The Doom of Mars

The Doom of Mars
by
Bobby Derie

The spear was heavy in his hand as he stood before the entrance to their hall. Carved from the living stone by tides, shaped further by an influence that was half of art and half of nature, Mars paused, briefly, before descending into their quiet twilight catacomb. As would any soldier on the eve of battle, curious of his fate.

Still pools lay here and there, illuminated by small dancing lights that fluttered on unseen breezes, and the paths between them were marked by skulls and bones. The god gave these a professional appraisal. Many had died of violence, their moldering remains a testament to the blow of sword and spear, arrow and sling-stone, knife and cestus; some immediately fatal, others showed signs of knitting and disease. Many showed signs of starvation: victims of siege and famine, and Mars knew these too, for where they not mere weapons in war's arsenal?

Mars' gaze fell briefly on one of the pools, and he saw reflected there a young farmer, bronzed by the sun, waging war on the standing grain. How long the god watched the reaping, he could not tell. Yet as one, farmer and god seemed to be aware of the cloud on the horizon... and then the moment was gone, and blind fish swam beneath the surface of the vision. Ares tightened his grip on his spear and turned once more to the path, this time looking neither left nor right at the detritus of wars and ages past.

He found them sat upon a triple throne, each about their task. On bended knee the god tipped his spear so that the point almost touched the ground, and with his left hand removed the heavy helmet, and held it under his arm.

"Kind ladies, wise counselors, Parcae, who hear the name of every child, be they god or mortal, Nona, Decima, Morta, blessed ladies, I crave a boon."

At these words, neither Nona nor Decima looked up from their work, and the threads of their work continued, the spinning and measuring. Yet Morta looked up, and her knife too did not stop snipping, but she smiled at Mars.

"Son of Jupiter, son of Juno, whose bloody blade has been as the tip of my own; know you well that there are only two boons that any ever ask of us."

Mars' eyes met those of Morta, and not unkindly was the look she gave him. "Fair ladies, gentle women, who end the final pains of soldiers and bring the final peace to broken spirits, I wish to know how and when I shall die."

The Parcae clucked, and perhaps Nona tittered a little, by Morta, he blade flashing through strand after strand, smiled still.

"Old soldier, brother of Enyo, I will tell you what you already know: your time shall come when the last of Rome's legions shall fall, to the final blade on the final battlefield. For though altars may go dry and be stained anew, though your name may be called in strange tongues and the flame of your belief kindled in barbarian hearts, your army is Rome, your heart is Rome, and when Rome's wars are done, so shall the length of your life be run."

Mars offered no kind words nor curses. Yet he smiled, as he placed the helmet on his head, and raised his spear in solemn salute at the triple throne.

###

PENISLAND

PENISLAND
by
Bobby Derie

"You mean Pen Island." The lieutenant was not amused. She was holding the pen in front of her, and staring at Jack like she was considering which orifice to cram it in.

"No ma'am." Jack played with his tie. They never used to make him wear the damn things, but the department was trying to improve its image. He'd conceded to the single-father-makeover; six pairs of identical dress shirts and slacks, shoes that could pass as shiny leather on the first glance, until you noticed the matte black sneaker tread that gave him traction when it counted, and of course the ties, which his daughter picked out. He'd have been more comfortable with a noose. Only nobles were hung with silk, and Detective Bastard was the least noble person on the Force...and would proudly admit it.

Finally, she nodded, dropping the pen on the desk with a soft clatter.

"Fine, go. But this had better not be a waste of time."

Jack dipped his head. "Always have time to catch a killer, LT."

*

The parking lot was a double football field of cracked black asphalt, slowly being reclaimed by weeds, some as high as Jack's waist. Metal-pickers had already torn down the light posts, so the detective parked the Bastardmobile by one of the great outcroppings of concrete that used to hold them. The entrance to the park seemed far away, but Jack appreciated the time it took to walk up to it to get a feel for the place.

It was a smaller park, but built to last. High walls stretched out for maybe a quarter of a mile in any direction from the gates; pale pink stucco cracked and faded. The general motif was a kind of Pompeii bathhouse on a gigantic scale, ochre-painted cartoon titans grasping their massive phalluses, attended by winged cock-and-balls. Beyond the walls, he could make out a number of tall rounded domes and spires, including the impressive monolith at the center. High above the gate itself, twelve-foot letters festooned with broken bulbs gave the place its name.

Something squeaked under Jack's heel. He looked down amid the grass and found the sun-faded inflatable rubber dong, about the size and quality of a dog's chew toy. It was smiling at him. He almost broke a rule, but caught himself as the cigarette pack was halfway out of his pocket. The little Bastard would never let him hear the end of it if he came home smelling like smoke.

The gate itself looked intimidatingly chained and boarded up, but as his hand closed on the handle to give it a good rattle, it came away easily. The hairs on the back of Jack's neck rose as he opened the door just enough to slip through, closing it as quietly as possible behind him.

Inside, the place was a mess. Cocktail napkins and plastic drinking cups with squat, bulbous straws littered the streets. Ticket barriers stood empty, the carefully crafted phallic metalwork on the ticket cages and ornaments marked by flaking paint, and giving way to creeping rust. Every single tile and corner, every ornament, had a penis, in every stage from flaccid to erect to ejaculating. Many were defaced, broken or smashed, but Jack cared less for the petty vandalism than the path through the rubbish. The detective bent down, and examined the ligature marks. Somebody had dragged something through here...and not too long ago.

The Bastard followed the trail into the park proper. The phallic theme was still omnipresent, but now morphed into a cock-obsessed version of Disneyland. The opening plaza had a theme like an old European cottage, the crooked streets paved with cobbles (many of which was decidedly phallic); dangling wooden penises hung in front of empty shops with wooden shingle roofs with black iron chimneys whose rounded heads had once ejaculated smoke into the sky. The effect was more kitsch than erotic, and Jack barely acknowledged the old arcade - long looted, except for a variant of whack-a-mole that would cause any man with a soul to wince - or the candle-maker's, carpenter's, and baker's shops, all with their own phallic products. He paused for a moment at the opening to the old condom museum, but the trail didn't lead in to the darkened building, and the sun was already dying.

Jack turned a corner and found himself in an Asian temple, the kind of mock-Japanese fertility shrine that young women giggle over as they surf the internet, all shiny-smooth polished phalluses and linghams, bronze bells in suggestive shapes. Something rustled and Jack found his gun in his hand, thumb fingering the safety even as the slightest of breezes blew through the park, causing loose bits of buildings to creek, litter to rustle, bell-tips to jingle, and gates to squeak. Somewhere, it passed through a tight passage and elicited a whistling moan. The detective cursed and picked up the pace, not wanting to lose the trail to a bit of wind.

Asian linghams merged into a backlit of German alleys from the 1920s, still mannequins dressed in leather codpieces and goggle-eyed gas masks. The alleys were more cluttered and claustrophobic than the streets, the walls closing in overhead, and Jack found himself following a narrow trail through broken bodies all naked from the wastes down - rejects from some Madame Toussad's ripoff of the great dicks of history and mythology. Glass eyes cracked and skittered under his feet, pale wax crumbing from aluminum skeletons struck Jack right in the uncanny valley.

As he might have suspected, the alley opened up to a square at the base of the gigantic monolith - a round-headed tower stabbing upward like it would fuck the sky. Once, tourists would clamber into the tiny elevator at the base, and shoot up to the top, to look out through the windows at all the glories of the park. Perhaps five feet from the entrance, a crumpled form lay smashed into the pavement. Jack looked around, but couldn't make out the trail anymore. Not that it mattered. Slowly and carefully he tiptoed nearer to the immobile lump - just enough to make out the suggestion of clothing, hands, a shoe with a foot still in it, but not close enough to track any of the blood that had splattered around the body. One detail caught his eye: the hands were bound together with a length of chain.

The cellphone flicked to life. The little Bastard smiled at him, her one blue eye shining above a gap-toothed grin. He speed-dialed Dispatch. "This is Detective Jack Bastard at Penisland. We've got a body."

###



Unfinished Creations 2

24 December 2072

24 December 2072
by
Bobby Derie

Mihoshi Oni landed ass-first on a plastic ork Santa Claus in a sleigh, crushing the smiling tusked figure of St. Nick and knocking over his reindeer-drones. Three gnomes in bright green flak vests, bell-tipped pointy hats and shoes jingling, rushed the fallen troll. Seattle's prettiest troll lay sprawled in the sleigh, growled, and let loose with a long-legged kick that bent the leading gnome double. The solid crack of the gnome's breaking hip was almost as enjoyable as seeing the tiny figure fall into his two compatriots.

Mihoshi rolled off the remnants of the lawn decoration and onto her knees just as the other two gnomes came back to try their luck again, wielding what looked for all the world like two-foot candy canes. One massive hand grabbed the string of lights and pulled; the first gnome had the foresight to duck but the second one caught a reindeer-drone upside his head as the shadowrunner whipped Comet, Donner, and Blitzen at head-height for her miniature assailants.

The attacking gnome swung the candy cane two-handed over his head at the troll; Mihoshi caught it on her left arm and scooped her right hand up to catch the holiday hooligan in the crotch, lifting the gnome off the ground a couple centimeters. Still holding on to the cane, the gnome's eyes scanned down to the critical placement of her massive thumb, then back at her face. Mihoshi grinned as he shook his head, then squeezed. His scream went through three octaves before he blacked out.

Steadying herself on a goblin nativity scene - Why are the three wisemen always hobgoblins? - Mihoshi was just able to regain her feet on the slippery snow just as she saw the female elf with a star-topped wand wound with green and red ribbons. The fomori jumped backwards, slamming against-and then through-the glass of the window just as a blast of ice and snow annihilated the rest of the lawn decorations. Mihoshi landed on her back in front of the tree, bleeding from dozens of cuts. The elf stuck her head through the window, red pointy hat still set on her head. Sadly, the thing that Mihoshi noticed was that each perfect fingernails pointing the wand on her had a snowflake attached to it.

The iceball that slammed into the side of the elf's face caught them both by surprise, but Mihoshi recovered first, performing an energetic and slightly off-balance kip-up that left her staggering toward the broken window. The elf was cursing and pointing her wand at somebody outside when a snowshovel crunched down on her head; Mihoshi smiled at the descending chin as her left fist came up to a beautiful uppercut. The elf sprayed teeth fragments as she slumped over unconscious.

Mihoshi stretched and caught her breath as a collection of feet trudged through the sorcerous ice and natural snow to the front door. Looking around at the mess she'd made - and through the broken window to the icy desolation of the front lawn - the shadowrunner felt like a bit of a heel. Almost absentmindedly Mihoshi noticed the mistletoe above the door, and had an idea.

When the door opened, it was the father - a troll - still holding the snowshovel like he was afraid he'd have to use it. Mihoshi pulled him under the mistletoe and made his toes curl, her right hand stuffing a credstick down the front of his pants. Mihoshi released him with a smack.
"Thanks handsome. Sorry for the mess." The fomori said as she pushed him carefully aside.

In the doorway was a troll boy - six or seven by his size. Mihoshi reached into the back of her pants and pulled out her Ares Predator III, ejected the clip, and pressed it in the kid's hands.
"Merry Christmas." She said, picking the boy up and handing him to his shocked father.

A final figure stepped in front of her, blocking the doorway. An ork, the mother most likely, who was built like a linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks. Mihoshi stood there for a minute as the mother took in the damage to the house, the lipstick on her husband's mouth and the credstick sticking out of his pants, the shiny pistol in her son's hands, the steady dying moan from the elf outside the window, and Mihoshi herself. The last thing she did was look significantly at the mistletoe she was standing under.

Mihoshi shrugged, then grabbed the back of her head and brought the ork into a tilt for a long, long kiss.

The little troll boy waved at Mihoshi as she dragged the elf mage and her gnomes away. Merry Christmas, Seattle.