killed before. You learn to live with it.”
“There. You are so deep into your guy. No trace of alter ego. Your dialogue is stilted, your delivery stiff, yet you have a vibe that shrivels my nutsac. You create dread. It’s like you project an aura that fucks with the psyche. You are convincingly alien. Is that why you have the name
Martian Justice
?”
“No. It is my name because on this planet justice is an alien concept.”
Martian Justice stepped off the hood, dropped 68.9 yards. He landed on his boot soles twelve inches into the concrete. To him concrete was a dense version of Styrofoam. He climbed out of his footprints to the street.
Sparks blew from the oil drum fires. In a place with no walls, it was wall-to wall Motorchrists. No one within a half-mile of hell was sleeping, the massive speakers blasting. The temperature from the street to the lot rose twenty degrees. Even the heavily stoned and drunken stared at Martian Justice walking through them and their biker chicks, saw him walk directly to the leader Motorchrist, who was getting a blow job.
Motorchrist said, “You want a bitch?”
Martian Justice said, “I assume they are property of the Motorchrists.”
“You’re in the Motorchrists now.”
“When did I become a Motorchrist?”
“You know how you get into the Motorchrists?”
“No.”
Motorchrist climaxed with a sneer. There wasn’t much cuddling after. With a hand, he nudged the biker chick away, zipped-up.
“You gotta kill a member,” he said. “You killed one already. Blew off his head.”
“He is not dead.”
“His head exploded, motherfucker.”
“That is a short term way to look at it. You say one must kill one of you to become one of you?”
“And whoever kills the most is leader.”
“So you killed the most Motorchrists?”
“More than anybody. So I’m your leader now. You follow me. I am the return. I am the word and the light. I will lead you to eternal life.”
“Therefore you are the ancient Earth prophet known as Jesus Christ?”
“I am the form by which he is human.”
“When did this happen?”
“His will made itself known to me in Attica.”
Motorchrist’s hand rubbed the crucifix on his bare chest. “But what matters is the killing itself. Because the one who kills the most of us is our leader. And the ultimate leader will be the one who kills all of us except him. Then he will be a club of one. And that is the state of perfect grace.”
Martian Justice observed the unraveling of Motorchrist’s mind. He watched the outlaw biker make up his theology from one tequila-soaked brain wave to the next, smelled the psychosis coming off him. He watched how far Christianity was stretched by inexactitude. A more precise religion wouldn’t leave itself open to interpretation by every nutcase to walk the Earth since beards went out of style. On Mars no such ambiguity was permitted. There, a prophet had to survive the Pit of Dead Prophets and telekinetically move the Stone of Serenity to earn worship.
Motorchrist told him, “Gimme your money. You renounce all worldly possessions and give them to me.”
Martian Justice saw bikers cutting off his exit. Except he wasn’t exiting. He turned back to Motorchrist.
Motorchrist’s hand slapped Martian Justice in the face like a whip. Bikers laughed.
“You obey me like you obey God!”
Motorchrist slapped his face the other way, rocked his head.
“Get on your fuckin’ knees and lick my fuckin’ boots!”
Martian Justice remained immobile.
“I am your savior! I want you licking my boots! Or we will make you.”
Blood and teeth exploded from Motorchrist’s face as the fist of Martian Justice snapped back from it, he tumbled off his feet backward. Before he hit the ground, Martian Justice nailed his chest with a boot, sent him sideways across a table clearing the top of empty liquor bottles.
There was a frozen moment where the bikers stared in amazement and Martian Justice’s boots were turning him