kagablog

Kenzo Cold-Eyes was listening to mix-tapes, watching the men huddle around the fire. They had stripped the massive fish down to its bones and were now throwing scraps of its head to the laughing hyenas. There was a spot of blood on one of his pristine, white leather loafers and he wondered where it came from. He was about to remove it when all of sudden the men seemed to freeze, pricking their ears in accord. One of them doused the fire with a bucket. As the light went out, Kenzo Cold-Eyes noticed distant glimmerings at the entrance to the pier. The hyenas became excited, sensing danger. They began frothing in the darkness, tugging at their chains like angry bulls. The men fanned out silently, their beads and machetes glinting in the moonlight. Kenzo Cold-Eyes killed the tape deck, fumbling for the telescopic night goggles which The Pink Samurai had accidentally left behind. He found the apparatus and quickly buckled it over his sunglasses (which he never removed). He pulled his white fedora low and focused in. He sighted a line of backlit Buddhist Punks, advancing up the pier like gunslingers, swords drawn. Behind this unbroken advance he could make out a gaudy palanquin festooned with colourful paper lanterns. Mister Sister reclined on the many cushions of the palanquin, absently playing with several, severed heads. Kenzo Cold-Eyes zoomed in closer to discover that one of the heads belonged to Typhoid Mary.

“Oh my dog…” he flustered.

The detective disembarked quickly, raygun in hand, goggles glinting, skirting round to crouch behind the trunk of his cruiser. He extracted his walkie-talkie and held it close to his face, radioing in to the ship.

Number Nun bore the unconscious Cherry Cola along a passage while Taty trailed behind, now vaguely fascinated by the goings on in the surgery ship. The Sugar Twins brought up the rear, having appeared out of nowhere. They were all close to the upper deck when they heard the voice of Kenzo Cold-Eyes crackling from deep within the folds of the nun’s cassock. The android immediately set Cherry Cola down upon the flower garlands of a nearby wooden altar, rifling around for the communications device.

“What’s the matter?” she answered.

“Big Buddha!” came the garbled transmission. “Head of Typhoid Mary on his lap!”

“Jump off the end of the pier,” Number Nun told him after a microsecond of deliberation. “I’m on my way up.”

Kenzo Cold-Eyes squinted at the approaching mob. He calculated his chances before fleeing toward the distant end of the pier, his grey trenchoat flapping comically behind him as he clutched onto his hat. Number Nun slid the walkie-talkie past sensors in her head until a tiny light flashed green. She then took Taty’s hand and knelt down to face her.

“Listen to me now Childbride,” she told her seriously. “I have scanned this walkie-talkie’s frequency so that you will be able to communicate with me via my internal communications array. I want you to keep it, wait here and listen for my holy instruction.”

Taty began to protest but Number Nun quieted her with a wave of her hand.

“Ok fine,” Taty sulked.

Number Nun nodded briskly before marching up a nearby flight of stairs. She activated her internal voice-system and called Kenzo Cold-Eyes.

“Are you wet yet?” she mind-asked without moving her lips.

Kenzo Cold-Eyes stood before broken rails, poised gingerly above the end of the pier. Rotting timbers formed a sheer drop of several meters, down to a boiling crash of greasy waves wherein milkshaked a myriad of fish skeletons, trash and broken tires.

“My eyes may like the cold, but my trenchcoat doesn’t,” he replied nervously.

“I have enough little girls to look after,” she snipped. “Jump and I will come find you.”

The detective cast one last loving look at his distant car before re-holstering his raygun and withdrawing a pair of cute red nose-plugs. The armed mass was almost at the ship now and there was clearly no turning back. He plugged his nose and leapt out into space, his flailing form vanishing instantly into the maelstrom of waves.

Number Nun emerged onto the upper deck and skirted to the ocean side of the ship. Some nurses and men with machetes clustered at the opposite railings facing out onto the pier. There was a buzz in the air and figures skittered about, preparing the ship for some form of attack. Number Nun glimpsed the approaching mob, made some calculations and then gazed out beyond the far railings. The ship faced into sullen seas. Spiked buoys drifted amongst the wreckage of long beached vessels. Some small rocky islands receded, speckled with evil looking birds. She stripped off her cassock and the light of her unclothed body illuminated the deck around her in a bluish glow. She flipped neatly off the side and entered the swell like a crossbow bolt, lighting up the oily water around her. She swam lithely through the murk, skirting drifting pillars of bone-tangled weed and the jumbled husks of fallen boats and cars. The monolithic architecture of the old pier stretched off into gloomy distances and so she finned down, catching a ride in the riptides which swept alongside it and out to sea.

“Well Mister Kenzo Cold-Eyes,” she spoke in mind-radio. “Have you drowned yet?”

Kenzo Cold-Eyes had by now managed to pull himself from the filthy froth. He was clinging to slimy columns of rotten wood like a wharf rat while breakers pounded to and fro. The network of pier supports created a necrotic cathedral behind him, funneling wind and spray in erratic, lukewarm blasts which kept threatening to dislodge him from his perch. He had managed to hold onto the walkie-talkie and was now yelling into it above the crash of the waters.

“Hear tell tales - enormous tadpoles eat falling fishermen!”

Number Nun weaved in and out of the dark supports, lighting up the gloom like a phosphorescent jellyfish. She noticed large clouds of dense jelly clustered around the sediment caked bottoms of some of the supports. Monstrous, comma shaped tadpole creatures spawned in this ooze, flickering like microscopic bacteria amongst partially digested human skeletons and scuba gear. The jelly was in fact a veritable tapioca of lost fishing gear and body parts, denoting the gruesome end for many a drunken sailor. Number Nun changed frequencies.

“Childbride?” she called.

A crackling transmission emitted in her head, followed by Taty’s excited voice.

“There are nurses with spearguns!”

“Don’t irritate anybody Childbride. I’m going to kill the Buddha and his men. Soon we’ll be back in church.”

“I hate going to church.”

“You are an atrocious little sinner Childbride, but my programming compels me to protect and nurture you. Try to make an effort now.”

“Jesus can eat my…”

Number Nun disengaged the transmission before any serious blasphemies were committed. In doing so she noticed a pair of tadpoles swimming shark-ishly in her wake. She paused to electrocute them before continuing on to the end of the pier.

The ranks of Buddhist Punks stopped just before the surgery ship. A line of armed guards flanked the entrance to the gangplank, restraining their hyenas and waiting for a signal to attack. The palanquin began to be jostled to the front, crawling over the heads of the punks like an enormous, gaudy beetle. Mister Sister leered down benevolently from this cushiony platform, his hands bloodied from the heads on his lap. He gazed down mawkishly, addressing the many beaded men who protected the ship.

“Oh my beautiful black bucks!” he crowed to them. “You cord-muscled remnants of a savage South! I wish you or your Big Daddy no harm, not that a poor, fat deity such as myself could ever…”

He was cut off by the amplified whisper of Daddy Bast, who had appeared on an upper deck, a microphone stand held delicately before him by a nubile slave. Several leather-bound nurses strained murderously against the leashes he had coiled in his paws, their vampire fangs bared like Dobermans.

“Come now, you are nothing but a perfumed thug!” the cat priest smiled. “A sodomite with galactic leanings and genocidal intent. What could you possibly wish from Daddy Bast? A cure for your foolish infection of reality?”

“Oh gosh never!” Mister Sister chuckled uproariously. “I want to see it all frogged up and fancy-free! I wouldn’t dream of interfering with your mumbo-jumbs…Why, I’ll even feed you victims to fiddle with! I don’t want a cure, I just want to see it all turn to slime…”

“Very noble,” Daddy Bast interrupted again. “But you still haven’t told me what it is that you want.”

“Well…there is that troublesome Number Nun. I think she means to gut me for castrating her Lord and Master. My spies tell me she is onboard?”

Number Nun had meanwhile ascended into the thrashing breakers at the end of the pier. She rose from the dirty foam like a glowing skittle, scanning for the detective amongst the dismal colonnades of support beams. She located him and knifed through the surge, crab-climbing up slippery concrete to where he clung. The tips of her breasts had unplugged, revealing nipple-shaped mouthpieces, through which she could redirect any number of nourishing substances, including air. Devices realigned within her glassy chest cavity, unfurling clear tubing, piping airflow from her internal oxygen supply to bladders contained within her translucent breasts. She peeled the Kenzo Cold-Eyes from the slippery timber and pushed his gagging mouth to her scuba nipples before launching back into the heaving surf. She swam back along the side of the old pier with the detective clutched to her bosom like an overgrown baby, his torrential bubbles whirling away in their spiral slipstream.

“We are all rather fond of Number Nun here,” Daddy Bast spoke into the microphone, his whispery voice echoing down to the pier from a bank of converted foghorns.

“She performed most benevolent missionary work in the jungle before that imp reprogrammed her dogma drive for carnal interface.”

“Oh come now let me squash her!” Mister Sister squealed petulantly. “I won’t be able to sleep peacefully until she’s rusting in a ditch! I don’t want a war with you Big Daddy, I would hate to exterminate such beautiful bodyguards and rape all your patients…”

Daddy Bast paused to consider the intolerable tenacity of the faux Buddha and his minions. He summoned a kneeling nurse with a flick of his claw.

“Fetch me Number Nun and her brood.”

The nurse licked his hand and scampered down a trapdoor like a little spider.

Rusted ‘DANGER KILLER TADPOLES’ signs creaked along the trash strewn beach while racks of barbed wire receded like monstrous tapeworms. Weathered deckchairs were scattered down the strand, occupied by spooky, hairless sunbathers. These pale, bloated figures, for some unfathomable reason, only emerged to sunbathe at night. They sprawled out on filthy towels amongst the flotsam and jetsam of the contaminated shore, blinking at one another like brain-damaged molluscs. A faint glow appeared in the sluggish lap of waves, coagulating slowly into the form of Number Nun. She strode out of the surf, dragging a coughing and spluttering Kenzo Cold-Eyes across the sand. She deposited him unceremoniously on a rickety deckchair and watched as he vomited a large quantity of radioactive seawater.

“I’ll be along shortly,” she snipped. “And remember heathen, you now owe your life to the Blessed Virgin.”

He waved his arm in irritation as she stalked off across the shoreline. The sonambulistic sunbathers observed their exchange with poached egg eyes, oblivious to what had just taken place. Like slugs, they seemed to exist in slower dimension of time, unaware of events that had transpired too quickly. Number Nun flicked her head as she crossed the beach, powering down her internal lighting. She became instantly shadowy and insubstantial in her crystalline nudity, barely visible in the muggy darkness of the beach. Only her eyes gleamed faintly, like tiny quicksilver almonds. Cloaked thusly in lightlessness, she padded soundlessly back toward the massive structures of the pier, preparing herself for a violent confrontation.

A pair of nurses herded Taty and The Sugar Twins onto the deck at knifepoint. Another dragged the comatose figure of Cherry Cola up a flight of constricted stairs. They presented the four of them to the cat and then sank back to their knees.

“Little one say Number Nun is in the sea,” the nurses whispered to Daddy Bast.

“Is that true, my little pup?” The cat smiled toothily down at her.

Taty wordlessly extended the walkie-talkie and Daddy Bast scooped it up.

Number Nun entered into the maze of crates, which cluttered the dockyards leading up to the pier. She slunk like a glass ghost, past rusted cranes and winches, along the narrow channels created by closely packed metal containers. A tinny voice came through her head.

“Blessed be the bored my pretty little appliance,” Daddy Bast spoke directly into her electronic radio mind.

Number Nun’s face remained lightless, soundless and expressionless as she answered, more of a mannequin than ever.

“God made every screw in this body,” she replied dryly. “Even now he watches over your shoulder, like a parrot in a pirate movie.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with transsexuals. They have given you bad karma. Now the Buddha wants your diamond ass.”

Mister Sister had by now grown thoroughly impatient. He smashed Typhoid Mary’s head against the swirled pillars of the palanquin like a sulky child.

“What’s going on up there!” he ranted. “I want that toy Nun or I’ll slaughter you all!”

“Did you hear that?” Daddy Bast purred with amusement. “His worship appears to be throwing some form of tyrannical tantrum!”

“It’s a rather strange effect hearing him across the pier and through the walkie-talkie,” Number Nun answered snidely. “I can calculate the delay in transmission down to 0.02 seconds; very high quality piece of equipment.”

She moved past a large dumpster and the car-sized hulk of folded machinery which lay beside it. The open pier stretched out before her and she crept up to the railing. She was feeling somewhat handicapped by her newly acquired inability to scan for peripheral hardware and resolved to fix the damaged circuitry as soon as she was back at the Nebula Shell Sea. Romeo the Dealer would have the necessary parts and a quick installation would take up very little time.

“I’m not sure I want to sacrifice my ship for an appliance,” the cat man confided to her. “Even though our time in the jungle was very special for me.”

A tiny red LED lit up in the depths of the car-sized hulk of folded machinery, which now lay behind her. The light illuminated a dingy decal for Oriental vanilla milk, which one of the Buddhist monks had planted upon the battle-robot in a fit of childish sentimentality. The folded robot scanned the area before it in a sort of antiquated video game vision comprised of saturated, shadow-less shapes. The statuesque form of the nude Number Nun was clearly visible amongst the boxes and bins, painted a pixellated white-blue against the surrounding red-black of inert forms. A cartoonish target blinked on, settling instantly over her and sticking like glue.

“I’ve never felt less like a jaguar than I did then,” Daddy Bast admitted with uncharacteristic sentimentality.

“You are a filthy sinner and in need of spiritual cleansing,” Number Nun stated matter-of-factly.

Unbeknownst to either of them, Kenzo Cold-Eyes was listening in from the beach, his dripping walkie-talkie clasped to his ear. He shook his wet head, covered the mouthpiece and turned to one of the sunbathing slug-people.

“Robot bitch!” he muttered conversationally, eliciting many drooling, non-comprehensive stares.

Mister Sister had meanwhile received a transmission from his camouflaged battle-droid. A garble of digital noise erupted quietly from an electronic earring, causing his pudgy face to light up with an almost gastronomic bliss. He raised an ornamental flower, which was in fact a communications device, to his lips.

“Do you have the Nun?” he breathed wetly into the petals.

“Target acquired,” came the monosyllabic, bass-heavy video game voice.

“It is a shame that you are so rude,” Daddy Bast said. “One day you will meet your match.”

“Not today,” Number Nun replied curtly.

The battle robot suddenly activated without warning. It burst apart with a loud hissing and clanking, unfolding like industrial origami. Floodlights lit up along its front, lighting up Number Nun and her surrounding area in a harsh white glare. She was bathed in vicious machine fire before she even had time to turn. Her arms shattered like glass and a leg was instantly severed. The rain of metal riddles her face and torso, hurling her against the metal railing. The rate of fire intensified and she was cut in half. Her head and upper torso spun over the twisted railing and out into the dark waves below and the firing ceased. A haze of smoke drifted, glowing supernaturally in the vivid floodlights. The giant robot clumped over to where her leg and hips spasmed weakly on the bullet pocked concrete. It squashed these like bugs, throwing vast pillars of blinding light around when it moved. Down on the pier Mister Sister was squealing with delight, clapping his fat, blood-crusted hands together like a demonic toddler. Taty had of course seen the lights suddenly illuminate the pier and ocean in an arc of whiteness. And, like everybody else aboard, she had also heard the thunder of the machine guns. She had watched Number Nun being torn apart with a numb fascination of horror, the feeling of being caught in a dream from which she would soon wake. Now of course she did wake and began to scream. But her screams died abruptly, cutting short as though someone had pulled her plug. She stood staring out into nothing, paralyzed with shock. Daddy Bast lifted the walkie-talkie to his face again.

“Well, I hate to say I told you so,” he smirked.

The ravaged, limbless torso of Number Nun had been caught in the riptides and was now being trawled out to sea. A vaguely annoyed expression haunted her cracked face.

“I don’t think you hate to say it at all,” she replied tartly.

Taty flicked her tear streaked face up to the cat in tragic helplessness. He eyed her with a little smile and a wink and she wasn’t sure how to react to at all.

“Religion is the devil’s greatest triumph my little broken doll,” He announced theatrically. “Perhaps you could convert some lobsters while you mull that statement over – meanwhile, I bid you adieu.”

He handed the walkie-talkie to Taty who began weeping into it, barely forming sentences she was so distraught.

“Oh stop crying Childbride,” Number Nun snapped. “It’s so undignified.”

“Who’s going to take care of me now…” Taty sobbed.

“Life is uncertain, death is sure – sin is the cause, Christ is the cure.”

Down on the beach, the eavesdropping Kenzo Cold-Eyes could restrain himself no longer.

“What kind comfort is that to give to abandoned child!” he protested.

Daddy Bast squatted down, staring into Taty’s wet face with his Halloween orange eyes. She began sobbing again, terrified by the enormous, slitted orbs. He extended a paw to her and opened it, palm up. A bright orange pill lay on the hard, calloused pads of his black hand.

“Eat this,” he gruffed. “It will lock your spinal corridor and kill any parasites before they get a chance to climb.”

“No please!” she pleaded. “I don’t want to get with the monster boy! Please!”

Daddy Bast pressed the pill into her trembling hands and then rose. He drifted toward a hatch, dragging his nurses behind him like dogs.

“Throw these kittens to Mister Sister,” he muttered over his shoulder. “I have no place for strays on my ship.”

Taty began screaming, clutching the walkie-talkie to her breast as she was dragged forcibly down the gangplank. Cherry Cola was also manhandled in the same way, tugged down the ramps like a sack of rice. The Sugar Twins sauntered down ahead, unmolested by the ship’s crew. They slunk aboard the palanquin and cuddled up to Mister Sister, who stroked them in triumph, utterly delighted with himself. Taty was hefted onto the gory cushions at his painted feet while Cherry Cola was deposited in a heap beside her. The punks began to relax and chatter as the confrontational energy dissipated. The lantern-heavy palanquin turned and they all drifted back toward the darkness of the docks, escorted by the massive killer robot. Down on the beach, Kenzo Cold-Eyes slumped into a deckchair and watched the floodlight pillars play across a galaxy of decrepit crates. He observed the distant caravan of punks with utter glumness, swigging from a hip flask, which he had the good sense to carry with him at all times.

“You make me jump off a pier for this,” he spat into the walkie-talkie. “Those poor girls!”

Deep below the seething waves, Number Nun had begun to glow again. She swirled out to sea like a glowing skittle, oblivious to the world above.

“I’m busy praying,” she replied testily. “Go away.”

With that she cut transmission and submitted entirely to the great surge of water, which would now deliver her to the measureless expanses of the ocean. Kenzo Cold-Eyes slouched fatalistically amongst the mollusc bathers, too depressed to call Taty, for he could certainly offer her no assistance now. He tried not to think of the helpless little girl curled in a foetal ball at the ogre’s feet, now lost to a world of panic. Taty clutched the walkie-talkie close to her racing heart as the palanquin lurched like a boat, quickly eating the orange pill, which the cat priest had bequeathed to her as a parting gift. The future had suddenly died and she was now trapped inside its unimaginable corpse. She began to cry again and found that she could not stop.