unknown heights of religious euphoria, but the sharp points are sticking in the boards of the dock with every step. Their suggestibility is unrelated to the knives, as far as I know, but maybe predictable from cultists. “Take your chances with the dolphins,” the tadpole moans. It ought to know the short end of coming up against Knife Gang, but I don’t share its outlook.
“Can it, frog,” I say calmly. Taking my chances with the dolphins is classic frog advice. A death sentence for sure. The frogs see themselves as grains of sand in an hourglass, passing easily and gracefully from the vessel of the living to the vessel of the dead, both vessels equal, before the vessels are inverted and they flow once again. Life is more precious than that, is my view. That’s why I’m down here on the dock, waiting for their Saab. That’s living. And living is why it’s my second time here tonight, and why the first time was hours ago, at twilight - when I slipped down to hide an electromagnet beneath the underside of the dock. The Knife Gang members walk over it and I hit the remote in my pocket. Inside of 5 seconds they’re flat against the timber, dripping through the cracks, red blood mixing with green goo, producing a deep brown, the white skin of the writhing slime dolphins turning the lake cafe au lait.
“All the best,” I say to the tadpole as the Captain lowers my Saab onto the dock and Bullwhip’s lowered into the authenticator. He smiles peacefully at me as the authenticator glows green. One more little grain of sand, tumbling through the neck, passing through still air to the pyramid beneath, to rest before the next journey. That’s how I got my Saab.
Max Lavergne
