to face the street, a dark cool place two million miles past Saturn with Motorchrists on all sides. Then it was on.
Martian Justice held his position. They kept coming. They became a mass of bodies. Then there was only a mass of tattoos burying him until he was out of sight under a rain of stomping boots. There were more boots than target area, the swarm getting in its own way getting at him. They chopped him with machetes. Three of them shot him. At some point, there was so much blood he was blowing it out his nostrils so he wouldn’t choke on it. Then gasoline splashed over the blood. A bloody-faced Motorchrist stood over him pouring it from a gasoline can. Motorchrist lit a match, dropped it onto him and he watched blue flames burst and spread over his body.
Martian Justice needed the rest. The power cells were recharged and absorbing the group hostility directed at him. His green blood spilled was recycled by his surface units. His sensors counted seventeen Motorchrists. In flames he rose to his feet. Two green firearms armed with regeneration disruptor cells slid out from his hip pods. From his cargo pod he pulled the Phobosian kendo blade, took his stance, became a killer-shaped torch.
With the blade he took apart the ones too close to shoot, regeneration cell-tech laser-sharpened Martian steel with single strikes severing heads at the neck. The guns slid down his arms and into his hands and he shot the rest of them, head shots only. One made it to his chopper, took off. When his head splattered he drove headless for two blocks before taking a spill.
No more Motorchrists.
That night Martian Justice went off the carousel. The wait began for next month’s issue.
7
N othing ever changed.
“Guess what, AXIS faggot. It doesn’t get better.”
Waiting outside the private school for the limo, Chase kept his head down, his arms folded. Again Finley and his two droogs were giving him crap. Where was the limo?
“You’re both gay and a fucking AXIS nerd.”
“Cock-blowing faggot.”
“You probably gave Kieran AIDS”
Chase said, “Oh fuck you.”
“Fuuuuck you!” Finley mocked him.
The droogs echoed “Fuck yooouuu!”
“Chase speaks. Like you got any balls, faggot. You got a pussy.”
Finley slapped his face. Cheek stinging, Chase stood there arms folded. This was it. It was too late for the limo to show up now.
“Look, he’s gonna cry. AXIS guys are fags.”
“Then cry like an AXIS faggot, faggot.”
Chase started walking away. They followed him. By now more kids were watching, having fun with the fag. Somebody kicked him in the pants. Another slap to the back of his head.
“Think he might kill himself after this?”
“Then the TV news comes here and shit. Stars might show up here then they do videos for gay kids.”
“Cool. Kill yourself, little faggot. Go fucking kill yourself.”
Just like that it became all too clear. There would be no stillness again until this was dealt with. Chase could not always hide in his warm bubble. Not every kid like him had his stillness. They needed the protection he did not need. Finley was crossing the flavor horizon and Chase was drawing them all into his world.
Chase decided to turn on his iPod, hit PLAY, talk to the music. He pencil-diagrammed the move. Turn, with both hands grab Finley by the shirt just as his feet left the ground and he took to the air straight up taking Finley with him. Finley would shriek, grab onto him but his weight would drop him down his shirt, have him hanging bare-bellied. He would take Finley up ten, twenty, thirty feet in the air. Then he would raise one foot and Sparta-boot Finley in the chest. Finley would plunge screaming thirty feet to the cement. Two broken legs at least.
Chase stopped, touched the iPod button.
The kids started screaming.
Chase turned to look. The droogs of Finley and the other kids were shrieking and bolting anywhere that was else. Finley was pinned to the ground by a blue dragon standing over