Chapter 4
I still couldn’t move, and I couldn’t respond. Jeks continued.
“I thought I might find you here. You were very convincing, but when I found the Shupkin Automaton hidden in the living room, well, that gave the game away, I’m afraid. After that I thought I’d just see what happened. Now we have to decide what happens next. I’m going to let you move now. Do not try to run or otherwise misbehave, or I’ll put you back in stasis and leave you to starve.”
A moment later I could move again. I shook out my limbs and head vigorously.
“Okay, good, Mr. Avastyon, let’s go upstairs to continue our conversation.” She gestured to the upward-leading staircase, and I complied.
The sixth floor was as pleasant as the floor below was not. Elegant yet luxurious couches in the Enjurion style bracketed an elaborately-carved tea table — which I believed was an imitation pre-Imperial, but still very nice. A selection of exotic plants ringed the room. A telescope pointed out of the northern window.
When we were seated she resumed, “Now what are we going to do? The most obvious solution is that I turn you over to the Guardians, but I’m sure there are more productive ways to deal with this situation. And I suspect you would have a lot to lose if you were arrested. So let’s try to avoid that.
“I could just let you go, but there are two problems with that. One, it doesn’t seem fair to me, does it? And two, why should I set you free to con other poor ladies? So no, that’s not a solution at all.
“But maybe you have an idea, Mr. Avastyon?” She asked.
“Dinzeni. Not Avastyon.”
“Of course. Mr. Dinzeni. Do go on.”
I thought for a few moments. “Money?”
She scoffed, “Really? Money? You’d just steal from another person to give to me. Let me tell you something, Mr. Dinzeni: I’m a person who believes very much in fair play. I don’t believe in taking advantage of other people for my own gain. Try again.”
“Work. I work for you for a period of time. I’m useful enough. I’m good at acquiring items of value, I’ve got a lot of connections, I have papers to get around most of the city. People like me and like to do business with me.”
She considered. “I suppose having an assistant would be valuable. I’m not entirely convinced of your skills, Mr. Dinzeni; after all you did fail spectacularly here. But you may turn out to be more talented than you first appear. We shall have to see. Very well. I require one month’s service of you. Frankly, you should work for free, but I concede that you probably need some money to survive, so you may be paid after some length of time if your service is adequate.
“But let’s be very clear. I do not trust you, Mr. Dinzeni. You are a criminal and not worthy of my trust. I’ll give you the chance to remedy that, but for now I require a safeguard. Follow me to my lab.”
We descended to the fourth floor, which was some kind of laboratory. Two large tables dominated the room; neatly organized lab equipment and glassware occupied cabinets lining the walls. Through the western window of the round room came the mid-afternoon sun. “This is my metabiomancy lab,” Jeks told me without further explanation. She moved about in the back of the room for a little while and emerged holding a small metal box. She opened it and held it out for me to see; inside was a slug-like creature, about an inch long, translucent and colored like smoky quartz. “This is a sikuro,” she said. “It will guarantee your good faith. Here, take it.”
She gestured for me to take the creature. I was not at all ready to do this, but I extended my hand all the same. She slid the slug into my hand, and it began — Holy Angelshit — diffusing into my skin, as if it were crawling down into me. It didn’t hurt, but I could sense it moving into my hand and then down along my arm. Then up through my shoulder and into my chest, until finally the sensation faded. I felt violated. “For fuck’s sake, what the fuck just fucking happened? You could have warned me!” I shouted at Jeks.
She shrugged, “I suppose, but there was the risk you wouldn’t cooperate, and then where would we be? You’ll find, Mr. Dinzeni, that I like things to work out, and the sikuro is my insurance that they will. If you do your job faithfully, you have nothing to fear; otherwise, the sikuro will cause you nausea, headaches, and other unpleasantness until you correct the problem. It’s not lethal, but you just might wish you had died.”
She motioned to a lab stool, and we were seated between the two lab tables. Jeks continued. “But don’t think me unscrupulous. I’m sure you’ll find me quite the opposite. Much of my work is with the poor, the downtrodden and the mistreated. But we’ll talk about work later.
“For now I’d like to know a bit more about my investment. Who are you, Mr. Dinzeni? And why are you here, burglarizing my home?”
“Call me Anton.”
“Okay, Anton, you may call me Doctor Jeks. Go on; start at the beginning.”
Roughly summarized, here’s what I told Jeks. I was born and raised in Lily District, solidly middle class. There was nothing particularly wrong with my parents, or particularly noteworthy. I did fine in school, I guess, but I was never interested in it. In college I spent most of my time pursuing extra-curricular activities — music, art, literature, women — and ended up dropping out after three semesters. I found myself out of school without any kind of marketable skill. I tried free-lance writing for a while, but gradually I was forced to move downtown into the cheaper districts, eventually ending up in Beetle Hollow. It was there that I started doing odd jobs and scavenging, graduating to grift and the occasional con. It was also there that I met the beautiful Zinnia Ayzen. After six months together she got pregnant, and we were in enough in love to move in and raise the child together. Zin was working as an office assistant at a law firm in Anglers Terrace, making enough to support us, while I continued with my pursuits. I finished by telling Jeks about Zin’s Vornauld’s Syndrome and my plan to earn money to cure it.
“Very noble of you, Anton”, observed Jeks. “I’d almost admire your actions, if it hadn’t been me on the losing side. If you’re going to target the rich, go after the truly wealthy, rather than the merely well-off. The people who take and take and never give back.”
I shook my head. “I’m not interested in class warfare. I’m interested in keeping my wife alive. I targeted you just because I happened to see you at the market.”
She laughed. “Well, believe me, the upper class is very interested in class warfare. But you’ll learn. I’d rather talk about Vornauld’s Syndrome. I have in the past done some research in that area, as it does relate to metabiomancy —“
“Wait, what-the-fuck-o-mancy?”
She looked irritated at the interruption. “Metabiomancy is the art of inducing metamorphoses, or changes, in biological organisms. Vornauld’s Syndrome has an obvious similarity to metabiomancy, as it is a change in a biological organism, and so I’ve done some research in that area.”
I felt a rush of excitement. “And discovered what?”
“Not how to stop it, I’m afraid.” I deflated. She continued, “but I do know something of the mechanism of how it works. I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand any of it without substantial training in metabiomancy.”
“Can I help with your research?”
“Research? What research? I researched Vornauld’s Syndrome in the past. No telling when I’ll get back to it, if I ever do.” She appeared agitated.
I was furious. “If you do? So I’m supposed to just bring you coffee while Zin dies when you could be doing something about it?”
Jeks stood up, looking angry. “No more about Vornauld’s Syndrome. I already gave you charity when I didn’t turn you into the Guardians; I’m not obligated to give more. Besides, if you think a few weeks of research are going to fix your girl, you have no idea of how these things work. There is no hope. It would take a miracle to stop Vornauld’s Syndrome soon enough to save your wife.
“Now go home, and come back tomorrow. We have work to do, and it does not involve fetching coffee. And make sure you appreciate your home time; it may not always be possible.”
It was late afternoon when I left Jeks’s house. It was a miserable train ride from Upper Stekson to Chethurst. What had started this morning as an easy, fun bit of thievery had turned into unmitigated disaster. Now I found myself enslaved to a woman of unknown motivations, powerless to do anything to help Zin. My only hope was that I might get paid for the work at some point.
By the time I got off the train in Chethurst, it was raining. After a few minutes of trudging down Abyssal Street, I got so wet I ducked into a corner store. With a few of my last pennies I bought a bit of carris leaf, a mild sedative when chewed. The register was manned by an old Enjuri. Returning my change, one of their manual appendages brushed my forearm. The Enjuri drew their breath in quickly and looked at me strangely.
“You’ve got bad luck,” they said. “Who’d you cross to get a sikuro?”
“You can feel it?”
“Taste it is more accurate. Revolting thing. Why?”
I ran my hand wearily down my face. “Long story. Is it the real thing? Does it really do what they say?”
They laughed. “Oh yes. Better do what your master says or you’re in real trouble.”
The first time, years before, that Zin had to bail me out of jail, I thought I’d just die from the shame. And she was pissed. The Guardians had woken her up in the early morning banging on our door to let her know I’d been arrested, and she was embarrassed that all the neighbors had seen. She really gave it to me. On subsequent arrests she was more resigned, less angry. Eventually she could even talk about them with a kind of wry humor.
But I didn’t know what to expect this time. Sure, I hadn’t been arrested, but I’d certainly gotten myself into a lot of trouble. To my surprise, when I told her about Jeks capturing me, she laughed. “I have to meet this woman,” she said, ”who can make the illustrious Anton Dinzeni.” Turns out her laughter made me more ashamed than her anger.
But then came the anger, and fast. “Shit, An, I warned you something bad would happen —“
“Wait wait wait! Let me tell you the whole story.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You better. How are you here and not locked up in an Upper Stekson jail?”
So I told her about all that had happened. When I got to the part about Vornauld’s Syndrome, Zin made a disbelieving sound.
I stopped. “What?”
“An, I don’t have the energy for this type of shit. Why would some crazy old lady know anything about Vornauld’s?”
“She’s a metabiomancer.”
Zin had this incredulous face she did that would make anyone feel like a total idiot. She gave me that face then. “Whatever that is”, she said.
“Um, a specialist in the art of mutating life. You see? Vornauld’s is mutating life, right? Maybe she knows what she’s doing.”
“Huh, it just sounds like you’re getting conned right back. You sure about this slug thing she put in you? It seems like bullshit to me. You should try not going back tomorrow morning and see what happens.”
Zin’s condition was unchanged from that morning. She was surprisingly unfazed by losing part of her finger. I would have been inconsolable. But this wouldn’t be the first time she had faced pain by turning inward. It hurt me that she wouldn’t trust me to find some way to beat Vornauld’s. Instead it seemed as if she wanted to give up.
“Why won’t you accept what the doctor told us?” she asked later that evening. “You should be here with me, but now you’ve gotten yourself in trouble with the crazy lady. What if my condition gets worse? Who’s going to take care of Raz if I can’t? Who’s going to earn money?”
“Look, I’ll try not going back tomorrow. If that doesn’t work, Jeks said she might pay me later on if I do well enough; I’ll do everything I can to squeeze money out of her. But…”
“What?” She looked apprehensive.
“If the sikuro is the real thing, I don’t know how often I’ll be home for the next month.”
She looked disappointed, then she just looked resigned. “Of course. I’ll get by somehow.”
The next morning Zin was missing the first two fingers on her left hand.