imagination overflowed with all the demons of hell and the icons of a superstitious age-at least that's what my teachers said.
In the midst of a twisted medieval landscape, the characters of Bosch were playing. Jokers. They cavorted everywhere you looked. The triptych is a celebration of jokerhood: fox-headed demons, a merman riding a flying fish, another fish crawling down a road with a castle on its back, a skating penguin, a stag-headed man in a red cloak, another with grass growing on his back, a half-naked woman with a lizard's tail, a toad-man, a monkey-man-hundreds of them, roiling in a dark, stormy world.
Like my Rox. Very much like the Rox I see in my dreams.
The Rox I might build if they'd let me.
Kafka was staring at the Bosch like all the others, captivated. The joker we call Headlamp had turned bright, bright eyes on the triptych, so that it stood bathed in crystalline illumination. Jokers cavorted in egg tempura brilliance.
I laughed gaily. "We've found the way to make the Combine pay us back." The jumpers laughed at that, hearing K.C.'s phrase for the nat authorities. "They'll pay quite well to be allowed to stay in their own little bodies. Quite well." For that instant, looking at the Temptation, I forgot the tragedies in New York. I forgot the scorn of Prime and Blaise toward the jokers and my dreams. I forgot the nagging torture of all the jokers within my wall.
I forgot it all.
"The Rox has benefactors now. People in high places. People with money. Lots of money. No one will ever be hungry here again."
I laughed again. The voices of the jokers laughed with me. The jokers in Bosch's painting danced in sympathy.
There are times when life is shit....
The day after Prime delivered the Bosch, Blaise did something I still can't believe even he would do.
In one horrible stroke, he has taken Kelly away and wounded the one man who has always helped the jokers. It isn't fair what Blaise has done to Kelly. It isn't fair to her or to Tachyon. I listened as Blaise brought Tachyon to the Rox. I listened, and I couldn't do anything, for most of the jokers here no longer trust Tachyon, not since he betrayed Hartmann. Still ...
It makes my stomach-all of it turn to listen to Tachy's pain. Worse, I can't shut it off like I can someone else's voice. I felt it as soon as they pierced the wall. Maybe it's because of my infatuation with Kelly, maybe its some remnant of Tachyon s telepathy, but we are linked.
He's so loud in my head. He hurts so much.... Burning Sky, please help me....
She hurts so much. She makes me hurt.
I was outraged, even though several of the jokers laughed when they heard about it. I sent Peanut to Blaise with a message that I wanted Tachyon returned to his own body. I told him that I understood Blaise had his own reasons for wanting to hurt Tachyon but that the doctor had done more to help the jokers than anyone else. For that, I said, I wanted Tachyon released now. Blaise had had his vengeance; he'd proved how strong he was. Now let Tachyon go.
I'm the governor, right?
Blaise sent Peanut back with Polaroids: Kelly's--Tachyon's-- body, naked and spread-eagled, her eyes wide, haunted and hopelessly defiant. Tachyon exposed helplessly, the picture snapped between her spread legs. Tachyon covered by Blaise's body. Tachyon afterward, weeping.
I ... well, I didn't do anything.
I mean, what could I do, really? Was I going to send a squad of armed jokers to the jumper side of the Rox? I could've done that, but Blaise'd just mind-control them, or his followers would jump them. It'd start a civil war here. There are things I have to consider, after all. It's not just a simple thing.
The jumpers bring in money, they bring in the rapture and other drugs that half the jokers here are addicted to. The fear of them is at least part of what keeps the authorities away. I need the jumpers as much as they need me.
There are things I can't do. Really. I just ... I just wish I didn't feel so bad about it. So dirty. I keep hearing myself, and I sound like fucking George Bush making excuses about how all his promises about `no new exotic laws' have had to be forgotten.
Do you understand?
... please help rne ... I still hear her, and she's calling for me.
It hurts. It really does.
I