The Hard Window

Ingot Carstairs put his hand on the small of Amanda Sandwich’s back and pushed. Naked, she drifted slowly across Bay 2, spread-eagled and perversely flapping her arms as if she were trying to doggie-paddle from a rocky jetty to a waiting raft.

“Do not flap,” said Major Capstan brutally. “Do not flap, do not kick. Flapping will do nothing. You are in free-fall, don’t you understand? You are not in a goddamn Hollywood Hills swimming pool.”

Danny We gasped, and looked to Ingot for the explosion. Danny had seen Ingot throw men from moving cars for less, and Capstan was talking about one of Ingot’s ladies. Ingot was a slender man in his early fifties, but he was put together like a log cabin, and his smoldering nature gave him a rawhide, whip-strong power, like a gas station meat stick, that made him formidable. His iron grey hair crept low over his pepper-tan face and his most prominent feature were his nostrils, which always seemed to be doing something.

“Not the look we are going for, Amanda,” said Ingot after several seconds of tightening and grinding his jaw. “We are looking for grace and ease of form. I wish we had more time to practice, but we don’t. You are going to have to concentrate.”

Amanda turned bright red and put her hands over her chest, reflexively covering herself. She realized what she was doing, and forced herself to unclench her arms. Shame was for mooks and assholes.

Amanda smiled painfully at her director. She was a tiny woman, but so many in the industry were tiny. She had black hair, and black eyes, and every angle on her body was sharp and clean like a fresh bar of soap. She was beautiful, of course, and the healthy innocence she brought to every shoot made it always seem like it was her first time. Even if it was her fifth, or her hundred and fifth.

“What’s my line again, Danny? I’ve forgot already!” said Amanda. She giggled sadly and looked down through the window below her at the wide, engulfing Earth. So beautiful and blue down there -- so much black up here.

In rotation, so far away from sunshine and palm trees.

Ingot glared at Major Capstan. Ingot didn’t trust himself to land a punch in zero gee. From where he squatted, his legs crossed, attached to the wall by velcro and straps, the worst thing he could do was probably unzip his orange flysuit and piss all over Capstan’s face.

He considered this carefully.

“Major Capstan, do I have to remind you not to speak to my performers one more time?” said Carstairs. “I strongly urge -- STRONGLY – that you cooperate with my demands, and the demands of my staff. We won’t be up here for very much longer.”

“Is that a threat?” asked Major Capstan. His hairy hands twitched at his side, and his loping fingers found his belt and hooked his thumbs, causing him to peel over backwards, which wasn’t as menacing as he probably thought it was.

Danny We, the one-man production suite and camera operator, lowered the Berthson 45 he was using to get angles for this afternoon’s shoot. Danny had taken to space instantly, and even made some of Capstan’s astronauts glare at him with envy. There were so few space naturals, and there was no test on the ground. John Glenn had been a space natural, and the other Apollo astronauts had hated him for it.

“Of course it’s a threat,” said Carstairs, bluffing wildly. “Don’t you know who pays for my gross ideas and insane whims? It’s the devil, Capstan. The devil and some very bad men he has chosen to employ.”

This was a lie. The most dangerous man that Carstairs knew was a fry cook named Shorty who talked with a Castilian lisp and was deeply into Motocross sports. Shorty was only dangerous because he was a terrible, terrible driver.

Capstan turned his head to the side and muttered something that looked a lot like “fag.” But he backed off. Carstairs decided to ignore him for now.

“Now Amanda,” said Ingot in a voice that was half pencil-shavings and half bourbon, round and smoky, but bitter all the same. “Now Amanda, we have to try that again. I know once you cross the room, you will be pure joy when it comes to the esoteric elements of your calling, but first we have to get across the room in a way that continues to provoke associations of the erotic and feminine. We must practice, mustn’t we?”

“Yes,” said Amanda. “I think I’m getting it. It’s not easy, you know?”

“I’m sure I could never do it,” said Ingot. “Look at me. I can barely cross the Bay through any means: flapping, farting, holding onto Danny’s foot. And you have to make it look good! I don’t envy you, Amanda.”

The hatch door that led from Bay 2 opened into the control room, and one of Major Capstan’s men stuck his head through.

“I thought I said we were not to be interrupted?” snapped Ingot, now furious.

“Hell, I know that,” said the astronaut. “Hell, it’s only because there’s a phone call for you. Wouldn’t want to watch any of this anyway. Frankly, I find it all beyond disgusting.”

“Please keep your opinions to yourself, Lieutenant Kevin,” chirped Major Capstan. “You are under orders.”

“Hell, this whole debacle particularly shakes my faith in the rectitude and scope of the government I serve, if you want to know the whole truth,” said Lieutenant Kevin. “I’d just as soon be outside repairing satellites instead of busting in here. Only, Capcom’s got somebody from Teeton Productions on the horn for Mr. Carstairs.”

“I have to take this,” said Carstairs, his anger immediately draining into professional concern. “Excuse me, Danny. Amanda: keep practicing.”

“Follow me,” said Lieutenant Kevin. “So how come you are here and not in some turnpike hotel?”

“A huge amount of money -- a really TREMENDOUS amount of money -- a block of money you can feel from space. Money that has its own needs and gravitational pull,” said Carstairs. “We serve and we try not to ask too many questions, don’t we?”

Lieutenant Kevin didn’t respond. He merely opened the coded door that led into the control room, and pushed Carstairs inside when he found him drifting and unable to move.

“Should be private enough for you,” said Lieutenant Kevin. “There’s cameras. Don’t jack off into any of the equipment.”

He shut the door with a private cackle.

Ingot certainly recognized the man on the television screen. Phil Kahn. Cee-ee-oh of Teeton Productions, the cutting-edge avant-garde in experimental adult cinema. The high-resolution BEST in esoteric, boundary-bulldozing erotic entertainment. Initially nothing more than an enraged trust fund baby, Phil Kahn was now somewhere between a saint and a criminal to the world of culture. He spared no expense making his most insane fantasies come to life, and more often than not -- he actually broke even.

Right now, Phil Kahn’s head was down on the table in front of him, and a pair of gold hoop earrings dangled from his lobes, swinging back and forth in slow opposition to one another, framing hypnotically his fat, ursine head.

Ingot velcroed himself to a stool and tapped the microphone in front of him with two fingers. Phil shot up and wiped his eyes with the back of his hands.

“Ingot!” he roared. “How the heck are ya, bro?”

“I’m doing fine,” said Ingot. “I’m in space, you see.”

“See! Do I see!” shouted Phil. “Cheese and crackers, Ingot! I sent you up there, didn’t I? Cheese and crackers!”

“I have a drug problem, you know,” sighed Ingot. “I’m addicted to your bullshit.”

“We’re still pals, right?” asked Phil, a pained expression turning down the ends of his grin the way sweaty money curls at the edges.

“It’s good bullshit. The best. In fact, I’m glad you called. I was starting to have withdrawal symptoms.”

“We need to talk,” said Phil.

“See? My hands are all clammy.”

“You’ve been up there,” said Phil. “And I’ve been having some problems.”

“I’ve got chills, and my ears are ringing.”

“I’ve been having financial problems, actually. Golly-bingo, Ingot! The financial problems I’ve been having!”

“If I turn my head to the side – like this – my vision goes completely black. Black as night. Black as panties.”

“See, I didn’t tell you, but I made some investments. You would call them bad investments.”

“I’ve got rashes…”

“I don’t believe in bad investments. New formats, Ingot! A porn-futures market, run by computers! Wowee-zowie!”

“Rashes and hives…”

“But these things…they are wacky. They went wacky. And you know how long it has been since we’ve had a new hit film.”

“All our films have been hits.”

“But a new one!”

“Rashes and hives and loose fingernails…”

“What I’m saying is, we’re broke, Ingot. Completely broke. It’s a good thing you are already up in that ship, because there’s NO WAY that NASA is going to be able to clear that check I wrote! Ha! NO WAY!”

“Loose fingernails, loose stool…”

“What I’m saying is, we are broke and we need a hit. Not just any hit, that’s not quite right. We need THE most amazing porn movie anybody has ever seen. I know you are already under a lot of pressure, and I wasn’t going to say anything. But – jeez, Ingot – they’ve got me in prison! If you don’t come back with something really amazing that we can get out immediately…it’s all over, Ingot. We’re finished!”

“Ahhhh,” said Ingot, putting his hands behind his head. “That’s the stuff. Uncut, pure -- as strong as you can get. It’s a good thing my tolerance is so high, or I’d be keeled over right now. Slobbering. Calling you names.”

“Holy cow! I’m serious.”

“Phil, you know I’ll do my best. You know how much is beyond my control.”

“I just felt like you should know everything I know. The whole – look out! The whole gravity of the situation. By jolly, by jingo, my boy Ingot!”

“Goodbye now,” said Ingot, turning knobs on the control board until the television faded to black. Ingot put his hands on his face, his pinkies pinching his nose and a whistle of despair escaping from his gullet. Ingot had not taken to space, and each moment aboard the space station found him oscillating between nausea and violent hunger. He hadn’t been able to keep any food down the whole week they’d been up here.

There was a knock on the control room door from the other side, the side that led into Bay 3. Bay 1 was where they slept and ate, Bay 3 once held a military satellite, but was now empty. After a few moments of fumbling, the person on the other side managed to get the door open and Ingot found himself face to face with Helen Bunch, the only other member of his skeleton production crew. Helen handled costumes and dialogue.

“Ingot, there’s a problem,” said Helen.

“There are many problems,” said Ingot.

“This one seems serious,” said Helen quietly. “It’s Melanie. She’s cracking up. I’ve done all I can as a…as a, uh, you know. A mother-figure.”

“Where is she?” asked Ingot between his hands. Helen grabbed him by the forearms and lowered his hands from his face by force, nearly sending Ingot into a permanent spin. She dragged him around the corner and around to the Bay 3 portal. Helen pointed. There was Melanie across the room in the corner, curled into a ball, not moving.

His actor, the dense but tractable Paddy Whack, was in the opposite corner, practicing lines. Paddy Whack was a deeply dependable male lead when it came to the physical side of the job, but he often had an awful problem with lines, so it was good to see him going over them. Often, after two or three tries, they had to give up and use a headset, with Helen stage-whispering dialogue to the frequently perplexed man. Ingot preferred the frisson of natural delivery.

“I guess I should say something, shouldn’t I?” said Ingot.

Ingot crawled around the outside of the Bay wall, clinging to the runners that were there for support, passing Paddy, who gave him a big thumbs up, until he was face to face with Melanie, his star. His box-cover girl.

Melanie Aspartame was one of the world’s most beautiful women according to many internet discussion forums, and Ingot had been working with her since she was seventeen. She was full-figured and full of energy – the sort of woman that evoked every sordid grade school crush, and then dashed them all to the ground in a broken egg-carton of fluids and lipstick. She satisfied. That was her job. But she was also notoriously fragile, and her long black hair, pale skin, and bright green eyes highlighted a deeper transparency that most men found ultimately disconcerting, in the way that any person who is capable of complete trust is ultimately disconcerting to the cynical and manipulative. Ingot was both.

“Hello, Melanie," said Ingot. “I heard you’re not feeling very well.”

“Can I ask you something?” asked Melanie.

“Go ahead,” said Ingot.

“It’s personal,” said Melanie.

“There are no secrets between spacemen,” said Ingot, smiling and trying very hard to make the smile reach his eyes.

“I’ve been doing this a long time,” said Melanie. “Five or six years are an eternity in this business. But you’ve been doing it longer than me. Twenty years, I’ve heard. You were doing this stuff when I was still in elementary school.”

“At some point a man’s habits become his way of life,” said Ingot. “Yes.”

“Never mind about all of that,” said Melanie. “No judgments. I’ve been asking around. Talking to other girls – and other guys -- in the industry – and I’ve learned some strange things about you.”

“Oh god, what could it be,” said Ingot.

“I don’t know how to say this. It’s like this. I thought that I just wasn’t your type, but I heard that you’ve never done anything, with anybody. Girls or guys. No blowjobs, no handjobs, no nothing. You don’t try to audition your actresses or your actors, and you don’t even date. I heard, and maybe it’s not true, but I heard that you sleep alone every night, and that you won’t even take phone calls from people after six. I heard that people have thrown themselves at you – people inside the business and out – and you don’t want anything to do with it.”

“Yes,” said Ingot. “So what?”

“Do you even masturbate?” asked Melanie, aghast.

“Pretty personal,” said Ingot.

“So you don’t have sex with anybody ever? How come? That’s so weird! That’s even weird for a normal person! Tell me! Tell me, Ingot, or I won’t do this movie!”

“What’s this all about?” asked Ingot. “What do my personal habits have to do with anything?”

Melanie stared at him, searching his eyes, her long red fingernails buried deeply in her wavy black hair.

“Ingot! I want to have a baby!” screamed Melanie. She barely got the words out before she started sobbing, beating her fists against Ingot’s chest and leaving runnels of tears behind her that coalesced into shimmering beads in the vacuum.

“Whoah,” said Paddy across the room. Realizing he was eavesdropping, he abruptly spun away and returned to his script.

Ingot made eye contact with Helen and pleaded for an answer as he patted his young charge on the back and tried to soak up her tears with his spacesuit. Helen shrugged.

“It’s like, we’re up here, so far away from everyone else, and I realize how beautiful the world is, and how much potential for good there is inside everybody, but how it’s all locked up behind so many layers of pain and fear,” said Melanie. “And I see that if a mother really loves her baby, if she REALLY loves it, then that baby can grow up and become a healing light in the world. A real, beautiful healing light.”

“There, there,” said Ingot.

“But I look at you, and I look at what we do for money, and I think maybe the world is much worse than it seems, and there’s nobody who cares for anybody else,” said Melanie. “And maybe there’s no point to it all. How come you never make love? Why can’t you do that? Don’t you love people?”

“Melanie,” said Ingot. “You can have all the babies you want as soon as we get back home. But right now we need to make a porn movie.”

Melanie lowered her eyes.

“Okay,” said Melanie coldly. “You’re right. I must be going crazy!”

“Melanie…you’re not crazy at all. You’re absolutely right. You’ve got the right idea about everything. If you saw people how I saw people! I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. It’s not about love. ”

There was a hand on his shoulder. Ingot turned. It was Paddy.

“Oh man, I hate to interrupt, but there’s something you got to see, my man,” said Paddy.

“Can you show me later?”

“No dice, man. No dice. This is, like, RELEVANT.”

“Relevant?”

“Totally.”

Ingot sighed. Helen came over to comfort Melanie, and he allowed Paddy to drag him away. Paddy, with dogged determination, had managed to get the hang of free-fall maneuvering after only a few sullen days. He wasn’t quite at Danny We’s level, but he could certainly pass as an astronaut. Paddy hated being outdone at anything, and the contempt that the military men held for him grated like nothing else.

Paddy looked all around for cameras or stray members of Major Capstan’s crew. Satisified that they were all alone, Paddy unzipped his lycra trousers and held his manhood out for inspection.

He wiggled it between his fingers. He held it out like an expensive tennis bracelet along his thick knuckles. His eyes went back and forth to Ingot’s face, searching for shock.

“Man, look at THAT,” said Paddy, eventually.

“It’s a penis,” said Ingot.

“It’s MY penis,” said Paddy.

“It sure is,” said Ingot.

“Look at it!”

“Patrick. I AM looking at your penis.”

Paddy puffed his lower lip out and put his hand on Ingot’s shoulder.

“I’ve lost three inches, man. Three,” said Paddy. “And I think it might actually be shrinking.”

“Oh, Patrick. That’s just the vacuum. Everybody knows about that. But this isn’t that kind of film. We don’t need huge size. We are in space. That’s our angle. Space.”

Paddy considered this for a moment and then put his other hand on Ingot’s shoulder, as if they were in a huddle, helmet to helmet.

“There’s something else, though,” said Paddy. “My hard window. Yesterday, I could only keep it together for ten minutes before some sort of pressure started collapsing my bone from the inside. Ten minutes! My hard window is nothing now, man. It’s baseball card-sized. It’s a stick of chewing gum, man.”

“Never mind about all that,” said Ingot. “Can you money?”

Paddy fumed. He closed his eyes and prayed God. Finally he screwed up all the veins in his neck and nodded, his lips pulled around his teeth like a fat wallet stretched to popping.

“I can money, man. I can money. Of COURSE I can money.”

“Then we’re fine,” said Ingot. “Ten minutes ought to be plenty of time. Our angle here is space. Space is our film’s climax. Not size. The opposite. Space.”

This was too much for Paddy, but he nodded just the same.

“I want you all to meet me in Bay 2 in five for the shoot,” said Ingot. “Be ready to work. We’ve got to get this done today.”

Paddy shivered but bucked himself up. Both Helen and Melanie were crying now, and they both stared at him through tear-reddened eyes as if he were from another planet. A magic planet of asshole men. But Ingot knew they were both professionals. They would be there. Melanie would look great. It was a good thing that today was their last day, however, because Helen probably wouldn’t be speaking to him for awhile.

Ingot left them, threading through the Bay and back into the control room.

Lieutenant Kevin was waiting for him.

“Look who it is!” said Lieutenant Kevin. “I got some bad news, Mr. Carstairs. Just came over the wire.”

“Oh yes?” said Ingot, trying to push past but instead finding Lieutenant Kevin blocking him. Aggressively.

“I’ve got orders from Mission Control to impound your equipment, halt production of your film, and put you and your whole crew under lock and key,” said Lieutenant Kevin. “Orders. Good orders. It’s rare that soldier gets to do something fun.”

“I’m sure there must be some kind of mistake,” said Ingot gently.

“I sure hope not,” said Lieutenant Kevin, pushing open the door to Bay 2. “First, I just have to tell Major Capstan…”

Lieutenant Kevin trailed off in mid-sentence. He stared through the door, shocked. Ingot squeezed his head through the portal to see what had cut him off.

Amanda Sandwich had made startling progress in zero gee maneuvers, and was now going down on Major Capstan in a dramatic, vigorous way. His face was as red as the jumpsuit that floated in a crumpled pile beside him. Spectacularly, Capstan was one of those rare men who shaved off all of his pubic hair in order to make his package appear larger. It didn’t work, but it gave his swollen penis the appearance of a single shrimp on a bed of lettuce – a delicate thing, and rare. Lieutenant Kevin and Ingot didn’t know it, but they both wore the exact same expression of desperate sadness watching the scene, unobserved by anyone in the room. Finally, Amanda saw Ingot and waved, popping Capstan out of her mouth, and keeping him going with one of her dainty hands.

Ingot waved back.

“What’s going on, Danny?” asked Ingot to the idle cameraman, who was trying to slice open the plastic to a packet of nicotine chewing gum with one of his sharp fingernails.

“Humans will do what humans will do,” said Danny, and then looked up suddenly, eyes wide. “No offense.”

“You’ve been recording, of course?”

“Of course,” said Danny. “Major Capstan asked me about breaking into the business, and then…you know…Amanda had to see. She’s always a sweetheart about that sort of thing.”

“This could be pretty damning to a person’s NASA career,” said Ingot.

“Oh, hell boss, I’d never release the tape,” said Danny. “We’re all on the same side here.”

“What were those orders again?” asked Ingot, turning to Lieutenant Kevin. “Something about locks and keys?”

Lieutenant Kevin left the room, shaken -- smarting.

“Hide that videotape somewhere good,” said Ingot. “NASA has sent orders to have us all locked up because Phil has gone bankrupt. The only thing keeping us from being kenneled, broke, and ejected into the sun is Amanda’s well-timed blowjob.”

“That’s goddamn poetic,” said Danny We. They watched Amanda finish, carefully sucking back floating trails of semen that lazily floated from Major Capstan’s urethra. Capstan shuddered, and then he began to sob. Amanda gave him a hug, and they held each other that way, spinning in space like cigarette smoke, Capstan wailing, and Amanda telling him that everything was going to be alright.

“I hope no one in the world ever has to see this,” said Danny. “This is not sexy.”

“I just met with Melanie and Paddy. They are ready to shoot. Although, as a result of the vacuum, Paddy’s not sure how long he can hold up. His hard window may be something like ten minutes. You’ve got to be on your best game, old friend.”

“I’m always on my best game,” said Danny.

The door to Bay 2 whooshed open and Melanie and Paddy entered, both in costume.

“We’re ready, dude,” said Paddy.

“Clear the room,” said Ingot, causing Major Capstan to scramble away from Amanda and tear back into his uniform. He wiped his eyes on the back of his arm, and mumbled something incoherent before pushing past Melanie and Patrick and fleeing.

“Whoah, that dude was rocking a schoolboy,” said Paddy.

“He was showing me how to move gracefully in zero gee,” said Amanda. “I think he’s very serious, and very cute.”

“Get into character,” said Ingot. “It’s possible that Lieutenant Kevin is staging a coup right now to get us all arrested.”

“Coup?” asked Patrick.

“Mutiny,” said Ingot.

“Mutiny?” asked Amanda.

“There’s a fight,” said Danny.

“Anyway, we may not have very long to film,” continued Ingot. “We can finish the movie on the ground, but we need this climax. One take, everybody! We can do it in one take!”

“Of course we can!” said Amanda, clapping.

The actors took their marks, and Danny tested the lighting one more time. Ingot hooked himself to a stretched piece of canvas and dangled above the triad of glowing, warm bodies.

“Alright, everybody,” said Ingot with good cheer. “Where’s Helen? No Helen? Never mind. Alright, guys. Everybody ready? Are we feeling it, Patrick? Yes? Everyone excited? Okay, then, team!”

Ingot pointed his finger and snapped it.

“Action!”

Danny We pressed a button that turned on the three stationary cameras, and he steadied himself behind his handheld. Paddy gave the thumbs-up sign, puffed his chest out, and made the wooden face that signified he was acting.

“Hello, ladies,” said Paddy loudly. “It looks like we aren’t going to make it back to Earth after all. Our rocketship simply doesn’t have enough fuel. We are going to burn up in re-entry.”

“Oh, my god!” screamed Amanda, throwing her hands in the air and arching her back. She threw her hair over her shoulder and it floated like Medusa’s tendrils. She winked at the camera.

“I wish it didn’t have to be like this,” said Paddy. “But it looks like we’re all going to die. It looks like we are going to have to take our clothes off and be sexy, one last time. Rear entry, before re-entry.”

The girls gasped and tore off their flysuits. Amanda soared across the bay flawlessly, pinching her nipples, and grinning.

“All going to die, Amanda,” whispered Ingot urgently.

Amanda stopped grinning and stuck her bottom lip out in a pout.

Upon reaching the center of the Bay and halting one another’s forward momentum, the actors began to do what they did best.

The sex was professional-standard, and the maneuvers that the three of them had practiced were nothing short of breathtaking. There was a cold glint in Melanie’s eye, but she was still beautiful -- still amazing.

Things began to peak. The moans got louder and more insistent. Paddy checked his watch and pleaded at Ingot with his outthrust jaw.

“Hold on, Patrick…hold on,” whispered Ingot through equally clenched teeth.

After a few more minutes of tense, frictionless pounding, Paddy started to groan and curse, and then…panic. Things began to happen all at once, one right after another, like naked, dotless dominoes crashing down along a battered checkered tablecloth.

Lieutenant Kevin burst in clutching Major Capstan by the shirt collar and tossing his red face back and forth, chawing and chewing, spit dribbling from his mouth in hovering streams.

“Everybody stop! Everybody stop all this business right now!” shouted Lieutenant Kevin.

Right behind him came Helen, carrying what looked like a yellow make-up case. The case flapped back and forth against her hand like an oyster, open and shut, open and shut.

“These birth control pills are candy tarts!” shouted Helen. “She’s live, Ingot! Melanie’s live!”

“I want to have a space baby,” shouted Melanie from where she bucked and writhed in the throes of passion. “I will have the first, most beautiful space baby. He will be real – a creature of pure light and love.”

Danny We’s eyes grew so wide that he faltered at the camera.

“Don’t you dare stop filming!” shouted Ingot. “We can edit in post!”

It was too much for Patrick. The muscles in his neck rippled like a silk tie in a wind tunnel.

“I’m gonna money!” shouted Patrick.

“Turn that camera off right goddamn now!” shouted Lieutenant Kevin.

“Don’t you DARE,” said Ingot again, staring at the Earth turning below them. He grabbed Danny by the back of his shirt and pulled him up higher, setting the shot himself. Ingot and Danny both looked through the camera’s viewfinder at the end of Patrick’s penis, now in Amanda’s mouth, plucked expertly away from Melanie and held, twitching. Behind Amanda was the planet Earth in the window. Spinning to infinity – so big, so bright. That was Australia in the frame, thought Ingot. This was going to be huge in Australia.

Patrick pulled out of Amanda’s hand, turned slightly, and squeezed.

A thick trail of semen ejected from the tip of his penis and soared through space, spiraling like a perfect football. The expulsion made everyone stop in mid-sentence, mid-action, mid-shriek. No one could even breathe as they watched the glistening trail of human DNA shoot across the room, splash on the polished window, and coat the whole reflected planet -- every man, woman, child, and dog -- with gooey, warm, uncontrolled ejaculate.

Melanie started to cry, but Ingot had the shot, and no one could take that away.

Smash the Fast, Fast Popsnake

They pushed Hum-Hum down to the rails and held him while they chained his ankles. Hum-Hum didn’t stop fighting the whole time, and -- as he flailed -- he even knocked over the skinny middle-aged man that was in charge; the man with long white wrists and a ratty grey ponytail that only grew out of the back of his head. He was shiny-bald on top, the kind of bald that looked like a buttered egg and made it appear as if the brains inside were worth more than ordinary brains, since they were encased in such a delicate shell.

“You can’t do this to me!” Hum-Hum shouted. “I’ve got treasure hid! You won’t get no treasure if you feed me to the goddamned Popsnake! You won’t get nothing: no treasure, no jewels, no girl books!”

Hum-Hum had been shouting about his treasure all morning to anyone who would listen. A few members of the Station had tried to convince him to tell more about it, and one woman had even gone after him with a knitting needle. She did some damage before the others made her quit on account of the noise. There was a vein of dried blood that led from Hum-Hum’s ear down his neck that testified either to his mental toughness, or to the fact that he’d finally lost his mind altogether.

He didn’t admit he was lying when she was poking him in the ear with a needle, but neither did he say where his treasure was. The treasure was probably just Hum-Hum’s last elaborate lie, but he was holding to it like a man clings to the ears of a dog that is trying to bite him.

The old ones of the Station had taken away Hum-Hum’s only prize possession as far as anyone knew: his leather jacket. It was sitting in a pile with the rest of his meager things on the lip of the platform. There was a shot-glass full of dice, a few other scraps of clothing, and a mechanical match-box that played Dixie when you turned the key. Everything else that Hum-Hum had ever owned he had traded away as soon as he could for food. He was not considered wealthy by any stretch, even by the Station’s standards.

Without his leather jacket, Hum-Hum was bare-chested – a frosty-blonde young man with wide white teeth, and tough tan skin that was smeared with pink and black acne all across his shoulders and in a V between the blades. Since Hum-Hum had been chained up, he hadn’t a chance to shave his greasy beard, and now it grew in a patchy, lank trellis on his neck and under his nose.

“You calm down, Hum-Hum,” said the skinny man with the grey ponytail, whose name was Anson. “You know what you did, and now you gotta go. You’re bad, bad, bad. You stole, and you stole big. Even if you have treasure, you probably stold it from somebody else anyway.”

The crowd murmured agreement. Hum-Hum’s didn’t have any kin but Chris and Witcher, his two adopted brothers. Hum-Hum’s parents had tried to go out on their own several years ago, and it hadn’t worked out. They had left him behind in the middle of the night, and escaped to the top level – where the tunnels were still lit by lights that glowed without fire. After only being gone for a month, Hum-Hum’s parents had been dumped through the entrance to the Station with their throats slit and strange signs burned into their forehead. They had deserved it, the old ones in the Station said. You didn’t leave the Station, if you had sense. The Up Gangs in their helmets and hazard suits didn’t need want any newcomers. You stayed low, or you got yourself spilt, kilt, and skinned.

Hum-Hum had become weird and careless about things since his parents had left him. And now, after the incident with the drugs, people were glad to see him go. He made them nervous, the way he stood and muttered for hours, or told lies about the tunnels and claimed to be able to do miraculous things, like breathe underwater or stand in the sunlight.

Chris and Witcher had been tossed down into the Station when they were babies. Hum-Hum’s parents had outbid the rest of the clan for them, but then they had decided they were more trouble than they were worth, and had stopped feeding them. Hum-Hum had kept them alive with scraps until his mom and dad left, and then he had turned them into his employees, sending them out into the tunnels to scavenge, and in turn protecting them from other people in the Station who believed that charity was a pretty name for a little girl you were raising to be your sweetheart, and not good for much else. There were much better uses to put orphans than scavenging, some people said.

“I once puncht a rat,” said Witcher to Chris as they watched Hum-Hum take a blow to the back of his head, which dropped him, calming him down enough so that the people who were tasked with chaining him up could get the cuffs onto his ankles.

“You did now, did you?” said Chris, the older of the two boys. Witcher’s hair was yellow, and Chris’s was brown, but they both had pale blue eyes ringed with thin blonde lashes that were red around the rims. Their eyelashes were so blonde they were transparent, and they were so long that they caught and held gnats and mosquitoes when the bugs swarmed in the tunnel depths. Clever Witcher had taken to wearing a cracked pair of spectacles to keep the vermin out of the snare of his whisper-thin fronds, and the glasses magnified his eyes and made them look dead like the eyes of a fish or a squid.

“I did indeed puncht a rat,” said Witcher. “I was down in the Q tunnels all by myself, and I was tryin’ to get loose a piece a’ copper from where it was stuck unner the fire rail. I had me a rubber pole and I was whacking at it. La! The sparks!”

Chris spat into the grime of the platform and rubbed it around with his big toe, making a clean spot the size of a fist.

“I thought I heard a rat so I looked up, and then I looked back, but I didn’t see no rat,” said Witcher. “So I was all treed up: where’s this rat? I hear him. I hear him right in my face. And then I looked beside me, and there he was on the platfo! Sniffing at me, right as close as I am next to you. Up to my neck, like no rat ever should be. He was just a’ sniffing and carrying on, and I knew he wanted to bite me.”

“And then you puncht him,” said Chris, encouragingly. “Fore he could get you.”

“That’s right,” said Witcher. “You’re not supposed to touch rats with your hands, and you’re only supposed to kick at ‘em or throw something. But I KNOWED he wanted to bite me, so I reared back and knocked him clean acrost the platfo to the tunnel on the other side.”

With each ankle fastened over and under so that he couldn’t turn or run away, Hum-Hum could only lurch forward along the rails at a back-and-forth snail’s shuffle. The members of the Station who had chained him up climbed up out of the tunnel and onto the platform, stoically joining the rest of the crowd.

Hum-Hum howled and gnashed his teeth, and tore scratches into his chest with his gnarled fingernails. Even as excited as they were, no one responded to his calls or baiting. The Popsnake only came to feed at the Station once a day, but everyone knew it wouldn’t be long now. The Popsnake always came sooner or later.

“I once puncht a fish, too,” said Witcher quietly. “But that was just spite. That fish didn’t mean no harm.”

“It’s true,” said Chris. “You shouldn’t puncht no fish.”

Side by side, they sullenly watched their ersatz older brother rage and curse while the old ones had him trussed. Anson pointed his finger at Hum-Hum and smiled wanly.

“You gonna get ate,” said Anson. “Stealing. Carrying on. Not respecting no boundaries. You gonna get ate for what you done. You done bad, sick things.”

The crowd cheered. It seemed like the whole Station was here to watch, and everybody was excited about it -- eyes-popping, hopping back and forth from one foot to the other, stuffing their faces with canned chard and baloney slices. A holiday! The only people who were calm were Chris and Witcher, who were trying to avoid being noticed, and who weren’t sure what was going to happen to them without Hum-Hum around.

“I knowd I done bad, sick things,” said Hum-Hum. “That’s why I had to take all those drugs. I got bad sickness in me, and I had to have ‘em.”

“You got to face the Popsnake,” said Anson, resigned.

Anson’s wife Fee was in charge of taking care of sick people in the Station whenever somebody was injured or pukey. She kept her stores of white tablets and pink chalk in a briefcase with a cross slashed down the front. The Station traded dearly for more pills, and any person who found them on a scavenging mission was rewarded with a huge feast in their honor: butterfly-spitted tunnel shrimp, the MOST delicately seasoned roaches, a huge plate of red Jell-o with marshmallows frozen inside.

They found Hum-Hum under Fee’s table, covered in his own vomit and writhing on his back with his boots flat on the ground and his groin bouncing at the sky. Packets of the most sacred pills – the ones that made the pink death go away and destroyed hidden pains – were scattered all around him, their foil ripped apart and scattered around him like cut whiskers, foil with names like Primaxin, Ceclor, and Zyglvox. He had eaten the whole supply, making himself sick with seizures and boils.

He did not die.

“I got bad in me!” he had shouted, laughing, his mouth crusted over with dark green foam. “I got to cure the bad!”

Anson and the rest of the Station’s old ones didn’t take long before they found him guilty and sentenced him. And now here he was, chained up, stripped of his possessions, hate burning in his eyes.

The old ones who were watching were afraid to get too close to the edge since they knew the Popsnake was coming soon. They would creep forward to the yellow paint and stick their necks out, bending at the middle, to look deep into the tunnels. Then they would quickly dart back to where it was safe when they saw that nothing was coming.

“I’m gonna kill that Popsnake,” said Hum-Hum. “Maybe I’ll kill it. You watch. Maybe I will. And then I’ll have my treasure all to my own self.”

He held his fists out as if ready to fight, and then slowly lowered them and looked at the people who had gathered to see him take his punishment.

“Chris? Witcher? Are you boys up there?”

Chris and Witcher didn’t say anything, and didn’t move from where they stood in the very back of the crowd. The crowd, however, parted and pushed them, inhaling them forward, until they were standing on the very edge of the platform, facing down on Hum-Hum, sheepish, without a comfortable place to look in the world.

Hum-Hum twisted and put his hands out.

“If I don’t kill that Popsnake, you got to promise me. You got to promise you’ll get your revenge on my death,” he whispered urgently. “You find that Popsnake, and you kill it for me, okay? I had bad in me, but then I got it all out. You got bad in you, too, but there ain’t no more pills left to clean it out. If you kill that Popsnake, you’ll be clean as me. You hear? But that’s IF I don’t get it first. I think maybe I’m gonna get it myself.”

There was a rumble along the rails, and the crowd gasped and pushed forward again, sending Chris and Witcher sprawling, nearly falling down in the tunnel next to Hum-Hum. They crawled away between the legs of the Station’s old ones and hid, shivering on the steps that led to the upper lands.

“Here it comes!” shouted Anson. The ground shook and roared under their feet. Deep in the tunnel, light flashed and held.

“My treasure’s hid where the sun boils the water,” shouted Hum-Hum. “You boys got to get it. You hear me?”

“Its eyes are open,” said Anson. “You’re in for it now!”

The Popsnake roared and came, the noise catching every person in the Station by the gut and jerking them around like cats with their tails tied to whip antennae.

Hum-Hum tried to lurch backward, but he tripped and fell on his knees, popping one the wrong way. He stood up and threw his head back, howling. He leaned forward and stamped the foot that still worked.

“Goddamn you, fast, fast Popsnake!” he shouted. Witcher, unable to look away even though he didn’t want to watch, wriggled his hand into Chris’s hand and squeezed it tight. His other hand found his mouth and crawled inside.

There was a rush, and an explosion, and the Popsnake roared through the Station. On it came, glowing silver and tan, red streaks across its belly, howling from the dark like a bellows pumping fire.

There stood Hum-Hum, bracing himself, leaning forward slightly, his legs bowed out, his ankle turned, a manic leer on his face, his shoulders dancing back and forth as he raised his hands in front of him and balled his hands into fists. The whole Station breathed forward, rapt, as the thunder of the demon filled hearts, heads, and bowels – sending men and women to their knees to glossolate in garbled prayer and rock back and forth -- insensate, overcome, lunatic.

The Popsnake hit Hum-Hum full in the chest and he dissolved in a spray of blood and bone that arched up -- and forward -- like a torrent from a sheared fire hydrant. His head was removed from his body and spun out of control, imbalanced by a dangling spinal column that clatched to a seam in the Popsnake’s armor, and carried it away, still grinning, still shrieking. The rest of him cracked like a wishbone and flew to one side, drenching several of the gathered old ones in blood, which made them howl and writhe on the floor, rubbing their faces and squeezing their cheeks with the flat of their palms.

One of Hum-Hum’s arms had wedged into the fire rail and there it burned, jerking, sending up a plume of blueish smoke as muscle and bone softened, softened, softened and became as gooey as fresh tunnel mud.

The Popsnake roared through the Station for what seemed like an eternity, but finally it disappeared into the tunnel on the other side, leaving the Station stunned and sick. This wasn’t the first time they had fed one of their own to the Popsnake, but it had been so long that many of them had forgotten the smell. The smell of it. The tang of blood, the sweet, delicious crackle of melting flesh.

Anson stood up from where he had huddled on his knees and looked over the crowd. A stitch in his voice made him begin four or five times before he could make himself heard.

“Now you all seen what happens when you go against the Station,” said Anson. “That boy Hum-Hum was trouble, and now he ain’t trouble no more. I think we can all feel peaceful about that. I know that boy had some friends who might also think they can be trouble and get away with it.”

Anson raised his shaking hand and pointed it at Chris and Witcher, who clung to one another trembling. Despite how crowded the platform was, there was a wide berth around them where no one stood, and now people moved even further away from the brothers, crowding away from the aura of their taint.

“Those of you that was Hum-Hum’s friends can’t be welcome no more,” continued Anson. “You ought to know that. I’m not gonna say no names, so people can have the chance to clear out. This here Station is clean, and we’re FAMILY ONLY now. If you aren’t family, then you just go along and get the hell out, or you’ll find yourself facing the Popsnake yourself, you hear? We’ll feed that Popsnake two at a time if we have to.”

Chris and Witcher searched the crowd for a friendly face; an understanding eye. While some of the young women seemed more sad than angry, they didn’t raise their eyes, and shook their heads slightly at the brother’s unspoken appeal for quarter.

Witcher began to cry, and so Chris picked him up and slung him over his shoulder. He paused to grab Hum-Hum’s leather jacket from the edge of the platform, and then lowered himself into the carnage-strewn tunnel. He looked up the tunnel where the Popsnake came from, and then he looked down the tunnel where the Popsnake had gone.

“Do we follow it, or do we try to find its lair?” he whispered to Witcher with steel in his voice. Somebody had to be brave.

Witcher stopped crying and squirmed out of Chris’s arms. He looked at the silent mob that was watching them, and then turned away and leaned heavily on his brother’s shoulder. Chris put the leather jacket on Witcher, and laid the collar down flat. Witcher fondled the shoulder of his new jacket with awe.

“That treasure is in the place where the water boils,” said Witcher firmly. “That’s what Hum-Hum said. I know all about that. It’s back where the Popsnake come from, so we go that way.”

“We got to smash that Popsnake for Hum-Hum,” said Chris. “Don’t forget.”

“Hum-Hum was bad to us and bad to everybody,” said Witcher.

“You know we got to do it,” said Chris. “We was part of his gang.”

“We’ll do it so we can come back,” said Witcher, pushing his spectacles up his nose. His tears had fogged them. “We’ll do it so we can come back, and they won’t be able to feed us to nothing.”

Chris nodded.

“You go ahead and take me to where the water boils then.”

Witcher, resolute now, picked his way up the rails, avoiding lumps of smoking flesh and the grisly remains. They made their way silently down the track, until they were out of sight of the Station and its inhabitants, and they were deep in the silent tunnels, absorbed by the shadows, cocooned by the abandoned void.

They walked for a mile in the dark before Chris decided it was safe to light a candle. Soon they would need to eat, but for now he wanted to keep his brother focused on the task at hand to keep him from reflecting too much, or getting angry at things they couldn’t change. Witcher had a sensitive bone.

“So where’s this place where the water boils? Some kind of campground?” asked Chris. “That’s where you boil water.”

“I’ll show you,” said Witcher. “It’s not far. We just got to jog up the line a little bit.”

Witcher took the lead and ducked in and out of the tunnels, lithely skipping over the rails and flitting his footsteps between piles of sharp, tangled machinery and toxic trash. Chris came along heavier behind, knocking piles out of the way with the back of his hand and grunting as he heaved over barriers and humped over obstructions. They both gave a wide walk to the occasional pile of stripped, leathery corpses.

“He put that treasure in a place where people don’t go, on account of the sun,” said Witcher. “I guess people can sometimes be both smart and crazy. Hum-Hum showed me this place during one of his crazy moods, but I guess it was smart of him to find it in the first place.”

“I reckon so,” said Chris.

They turned another corner past a set of sawhorses that had been painted bright orange and striped with yellow reflective tape. Witcher went under, and Chris knocked them aside.

Suddenly, Witcher stopped, turned, and grabbed Chris by the arm. He held him and looked into his eyes.

“You got to be careful,” said Witcher. “You got to stay out of the light, cause it’ll burn you up, even if it’s pretty.”

Chris nodded, and Witcher let him go. Witcher doubled back through a grate that had been melted in half, with the sinews of its crossbars pinched and twisted like old tinsel that had been squeezed hard and dropped.

They found themselves in a tunnel that Chris had never seen before.

“Are we underwater?” asked Chris, smelling the air and placing his hand flat against the wall where it came away clammy and grey. “You know we got to stay out from under the water, in case one of these tunnels falls in. I seen it happen.”

“You ain’t SEEN it happen,” said Witcher.

“Well, I heard it,” said Chris. “In any case, this place ain’t safe.”

“That’s what I said,” said Witcher. “You got to be careful. But we ain’t underwater. We’re just BESIDE it. Look! You got to look over here for the treasure.”

Witcher took off running, and Chris followed behind, warily.

Chris caught up to Witcher beyond the next bend and found him stopped, pointing. But he didn’t need to point. Brackish silver water flowed between their legs in a thin trickle, where it pooled in a deep concavity further down the tunnel that made it impossible to travel any further. The hole cut the tunnel in half. Directly above the pool, was something you never saw. There was a crack in the roof that let the sunlight in.

The sun blazed through the tiny hole in a brutal slash that ignited the motes in atomic puffs the moment they drifted into the shaft’s penumbra, bystanders caught between the heavens and the pit. The light drilled down into the silent water and made it boil with orange fever, huge pops of steam and bubble coursing across the water’s greasy top. The fissure in the tunnel’s ceiling glowed with a greenish-intensity that made Chris’s eyes burn and blear. He covered his eyes.

“It’s got to be around here somewhere,” said Witcher. “Look for dirt that’s been mussed up.”

The boys crawled around on the ground in front of the boiling pit, scrabbling and poking. After fifteen minutes, they found what they were looking for. Under some powder-soft dirt, they pulled up a leather case filled with crumbling pornography and maps. It had Hum-Hum all over it.

Nothing you could trade. Nothing worth even a hamburger. Certainly no jewels.

“Well, we found it at least,” said Chris as Witcher’s breath hiccupped, signaling that he was close to tears.

Witcher thumbed through the faded magazines and then tossed the whole collection on the ground in a frustrated huff.

“Crazy, not smart,” said Witcher.

“Maybe some of these maps are useful,” said Chris, picking the stack of paper back up and resting them on the leather case, sitting cross-legged on the ground. “You know how he was about maps.”

“Yeah,” said Witcher. “He was crazy.”

“What do you reckon this is a map of?” said Chris, holding up a piece of black construction paper with a spaghetti-tangle of lines and colors etched into it. One bright red line was bolder then the rest. It ran in a smoldering circle across the sheet of paper – an ugly, fiercely burning thing that reminded Chris of the red stripe that bit into your waist if you wore your pants too tight.

“It’s just a map of places you already know,” said Witcher. “You can see all them tunnels, yourself. See, look here, that’s where the Station is.”

Witcher put his finger on a forking nexus where three colored tunnels met.

“What about that bright red line?” asked Chris, pointing. “How come that bright red line goes through the Station? I’ve never seen a bright red tunnel.”

Witcher crossed his arms and frowned. He put his hands on top of his head and pushed, as if trying to drive himself into the ground.

“I bet that red line shows where the Popsnake goes,” said Witcher finally, taking the map from Chris and smiling. “I bet it sure does. Look: here’s where we are, and here’s the line again. And look again: there’s a NEST! See, there’s a red dot! Got to be a nest.”

“How come he never said anything about no nest? You mean we could get it while it sleeps?”

“I don’t know. And see -- look -- that Popsnake comes right through here. Right over the boiling water. It must move too fast for the sunlight to kill it.”

“It’s only a tiny sunbeam,” said Chris, looking around, thinking. “And those rails go right over the water, don’t they?”

“Let’s go see that nest,” said Witcher. “It ain’t far. It’s just around the bend. We can be there by morning.”

Chris nodded.

“But we come back here to kill it, to this boiling-water place,” said Chris. “I’ve got an idea. Keep your eyes out for rope while we walk. We need some rope. Rope and some steel hooks, maybe.”

The boys set out the way they came. They marched hard through the fetid intestines of the hollow blight without speaking or stopping, and by dawn, they found themselves in a new place. It was a cleaner tunnel than they’d ever seen before, and that made it dangerous. No vegetation meant that there were fewer rats, nothing to eat. After searching for an hour, they found a clutch of spiders that would serve as breakfast. Chris snatched them up, split their bellies with an old sharp key he kept in his pocket, and sucked out their meat before handing them to Witcher one by one, who liked to crunch on the legs, something that Chris found disgusting but tolerated.

“You got to eat spiders,” said Chris. “But you don’t got to ENJOY it.”

After they had fought off the hunger pangs, they made the last leg of the trip and found themselves in a gleaming, brightly lit platform space that was empty and pristine. Silent and cold. There was a breeze blowing in from somewhere above, and there was the unmistakable whir of a turbine turning in the walls. Turbines were great for harvesting metal, but both Chris and Witcher had never heard of one actually working before.

The rails on either side of the platform were empty.

“What do we do?” asked Witcher. He had to shout over the buzz of the turbine. “This don’t look like no burrow. I don’t see any bones, or skulls or nothing.”

“We oughta wait,” said Chris. “That Popsnake is probably out hunting, and then he’s gonna come back all tired and full and want to take a nap. And then we can scope him out.”

“You reckon we oughta hide?” asked Witcher.

“Hell yeah,” said Chris. “That’s not even a question.”

Chris looked around the platform. It had actually been swept clean by somebody, and the only free-standing object was a barrel in which bottles and boxes and had been tossed. He picked the barrel up and carried it over to the stairwell, making a tight cubby. He crouched down behind it, and Witcher joined him.

There was a shuffling on the stairs above them. A cough. Chris pushed back further against the wall, and Witcher mimicked him. They hadn’t counted on being spotted from above, but there were definitely people moving up there and coming down fast.

Steps clacked out and were joined by others -- sharp shoes all tapping at the same speed on the stairs. Down they came, people dressed like Chris and Witcher had never seen before – wearing tight scarves around their necks, bowler hats perched high on their heads like pastry icing, thick mustaches curling below their noses like wet strips of paper, heavy makeup adding color in smeared blooms to their sunken, pale cheeks. Their eyes were blank and motionless. Tongues lolled -- slobbering -- against powdered chins. Lipstick ran in sticky rivulets between wrinkle clefts. High pants were tucked into socks and buckled with gleaming braces that glinted back cold against the platform’s lighted sconces.

There were at least twenty silent strangers, maybe more. Their hair was cut without rhyme or reason, and some of it was dyed colors that weren’t natural – pink, blue, and green. Dangling chains featured prominently in the composition of many of the stranger’s clothes, hooked between layers of fabric, attached to rings and necklaces and brightly colored gems – orange, lime, crimson, and cobalt.

To a foot, every one of them wore black marching boots.

They lined up in three rows on the platform, staring straight ahead, their powdered hands at their sides with the fingers splayed. They were breathing ragged, each person making an awful lot of noise with the bleat of his air. Each person carried one note, and they meshed together in a tuneless caterwaul that made Witcher cover his ears where he sat.

It wasn’t long before the whine was drowned by the rumbling of the walls and rails. The Popsnake was coming.

As the rumbling mounted, and the bones of the brothers began to vibrate against one another like teeth rattling at the bottom of a washing machine full of skulls, the platform gatherers pushed closer together, until finally they were one united block, limbs and torsos mangled together in inseparable, insuperable puree.

The Popsnake that slithered onto these rails was a different snake altogether from the one that roared through the Station. This Popsnake limped down the track as if bleeding to death, slowly grinding down the rails before coming to a dead stop, its full length splayed across the brightly-lit tunnel as if hung, hot steam escaping from underneath its tan scales.

Sixteen different jaws opened along the Popsnake’s side, and Witcher gasped.

“It’s got more mouths than a pack of cats!” he whispered to Chris.

Chris shushed his brother, but no one on the platform had noticed Witcher’s outburst and the Popsnake continued to sigh and moan, in no shape to do anything, even if it could roll its massive bulk over the lip of the tunnel and snap at them where they lay hidden.

There was a bellyache fartgag from the platform gatherers, and then – as one – they moved forward and stepped into the Popsnake’s open mouths. Teeth closed behind them, and the Popsnake started to move again. Behind the portals, the people could still be seen – standing and staring out of sick, green-tinted portals like reflections.

“No!” said Witcher, standing and screaming. “You can’t!”

Chris grabbed his brother and tried to hold him, but he was too insistent – too excited. Witcher leapt down into the tunnel and took off running, and he had nearly made it to the darkness of the tunnel’s other side before Chris was able to tackle him and pin him down.

“It’s too late,” said Chris. “It’s too late for them.”

“They got hypnotized, and then they just walked into death,” said Witcher. “That Popsnake was on its last, and then they fed it and gave it power again.”

“That’s why we got to smash it,” said Chris.

Witcher hung his head.

“Come on, let’s get some rope, and then I’ve got an idea how.”

“That Popsnake was on its last,” said Witcher.

“Come on,” said Chris. “I know exactly what to do.”

Hours later found the brothers back in the cavern of boiling water. Witcher stood on Chris’s shoulders, oustretched over the pit, carefully feeling the crevice with his thin fingers to find purchase, avoiding the deadly light of the sun with surgical precision.

“I got it,” said Witcher. “Hand me another hook.”

Chris slowly reached into his pocket, balancing on his brother, and drew forth a wicked-looking hook that had once been part of an elevator winch. They found both the cables and the hook underneath the tangled wreckage of a yellow wagon that had overturned and taken its rider with it. Both corpses were bent and crushed, the hand of the driver still holding a book whose pages had copper edges and were so thin that they turned to powder when Witcher tried to see what the book was.

Witcher threaded the hook into the fissure and tested it. It didn’t move, and the cable held taut when Chris tugged.

“That’s the last,” said Chris.

“I’m coming down,” said Witcher.

The two brothers admired their handiwork. They had managed to get four hooks into the crumbling rock without being burned, and the corresponding cables hung down over the water in four impotent streaks. Chris took the ends of the cables and tied them together to create something like a two-tiered harness.

“We’re certain that Popsnake comes through here?” asked Chris. “Otherwise we are just wasting our time.”

“We can’t be certain,” said Witcher. “But --faith, Chris-- that’s what the map says.”

“How long do you think it’s gonna take?” asked Chris.

“Should already be here,” said Witcher. “What o’ time is it?”

“Day’s almost over,” said Chris. They looked at each other.

“I guess that means we’d better get down the line somewhere safe,” said Witcher. “Hole up in one of them cubbies alongside, just in case it don’t work.”

“It’s gonna work, if you’re sure that Popsnake comes through here.”

“Just in case,” said Witcher.

Turning down the line, they pressed their backs against the wall in an indented part of the tunnel and waited for the Popsnake for the third time in two days.

“We’re gonna get it,” said Chris, licking his lips. “Can you believe that? We’re gonna smash it up good, and then we can go back home like real dandies.”

“We’ll be heroes!” shouted Witcher.

“We gonna get revenge for all them souls in its belly, too,” continued Chris. “All them souls, free to go back home to their mammas and sisters.”

“I think I hear it,” said Witcher. “It’s coming!”

The ground started to shake. The dirt began to dance in the concrete seams.

On came the Popsnake to the place where the water boiled, and on it came, fast, fast, completely oblivious to the beam of paltry sunlight, howling, rumbling, belching smoke from its sixteen jaws, with its fire rail shooting sparks up its side like a matchstick run on a zipper. On it came, rounding the bend, and now the boys could see it where they crouched. They could see its light and they could see the fuzzy heat from where the fire rail warped the air around the Popsnake’s hem and made it crackle.

“It’s not gonna work!” shouted Witcher, looking at Chris horrified. Chris didn’t say anything. On came the Popsnake. The temperature dropped as wind was sucked out of the tunnel, making hackles rise on Chris’s neck.

The front fender of the Popsnake snagged the cords exactly like Chris had imagined. The Popsnake shuddered as it snarled into the cables and slowed down by slack degrees, gears grinding, metallic-blue smoke burning from the squealing edges along the track.

There was a moment of tension, and then the cables snapped. They tore chunks of masonry out of the ceiling, crushing the second segment of the Popsnake’s thorax with a tremendous slab of tempered, reinforced concrete – notch-cut iron poles smashing through five-foot Popsnake eyes and buckling the creature’s jaws.

The explosion skittered the Popsnake from the rails in back, and made his front half twist around and come unmoored moments later. The walls of the tunnel buckled and cornered, spewing basketball-sized chunks of rock from the eaves. But the walls of the tunnel held and did not collapse, even as waves of vicious sunlight crashed down through the ceiling.

“Is it dead?” asked Witcher.

Chris walked forward out of the niche and peered into the Popsnake’s reticulated portals, which were now ringed with savage triangular shards that had gone dim inside, even as the sun burned down mercilessly into the holes. There was blood everywhere, and steaming hunks of gore were plastered like hot mortar over sheets of panel in vibrant layers, lit up by the rays of the atomic star that held the world hostage. Arms and heads rolled and dangled between jagged edges of broken carapace.

A man wearing a top hat that had a giant, plastic dandelion sewed alongside turned over a huge skein of tan metal and reached out with a bloody hand to touch Chris on the toe. His legs were gone, and a gash in his side had exposed his organs, which had melted to the ground and kept him from chasing when Chris backed away. The man tugged and pulled at his smashed intestine to free himself, but, finally, he passed out with a wilting shiver, and Chris wished him well.

“Is it dead, do you think?” asked Witcher again.

Suddenly, the Popsnake ignited from where it now lay belly-up in the sun. The creature began to spit and writhe, and flame leapt along the tunnel toward Chris and Witcher as the creature’s combustible elements began to flare in a twisting, bucking arc.

“Get out of here,” said Chris, pushing his brother further along the tunnel. “We’re gonna get burned up!”

The brothers ran back to the clean, well-lit platform where they had watched the men and women in fancy clothes feed themselves to the Popsnake. They hunkered down and massaged the stitches in their side, looking at each other meaningfully, attempting to catch their breath.

“We kilt it,” said Witcher.

“All the way,” said Chris, peering into the black of the tunnel they had left behind.

There was a flicker and shuffle in the gloom. The clack of a boot on concrete.

“Someone’s coming.”

“A vision,” said Witcher. “We’re gonna get a vision. From our heads.”

Chris frowned, but didn’t say anything.

It was too late to run. As they stood there with their hands on their knees, shimmering blue ghosts began to fill the tunnel. They were the ghosts of the men and women who had been inside the Popsnake when it smashed. You could see right through them, and their clothes were brand new – their mustaches waxed, the lattice-work of their nylons sharp and intact. The spots of color on their cheeks glowed electric blue where they had once been diseased-looking red smears.

At first, the ghosts crowded around the two brothers in a mob, gawking, and silently moving in and out of one another like stacking cups. Finally, the ghosts organized themselves into a line, and began to approach each of them in turn, passing their cold, vaporous hands through each of the brother’s delicate hairless ones, and vigorously shaking.

“Happy day,” one ghost muttered before drifting away down the tunnel, out of sight, out of time.

“Good game,” said another.

When all of the ghosts were gone, Chris picked Witcher up and put him on his shoulders.

“We’d better go,” said Chris. “Find some place to sleep. I guess we must be dog tired.”

But before they could leave the platform, there was a burst of flame down the line, and the rumble of tracks coming up fast.

“It’s not dead!” shouted Witcher. “Lord almighty, it’s sprung back to life. Run, Chris, run!”

But Chris just stood there paralyzed as the walls shook and the rails knocked against his feet below.

From out of the tunnel, there was a mighty roar, and the beast sprung out whole – ten feet in the air, glowing with spectral blue flame and gnashing its teeth, grinning from ear to ear. The Popsnake’s ghost! And riding him was Hum-Hum, his head lazily floating in mid-air, still attached to the train’s fender by a thin whip of vertebrae.

“Goddamn, boys, goddamn!” said Hum-Hum.

Witcher stripped off the leather jacket he was wearing and held it out tenderly. As the Popsnake passed above them, it sucked the leather jacket into its wake, and both jacket and Popsnake disappeared, roaring away down the tunnel, shrieking and setting trash on fire, moving faster and faster until invisible, until nothing but a sound, a feeling, a memory, a conclusion.