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The Battle of Julaho is infamous for a reason, and famous for still more. 

It is famous for its unprecedented nature: two fully modern navies at the height of their power colliding while in use of cutting-edge and untested military technology, every move and countermove spontaneous and fresh.  It is famous for the sheer brilliance on display: despite being surrounded by unknowns, both admirals acted with astonishing speed and grace in adapting to their enemy’s capabilities.

It is infamous for its casualty count.  If only one side or the other had displayed less technical skill or aptitude for destruction, a great deal of lives could have been saved.  Incompetence would, perhaps, have been a humane thing that day. 

***

“ENEMY CONTACT.”

Shorri sat bolt upright in defiance of eight months of learned habit and six months of training, slamming her forehead directly into the unyielding and immovable object that was a bulkhead.  She saw six stars and seven seagulls and one giant swear, which she immediately let out of her mouth. 

“Language!” called Munzu from below her, already up and at them and halfway out the door, and for a moment Shorri wondered if she could get away with reporting that as deliberate sloth in the line of duty but it was too evil and too late besides and she was too busy running to think of much else. 

Where the FUCK had they come from?

***

The engagement of the two armadas off the Julaho Hailbanks of the qkkrA glacial rift was not the first step in the battle; rather, it was the beginning of the end.  Days of careful cat-and-mouse planning, stalking, and silence had concluded in this: the moment where each admiral could no longer avoid enemy contact nor improve their own positioning.  There was no shock to be had: only grim anticipation. 

***

Where the FUCK had they come from?  One minute jzzA had been asleep at her post, gently nodding alongside her anti-flycraft gun, then she’d been nearly eyeball-to-eyeball with an enemy captain taking the air atop her ship’s carapace, mouth as wide open and foolish as her own. 

If she’d been a little quicker on the trigger this engagement might have started very favourably.  But the hatchway was right there and the other woman was a bit quicker on the uptake than she was and the opportunity slid away to the land of regrets, daydreams, and other such ephemeral and timewasting nonsense. 

So instead jzzA slammed her palm on the local alert siren while screaming her head off, and soon she had plenty of company with the same opinions that she did.  Then she held down the trigger on her gun until she remembered to take the safety off.

***

The Quyalmarian armada that day was the Third Exploratory Fleet under the command of Admiral Ulcafuge, destined to blockade and strangle qkkrA’s crevasse-port.  It consisted of three Catastrophe-class dreadtertles, a flank guard of seven Snarler slipserpents, and the admiral’s flagshark: the Insinuation. 

Against them was the freshly-formed kkrrU Home Guard, whose last ship had been carved free only six days prior.  Fourteen clasheR bergie bits and four grindeR growlers; commanded by Admiral crrA atop the englaciator tindeR.

The opening volleys were exploratory, calculated affairs, designed to probe the strengths and weaknesses of the unknown.  Each shot was placed with scientific precision. 

***

“ALL HANDS FIRE” came roaring out of Xerxes’s synthesized meganerves, passed directly through Shorri’s skull, reverberated against the polished oriachulum bracing of the dreadtertle’s bones, and echoed back again twice as loudly. 

“Huh?” she said. 

Munzu kicked her. 
“Oh!” Shorri said, and somewhere in the middle of that she realized she was holding down the trigger on their main cannon, which was making angry metallic noises as it overheated on an empty chamber.  “FUCK!” 

“LANGUAGE,” screamed Munzu into her ear. 

“SHUT UP.”

***

Advantage so often goes not to the side with the newest technology – in fact, more often than not it’s turned against them.  Teething problems can prove fatal when presented with as tough a nut to crack as a determined foe.  Yet the firing solutions of the Home Guard, barely-tested as they were, theoretical as they had been until scant months ago, performed flawlessly under pressure.  For once, the laboratory conditions had foreseen the battlefield’s demands almost exactly.

***

jzzA was not religious or sacrilegious in any particular measure – the product of a friendly household – but she swore to and against any ghost that was listening that if she lived through this she would personally hand them the pulsing kidneys of the profoundly stupid fatherfucker that had designed her anti-flycraft gun.  The idiotic thing was incapable of aiming at any point lower than the fimbulice railing it was mounted to, and when it was mounted on the hull of a vessel of tindeR’s stature… well. 

WELL. 

If it wasn’t sitting atop the highest point of the enemy’s hulls, she wasn’t hitting it.  Their flags were in ribbons now under the hail of her fire.  What a wondrous job she was doing. 

***

By the conclusion of the battle’s first hour, both armadas had fully grasped the other’s strength – the impassive brittle barricades offered by the fimbulice-forged surfaces of the Home Guard; the nigh-instantaneous maneuverability offered by the intravenous ichor booster-shots mounted against the main veins of the Third Exploratory Fleet’s livevessels.  In mere minutes gut and raw intellect had comprehended not only the form of the enemy but their innovations, formed a counter-stratagem, and passed it down the chain of command.  The engagement had ceased to surprise: now it was simply a matter of innovative, destructive mathematics. 

***

“IS THAT THEM?” asked Shorri.

“FUCK IF I KNOW,” said Munzu, probably.  Shorri’s ability to read lips was as badly battered by the main cannon as her hearing had been; all those vibrations turned everything into a badly-shot film. 

Not as badly-shot as they were.  Fuck, she wished she knew if they were even aiming at the enemy.  It could just be an iceberg.  She hoped it was the enemy; this would be the most embarrassing way to get court-martialed ever.  ‘Your Justice, I was sincere in my belief that the chunk of meandering ice was in fact an actively-firing kkrrU ship of war; I spent over an hour attempting to destroy it based upon this very reasonable judgement, and I defy anyone else to claim they would have done differently.’  If she were lucky her execution could make it into the history books. 

“FIRE,” she said anyways.  She’d always wanted to be famous, might as well be for this as for anything else. 

***

If an act of mass death can be called a masterstroke, the firing trajectory plotted by the fourth gun deck crew of the dreadtertle Xerxes was surely one.  The blood-heated missile struck the invincible sides of the tindeR at an angle so perfect that it avoided the fate of all its sisters and failed to shatter.  Instead, it slid along the main hull, careened through the reinforced battledoors of the bridge, and had shed just enough of its momentum that when it reached the far wall of the command hub it shattered rather than penetrating. 

The resulting shrapnel led to the instantaneous death or mortal wounding of all staff present.  But Admiral crrA, despite being perforated by boiling metal, was cool as her vessel itself.  As the ship’s cryonic maintenance system began to crack itself apart around her, forcing the dissolution of the fimbulice core that held the beleaguered tindeR together, she offered up her final, crucial orders. 

One can only imagine the heights to which her career would have ascended should she have survived the battle; as it was, it remains her singular and shining achievement.  Many would have killed for such. 

***

jzzA wasn’t sure where she was meant to be anymore since her anti-flycraft gun had melted to the rails, but she was sure where she WASN’T meant to be and on a deck that was awash in blood and steam wasn’t it.  She was just trying to find new orders, that’s right.  A radio or something.  An officer!  The bridge had both of those, and it was heavily armoured and that was a nice coincidence. 

As she stumbled inside, she realized that she probably should’ve unlocked the door.  Which hadn’t been shut, come to think of it.  Or there at all.  And oh, oh, oh that was a lot of blood and bits and she was throwing up frantically, bracing herself on the mutilated remains of what had probably been at one point the admiral’s command desk.  The air was too thick here; it was filled with dripping and squishing and harsh static and oh ghosts.

“Ghosts,” she wheezed.  “Ghosts ghosts ghosts.  Fire and fuck and low hells take them.”

Then she resumed vomiting. 

***

A lesser commander would never have thought to deploy the prototype ‘ghost’ flash-freeze tactical cryonic system at such a dangerous moment.  The technology was overbuilt beyond even tindeR’s specifications; requiring a deft touch to manage without risking severe damage even on a tranquil sea with all hands working carefully.  Admiral crrA’s final command risked causing irreversible damage to the close-packed formation of the Home Guard, if it worked at all – much of the englaciator’s core systems team was already dead, killed by the fire of the Xerxes. 

Nevertheless, impossible though it was, it was done. 

***

It took a moment for Shorri to understand what had happened, and why Xerxes had halted so abruptly that she’d only remained upright by her death-grip on her fire controls.  The answer came out of the corner of her vision. 

When she’d last pulled the trigger, the Insinuation had been breaching towards an enemy growler over the shattered remnants of its sister-ship; the flagshark’s jaws wide and its dental batteries jerking forwards to open fire. 

As the smoke cleared, she saw that it was still mid-breach.  And was going to remain as such indefinitely. 

All around them, around Xerxes, around the entirety of the Third Exploratory Fleet, the surface of the sea – down to every wave and ripple – had been flashed into unyielding fimbulice. 

“Fuck,” said Shorri, in a voice she was astonished she could hear in the sudden silence before the hailshot struck the cannon battery next to them. 

***

Even in that moment, the battle could have swung either way.  Superweapons or no; casualties or no; everything still hinged on one irreplaceable thing: the nerves and will of the sailors of both armadas.  They fought in the face of death and disfigurement with no thought to their own lives, only for the greater good of their nations and loved ones.  No quarter was asked for until there was no other option, and although the toll from such bravery was terrible, no life spent so valiantly can be considered truly wasted. 

***

jzzA realized she was still alive, and was appalled despite herself. 

Surely the shrapnel of the bridge had impaled her. 

Surely the disintegration of the tindeR’s solidity under her feet had trapped her. 

Surely the violent internal explosion that had turned the ocean solid had vaporized her. 

Surely the force that had launched the dismembered corpse of the bridge into the air and into the side of a half-burning dreadtertle had crushed her. 

But there jzzA was.  All four limbs.  Probably her head, too.  Standing even, swaying, lurching, tripping and rolling and flailing her way upright until she was on the deck of a strange ship facing strange faces surrounded by flaming wreckage and warm air and her pistol was in her hands. 

She dropped it. 

“I surrender completely,” she said. 

***

The victory was a credit to both sides, but the weight of it fell to the kkrrU Home Guard.  They had lost an expensive experimental weapon, an englaciator-class flagship, and one of the bravest and most cunning minds to ever travel the waves, but they had won the battle and captured or annihilated the entirety of the Quyalmarian Third Exploratory Fleet.  Though not a single soul survived the death of the tindeR, let it never be said that a single one of them will be forgotten: by their nation, by their enemies, by history. 

***

“Who won?” asked jzzA.   The towel was too small, which she supposed matched the people.  Then she saw Shorri pull one over herself shivering and realized no they were just very sad and inadequate towels.  It was strangely disappointing to see your enemy so shoddy. 

“Right now?” asked Munzu.  “I think you did.”

“I mean the battle.”
“Oh, the enemy.  I think.  We’re surrendering shortly.”

“Fuck.  I’m dead meat.”
“What?  Why?”
“Do you know what the penalty for surrendering in the midst of an ongoing battle is in the navy?” asked jzzA. 

“No,” said Munzu. 

“Imagine yours then double it.”
“Oh,” said Munzu. 

“Ouch,” added Shorri, who was now mostly dry and offering her sad, inadequate, now-damp towel to jzzA. 

“I already have one, thank you.”
“It takes two to get anything done.  Trust me.”
She did. 

“So,” she said at long last, once the idea had finally grown large enough to escape her skull, “what will you do with me?”
“Why would we do anything with you?” asked Munzu.  “You’re our good pal, the third and final survivor from all of gun deck four.”

“Who’s going to ask otherwise?” added Shorri.  “Some dip from the bridge?  They don’t exactly know our faces.”

“And it’s not like they’re going to be in position to order anything, soon as this is all over.”

This all made considerable sense. 

“Maybe I could try being jzAz,” she mused.  “I’ve always wondered how that’d feel.”
The look Munzu and Shorri exchanged was universal. 

“No?”
“Try ‘Jasz,’” Munzu said. 

“Please,” Shorri said. 

“For the love of god please.”
“I’m beginning to regret surrendering.  I think winners don’t have to deal with this sort of thing.”
“You knew what you were getting into when you signed on, sailor,” said Shorri.  “Welcome to the navy.”

It was a thick and hurried sort of knock at the door, thap-thap-thap.  The kind of knock that said ‘oh no oh dear oh hurry please’ but didn’t have the fear of life-and-death in it, and so old Scaa took her time getting up from her slab across from the ever-simmering warmth of the cauldron-pit.  It was midwinter, and the cold wind was bringing in fresh rain every morning.

On the other side of her door was Gruna, and inside Gruna’s face were Gruna’s eyes, and inside Gruna’s eyes were a matchless and endless anxiety that could not be stopped or impeded by anything except the flow of words coming out of Gruna’s mouth, which Scaa could roughly parse as this:

“ohnoit’searlyhe’stooearlysomething’swrongiknowit’swrongohnononopleasedoyouhaveanythingthatcan-“

Scaa nodded and hummed and made aimless shooshing sounds with her forelimbs as she hobbled back to the cauldron-pit, took up the capped ladle, got a generous helping of roiling and angry mineralized water, jammed a carefully-selected pinch of pulverized and preserved plantlife into it, and then shook it in a prescribed manner before pouring it out into a very small and very waterproof flask. 

“Make him drink this,” she said, damming the flood of words from Gruna’s mouth with as much volume as she could manage.  “And everything will be fine.”
“Are you sure?  Are you sure?  It’s our first litter and-”

Scaa put the flask in Gruna’s talons and closed the door on her foot, then limped to her slab and tried to remember what she’d been doing before she was so rudely interrupted.  Such was the brewer’s life.

Oh right.

She’d been thinking about nothing. 

***

Scaa had made a pretty good start on getting back to that when the next knock on the door came.

Well, eventually came.  It was preceded by a series of increasingly inchoate thundering footfalls, cursing, stumbling, and shouting.  The knock itself was more like a single THUD, and carried with it a heavy flavour of fist.

“Hello,” said Numn, shouldering the door open without waiting or asking for permission or giving the latch the dignity of notice as it tore free from the wall.  “Brewer.  My lesser-wife is unfaithful.  I need her brought to heel.”
Scaa shrugged at that.  “Nothing I can brew for THAT, thank you.”
“Yes there is.  Give me something that will keep those flighty feet of hers grounded.  Something to deaden her energy, slacken her spirits, curb her vigour.”

“That is against the brewer’s creed,” said Scaa.  “I am here to serve, not to scheme.”
Numn picked up the capped ladle from its perch and carefully bent its handle into a circle. 

“Fine, fine, fine” sighed Scaa.  “If you must.” 

So she took the ladle back and took another small box with different seeds and leaves and made a somewhat smaller flask.

“This will solve the problem,” she said very specifically.

“Good,” said Numn, and left. 

Scaa made an unforgivably blasphemous gesture out the door at her, then saw about repairing her latch. 

***

The latch was set, the door was closed, and just as Scaa turned back to her slab it was shaking on its hinges again, rattling under a tiny and tremulous fist. 

Scaa opened it and saw nothing.  Then she looked down and saw something.  Someone. 

“Hello,” she said. 

“’sth,” managed the chick.  It was of indeterminate gender and tiny in age, in the midst of that awkward growth spurt that would take it from the size of an adult’s skull to the size of an adult entire. 

“I don’t know you.  Are you one of Loos’s?”
“’es.”
“Ah, right.  Right.  And she wants something for the night aches?”
“’es.”

Scaa sighed, long and rattly, then she took her (bent) capped ladle and put in a tiny sprig of  something here and a dab of something there and a long slow stir and gave it over. 

“Tell her to drink this,” she said.  “And then stay quiet for the next few days.  It works best when no loud noises interrupt it.”
“’es.”
“What do you say?”
“’anks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Scaa closed the door.  The pepperwort wouldn’t do much more than give Loos some nice flavours, but the multiple days of quiet children might give her some relief from the nightly pains in her skull.  She’d TOLD her she was too old for one more brood, but oh no, never listen to your big sister.  Ugh.

***

This time the THUD came without preceding noise: just a deeply hostile silence that terminated in the door popping open.  Thankfully the latch was too weakly repaired to snap off again, and merely dangled meekly. 

“Brewer.”
“Hello again, Numn,” said Scaa.  “What is it?”
“You lied to me.”
“I did no such thing, Numn.  I am here to serve, not to scheme.”
“I forced your vial down the cringer’s throat and she belched fire into my face.  I am driven from my own home at the violence of my second-wife.”
Scaa scratched at her snout.  “I recall that being Tlii’s long before you married.”
“What’s hers is mine.  You have betrayed my faith.”
“I solved the problem, and I said as much,” said Scaa. 

Numn picked her up by her scruff and gently but firmly took her head in her jaws. 

“Fine.  Fine.  Fine.”

So Scaa took her capped ladle and her uncomfortably damp face and her mutterings of “eighth of this’ and ‘fifth of that’ and she picked up the flask and dropped it seven times one after another before handing it over to Numn. 

“That,” she said, will work.”
“So you say,” said Numn.  “If it doesn’t, I will be back.”
Scaa nodded and sighed and made a doubly blasphemous gesture with both hands as she left and then went back to reaffixing the latch.

***

This time she made it all the way back to her slab, shut her eyes, and was beginning to slip into a warm and toasty torpor when there came a firm and controlled bap-bap-bap at the door. 

“Oh well,” she said, and wrenched herself back to whatever it was that she did with whoever its problems that she’d found. 

It was Vrral, and it was…

“My toes,” said Vrral. 

“What about them?”
“They’re coming off.”
Scaa looked at them.  “Where?”
“Right there – see?”
“That’s a hangnail.”
“It’s not.  It’s curling under, into the flesh.  See?”
“That’s a hangnail.”
“It’s going to cut off my toe.”
Scaa brewed, and as she brewed she explained to Vrral four more times about hangnails. 

“Here,” she said, as she handed over the flask.  “Soak your feet in that.”
“And my toes won’t come off?”
“No, but your toenails will.”
“Bless you, brewer!” sobbed Vrral.  “Bless bless and bless again!”
“Sure,” said Scaa.  And she would have felt guilty about this sixty years ago, but not now.  Not with her slab calling, and Vrral already the worst small-game picker in the parliament.  One set of talons more or less wouldn’t change that.

***

There was no knock, but someone was shaking Scaa by her scruff.  So she opened her eyes again – oh my, was that dawn in the distance through her windows?  So she HAD slept after all – and looked into Numn’s. 

“Brewer, you are vexing me,” she said. 

“Howso?”
“I drank your brew.”
“Oh?”
“And it kept me up all night with the shits in the bushes.”
“Well.  I gave it to you to fix your second-wife.  Why’d YOU drink it?”
“So you wouldn’t fool me like you did last time.”
“I think,” said Scaa, “that you very much accomplished that.”

Numn moved her arm a little and Scaa felt the warmth of the cauldron-pit grow just a bit stronger. 

“What do you need?” she asked. 

“Something to deal with my miserable fire-belching second-wife.  Something permanent.  Something better than anything you’ve brewed before.  And I’ll tear your legs off and leave you for the rats if you try to be clever again.”
“Well,’ said Scaa.  “If you say, that it will be so.”
So she used this and that and them and those and the other and the self and the whole and the sum and the parts all in many forms and variations and when she was done brewing the flask hissed long after the cork went in it.
“Here,” she said as she handed it to Numn. 

“Wonderful,” said Numn.  “You drink it first.”
“All right,” said Scaa amiably. 
“On second thought,” said Numn, her eyes narrowing, “I’ll drink it first.”
“Sure,” agreed Scaa.
Numn’s teeth were all showing.  They all looked very strong, straight, and serrated.  “On third thought, we’ll BOTH drink it.  Together.”

Scaa pulled out two little stone cups, poured half in each, and offered one. 

“I’ll take the other one.”
“Fine by me. 
“I’ll take the first one.
“If you’d like.”
“I’ll drink from the flask.”
“By all means.”
So they drank the same brew at the same pace and finished together with the same dose. 

“I can feel it working,” said Numn.  “If you’ve poisoned me, brewer, then you will die as I do.”
“I haven’t poisoned you,” said Scaa.  “I have given you something to deal with your second-wife.  And I’ve given myself something to deal with you.  And trust me on this: it’s DEFINITELY not clever.”
“Whhat do you mean?” asked Numn, and pawed at the side of her snout.

“See you when the rushh is over,” said Scaa.  The colours were already creeping in through the sides of her vision.  “Oh, thhere it isssss,” she realized, and fell over on her slab. 

Numn had not positioned herself as carefully, and so rammed her face directly into the floor. 

***

The first petitioner of the day found them both there just before noon.  Scaa had almost sobered up by then, but Numn remained out cold until she was tried and exiled four days later. 

“It’s the tolerance,” she said.  “You build it up with exposure.”
“From handling our medicines and cures so often?” asked Loos. 
“Sure,” said Scaa.  “Yes, let’s say that.”

Not that she’d be doing that anytime soon.  The thirsty bastard had chugged down half of her best stuff. 

“Rock, paper scissors.  Rock, paper scissors.  Rock, paper scissors.  Rock, paper scissors.  Shit.”
“Your turn.”
“Best two out of three?”
“It took us four tries to get one out of one done.  Your turn.”
I glared at Mark and was filled with a powerful hatred for how totally correct he was.  “Fine,” I said.  “But if you start the movie before I get back, you’re getting the one I licked.”
His head bobbed absently as he fiddled with the cords on the old DVD player.  I wanted to kick him and knew that he knew that I knew that I wouldn’t do it. 

God, the things you learn about each other when you’re locked in a tiny base for months.  And more importantly, the things you learn to put up with. 

The outer hatch squeaked open with enough violence, and I almost fell face-first into the blizzard. 

Lovely, fresh Antarctic weather.  The sort of air you could skip pebbles off of.  And hanging off the roof a foot from my head, some daisy-fresh ice clumps, just ripe and perfect. 

I snapped three little fistfuls off, one at a time, and this behaviour was so reflexive and so automatic that my mind wandered and I didn’t realize I was making eye contact with the penguin until I was ready to go back inside. 

“Hi,” I said. 

Well, that was stupid. 

The penguin didn’t say anything.  The penguin just stared at me with that little penguin face.  It was a fat little Adelaide; black-headed with white circles around its dark eyeballs.

“Hi,” I said again. 

Well, that was stupider. 

The penguin still didn’t say anything.  Just stared with that little penguin face.  Then it softly bulged at the edges, swelled up like a balloon, and made a low throbbing sound that sprinkled dark spots against the edge of my vision. 

***

I licked all three of the ice clumps on the way back in.  Mark was still fiddling with the DVD player as I poured the vodka. 

“Pick your poison.”
“No thanks; you’ve licked all of them.  What’s up?”
“Saw a penguin.”
“Weird.”

“I don’t think it was a penguin.”
“Weirder.”
“Either some kind of weird mutant or an alien.”
“Weirdest.  So, Doctor Doolittle tonight?”
“Men In Black.”
“Fair.”

We watched the movie for the sixteenth time before breaking for maple syrup candies. 

“Rock, paper scissors.  Rock, paper scissors.  Rock, paper scissors.  Rock, paper scissors.  Shit.”

There’s this trick where you drizzle the heated syrup on the snow.  Turns into good-as taffy. 

The penguin was still there.  It was still partially inflated. 

It had stopped making the sound, though.  That was nice.  It hadn’t been pleasant for my brain. 

“Hi,” I said again, again. 

It stared at me with that little penguin face. 

“Want some candy?”
It stared at me with that little penguin face.  Then it rotated its head seven hundred and twenty degrees and it popped off and fell into the snow so it could stare at me with its eyes in the back of its little penguin head and also the smaller penguin head that was sticking out of its neck stump. 

***

“You’re five seconds late.”
“Penguin was still there.  Its head fell off and now it has two.”
“Huh,” said Mark.  “Well, it’s the middle of winter.”
“Yeah.”

“’Nother movie?”
“Nah.”
“Knew you’d say that.”
Mark and I have been doing this for a while.  I know he knows that I’d say that.  He knew that too.  We both know that.  He’s just the only one that feels the need to reaffirm his knowledge, because he’s an insecure little jackass.
“Am not.”
See?

“I’m going to bed,” I said.
“Knew you’d say that.”

The sounds of the snow were too ordinary and everyday to lull me to sleep. 

But they were nice.

**

When I woke up the penguin was sitting in the corner of the room and it was surrounded by sixteen of its heads and all of them were staring at me and singing.  My eyes were flickering on and off like I’d turned the shower too high; and there was a sluggish sensation on my lip that I suspected was trickling blood.

“Fuck off,” I said, and I threw my boot at it.  It vanished inside its chest without a trace. 

“Little shithead.”
I got dressed and took twice my usual dose of coffee. 

“That’s twice your usual dose of coffee.”
“Thank you, commodore obvious.”

“Penguin?”
“Corner of the room, sixteen heads, unearthly wailing.”
“Rough.”

“Nah.  But it ate my boot.”
“You threw it at it, didn’t you?”
“No call for it to eat it.”
“I’d eat something if you threw it at me.”
I threw a mug at him.  He ducked. 

“Liar.”

***

When I went into my room again the penguin was gone, and things went back to normal for exactly eighty hours.

***

It was a movie night again, and Mark was taking longer than usual at the DVD player because the penguin had incorporated him into its torso. 

“Just let me do it,” I told him. 
“No.  This is my job.”
“You’ve got flippers, Mark.  Fuck off and let me help.”
“No!” he honked agitatedly, and I knew my nose was going to be bleeding again soon.

“Don’t do that shit.  You know I hate it when you do that shit.”
“Then don’t try and take my job!”
I threw my other boot at him.  It vanished inside his mouth. 

“Don’t throw things at me.”
“Don’t see why not.  It stopped you from being a liar again, didn’t it?”
He tried to ignore me.  Honestly, he’d been an even bigger asshole than usual ever since the penguin got him.  I hoped that didn’t happen to me whenever it got around to it.

“I can’t believe this sort of shit keeps happening,” he sighed.  “Every damned winter.”

“It’s a good place for it,” I said.  “Isolated.  Good preservation.  Easily spotted from orbit”

Mark burped and swallowed the DVD player. 
And of course, after a while, you learn to put up with just about anything.  

It was a dark and stormy morning.  Rain pitter-pattered down the windows and off the leather trenchcoat of the mysterious and shadowy figure who’d barged into my office, eyes glittering beneath a crooked, battered fedora. 

“Whozhat?” I mumbled, alertly. 

“The most important and dramatic case of your career,” he intoned in a voice like funeral bells filled with grinding tombstones falling into an ocean trench full of bass drums.

“Whuzzat?” I questioned him, eagerly. 

“I need you to find the identity of… THE MURDERKILLER.”
“Ugh,” I said, pulling myself fully halfway upright.  “Really?  Do I have to?”
“He’s your nemesis!”
“Yeah, but I didn’t catch him last time.  I don’t wanna.”
“I DEMAND you unmask your nemesis!”
“Fiiiiiiine,” I sighed.

“Good,” said the mysterious stranger.  Then he gurgled and fell over, an enormous knife sticking out of his back.  ‘Johnny’ Doesmurders, my trusty sidekick and sidey trustkick, had helpfully already seized hold of it and tugged it free smoothly. 

“Looks like the Murderkiller did this, boss,” he said helpfully. 

“How can you tell?”

“Has his name engraved on the side in neon.”
“Wow.  Sounds like evidence.  You mind holding onto that for me, ‘Johnny’?”
“Sure thing,” he said, slipping into the very conveniently empty leather knife sheath on his belt.  That was ‘Johnny’ for you.  Always prepared for anything.  “Where we headed?”
“To the first place any private eye goes on a case, dumbass,” I politely informed him.  “To the bar.”

***

“I need another clue I mean drink I mean clue please, shithead,” I told the bartender. 

“He’s emotionally distraught, see,” ‘Johnny’ told him.  “His dear old mother died recently or his favourite aunt or his beloved nephew.”

“Uh,” said the bartender, and he served me another glass of warm milk.

“Thanks,” I said, and downed it, washing away all my innumerable troubles in a soft tide of lactose.  Like the time I’d gotten bad takeout and suffered gastrointestinal distress in front of the court; or the time I falsely accused my good friend ‘Johnny’ Doesmurders of being the Murderkiller; or the time I forgot my own birthday; or the time the bartender had collapsed on the counter in front of me and spilled my warm milk all down my pants. 

“Hey, watch it!” I snapped at him.

“Here’s the problem, boss,” said ‘Johnny’, flipping him over expertly.  “Someone’s gone and shot him in the forehead.”

“Another clue, or an evidence, or whatever,” I said as I rifled through his pocket.  “Looks like he only had fifty clues in his wallet though, damnit.  Any witnesses?” 

“He shot him!” screamed a man cowering in the corner, pointing at ‘Johnny’. 

“No I didn’t,” said ‘Johnny’.

“Well, I’m out of ideas,” I said, scratching my brow and furrowing my brow and wincing at the sudden pain in my brow.  “Any thoughts on what we do next?”

BANG.

“Pardon?” I asked, looking up. 

“Let’s go to the hardware store for supplies,” suggested ‘Johnny’.  “Here, hold onto this gun and rub your fingerprints all over it; seems like a clue to me.”
I caught it and burnt my palm rubbing my fingers all over the barrel.  This job was hell. 

***

“Shovels,” said ‘Johnny’.

“Check.”
“Tarps.”
“Check.”
“Gallons and gallons and gallons of acid.”
I sneezed violently and dropped everything. 

“Aw no, boss.”
“Sorry,” I said.  “I’m allergic to acid.  That’s why I never clean the office.”
“Tactical thinking,” said ‘Johnny’ thoughtfully.  “Boss, do you have your card on you?  I’m temporarily unflush with cash.”
“No.”
“Cash?”

“No.”
“Boss, you got your wallet on you at all?”
“I left it behind when I was investigating at the bar, ‘Johnny’,” I said severely.  “Stop questioning my methods.  I definitely did that on purpose for good reasons which I’ll make up later when I’ve got more time to think and aren’t as sloshed on milk.”
“Ah,” said ‘Johnny’.  “Good thinkin’, boss.”
“I think he bought it,” I said.  “Listen, you’re a pretty convincing guy.  Can you ask the cashier to give us a loan?”
“Sure thing, boss,” said ‘Johnny’, straightening his shirt and unsheathing the evidence knife.  “I’ll be right back.  In the meantime, take all this stuff to the car: it’s vitally important to finding our next clue out in the middle of the desert, miles away from the nearest road.”

“Sure thing,” I said. “Just give me a minute to pick up all these gallons and gallons and gallons of acid.”

“They got carts, boss.”
“Shut up, ‘Johnny’.”

***

It was a beautiful night.  With my neck craned back I could count every star in the sky as they sprinkled cold light down on me like a thousand demon’s blessings, embraced in the grip of the eternal darkness that we all come from and all go back to.

“Boss?”
“Sorry, ‘Johnny’,” I said.  “I was busy with my neck craned back so I could count every star in the sky as they sprinkled cold light down on me like a thousand demon’s blessings, embraced in the grip of the eternal darkness that we all come from and all go back to.”
“Seems a bit trite, boss,” said ‘Johnny’.

“Go fuck yourself Doesmurders, what the hell you know about literature?”
“Not much,” ‘Johnny’ admitted.  “I’m more of a visual arts guy.  But speaking of, mind watching the road a little more closely?”

“Oh yeah,” I said.  Christ almighty, where WAS the road?  “Christ almighty, where IS the road?  I didn’t mean to say that, ignore it, ignore it, ignore it.  Shit.  Damn.  Shoot.”
“It’s near the pillar of smoke back thataways, boss,” said ‘Johnny’.  “Or you can just follow the trail of dismembered cacti and flattened roadrunners.”

“I used to love that cartoon,” I said wistfully.  “It reminds me of the old times, when I was youthful and innocent.”
“I know what you mean,” said ‘Johnny’.  “Actually, don’t bother going back to the road, boss.  I know where the crime scene is.”
“Wow,” I said, impressed.  “And we weren’t even looking for it!”
“Yeah!  It’ll be up ahead behind that big rock in about thirty minutes.”

***

“Is it here yet?”
“No,” said ‘Johnny’.

“Is it here yet?”
“No.”
“Is it here yet?”
“No.”

I pouted.  I was really tired; digging holes is a lot of work.  You have to bend your back over and over and over and hold a shovel right way up and everything.

“Okay, that’s probably deep enough,” said ‘Johnny’, measuring the pit with a squinted eyeball and some ambiguous hand movements.  “I reckon we’re ready for the crime now.”

“Great,” I said.  “Good thing we brought all these gallons and gallons and gallons of acid to tidy it up.  Help me out of this pit?”
“Nah, just wait in there for a second.  It’s the perfect spot.”

“Does fit me real well, doesn’t it?” I marvelled. 

“There is something I gotta tell you though, boss,” said ‘Johnny’, carefully unsheathing his knife, unholstering his gun, unholstering his other gun, and clutching all of them in both hands and his teeth. 

“‘Johnny’,” I said, wiping my brow with one hand, “we’re true pals.  You can tell me anything at all.  Get a load off your chest.”
“I, ‘Johnny’ Doesmurders am secretly, unbelievably, mind-bogglingly, unexpectedly… THE MURDERKILLER!”

Thunder rolled dramatically through my mind. 

“Oh,” I said.  “Wow.  Woah.  Gosh.  Gee.  Golly.  Damn.  Shit.  Shoot.  Gosh.”
“You said ‘gosh’ already, boss,” said ‘Johnny.’

“Thanks a ton.  Well, that explains more than it don’t.  Whaddaya want for dinner?”

‘Johnny’ gaped at me like a failed flounder.  “But… but… I’m the Murderkiller!” he sputtered.  “I’ve lied to you and systemically deceived you for years, boss!  I’ve murdered and killed everyone and everything that ever came close to you!  I’ve played you like a fiddle, a violin, a viola, and a cello all at once!  Don’t you CARE?”

“Well, it hurts a bit I figure,” I said.  “But you’re my pal, so I’ll overlook that.  And besides, that just explains why you’re always doing murdering and killing, and I like those things.  Hell, you sure have given me a lot of excuses to get some of my own done!  Now I can get some hot tips from the best.”
‘Johnny’ Doesmurders stared down at me with something bigger than awe.  “Gosh, boss,” he said.  “I thought it was me playing you for a sap, when all along it was the other way ‘round.”
“It’s no problem at all, ‘Johnny,’” I said.  “Now pull me outta this hole and let’s go home and order in!  You can murderkill the delivery guy after if you’d like.  I’d love to watch.”