poured a measure of Jackogin into a metal beaker. Lulu slid coins across the bar.
Crossing his legs neatly, the ladyboy took a swig from the beaker, his Adam’s Apple bobbing. He cradled his drink between painted fingers. “Good thing you addressed that situation in the prison this afternoon. Herb might like to crown himself king pin, but outside the walls of Cyber Circus, he’s just a fat old man in an ugly hat.”
Hellequin stared into his beaker of liquor; the glossy surface showed the opposing rotations of the twin rings as his steel eye focused in. The lens dulled to an ember glow. “It’s what I was trained to do,” he said.
“That’s hardly accurate, is it?” Lulu waved a hand in front of his mouse eyes. “HawkEyes were created as look outs
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Really?” Lulu stared intently at Hellequin and his pious expression broke into a frown. “You’re teasing me.” His hurt was quickly replaced with resignation. “Keep your reasons stitched up inside then. I’ve no use for them. All I know is I feel a whole lot safer with a HawkEye to watch over us.”
“Nice to know someone does.” Hellequin sipped from his beaker.
“Oh, if you’re talking about Nim, she’s been sliced, diced and prettied up with wires, and still there’s not a soul in Humock can tame her.” Lulu got a far away stare. “In some ways, she’s even wilder than Rust.”
“Shame she hasn’t got Rust’s claws.”
“Yet despite your perceiving her as a creation of blown glass, she endures. And happily.” Lulu gestured past the soldier’s shoulder. Hellequin twisted around in his seat. The drinkers had parted to reveal Nim, perched on one of the large salt rocks that served as tables. She was talking with the Jeridian, Asenath. The women appeared to share a joke. Asenath laughed and Nim’s eyes filled with warmth.
Jealousy curled like a snake inside Hellequin’s gut. He chastised himself. Lulu was right. Nim had been sliced and diced and screwed with. Last thing she needed was another man making demands on her.
Lulu leant in. “Those two girls are having a good time. I bet that just eats you up inside, hmmm?” He gestured to Nim with his lace handkerchief. “Apart from the obvious, what is it that gets you so fired up about Miss Nim there?”
“They re-stitched her too.” The statement was unexpectedly honest.
Lulu’s tremulous eyes grew wide. “You’re drawn to her out of kinship? Oh my darling, Nim is never going to thank you for it. See, her...alterations.” Lulu chose the word with care. “...were none consensual. And what do you know about Nim, Hellequin, aside from her public face or the shrew who shoos you from her dressing room? Do you know she was nine when she got sold into D’Angelus’s whorehouse, or that it was a soldier who had snatched her from her parents’ farm and tired of her days later, or that the reason she was chosen for the surgery was because she’s part Jeridian? They heal better,” Lulu supplied in answer to Hellequin’s silent enquiry. He smiled sympathetically. “She’s unusual. Most times Jeridian genes don’t mix outside their own, but now and then, a Pinkie is made. That soft pink sparkle skin of hers, it’s not down to synthetic light fibres alone. And the eyes, Hellequin. Those beautiful red teardrops? Jeridian-made.”
“And you’d know this how?” Hellequin watched Nim place a hand against her neck as she smiled, almost as if she was afraid to let the happiness out.
“I was Nim’s valet for a while.” Lulu danced a fingertip around the rim of his beaker, allowing Hellequin time to absorb the fact. Not that it made anything except sense to hear that Nim and Lulu had once been connected so intimately, thought the HawkEye, raking a hand through his hair. He’d knowledge enough of brothels to know top earning girls were cared for at both a mercantile and medicinal level by ladyboys – individuals who posed no threat to the girls sexually and who came in handy as an additional resource for customers with a more eclectic palette. But why had Lulu kept the information secret until now?
“You noticed my absence when D’Angelus came knocking. Yes, I’m not the bravest of souls in a fight. Using one’s fists can be very wearing on the nails.” The ladyboy held up his painted talons to the gaslight. His lips trembled. “I’m nothing to D’Angelus – unlike Nim, he didn’t notice if I lived or perished – but if Herb knew about me and Nim...” Lulu patted his moist eyes with his handkerchief. “I can hear Herb now. ‘Too much baggage. Too much of D’Angelus’s property stowed aboard.’”
“So you follow Nim around like botfly larva,” said Hellequin harshly. His eye piece zoomed in on a bob of swallowed salvia in Lulu’s throat. Fresh hurt.
Lulu stared over at Nim. “It’s hard not to,” he said softly.
Hellequin telescoped in on the soft pink light at Nim’s bare shoulder. “Want to know why I fight for every member of this circus?”
Lulu didn’t answer, perhaps afraid to interrupt the confession.
“Because the Zen monks say there’s not a sin the Saints can’t forgive.”
The admission clearly disappointed the ladyboy.
“You don’t think Religion sits well as my motivation? You’re right.” The twin bone ridges protruded at Hellequin’s brow. “The Zen monks say that, but it isn’t true. My sin
Lulu flicked his white gold dreads. “Yes, in so far as you didn’t lose your sight on purpose. It’s common knowledge the HawkEyes were gifted soldiers who’d developed tumours or got wounded out on field. You lot were given the choice to go blind, or carry a face full of metal and see. See better than almost every other living creature it turned out.” The ladyboy frowned. “I feel for you, honey, I do. HawkEyes helped stamp out Soul Food. When farmers were blindsided by the crop yield, your kind saw through to its rotten roots. Literally as I understand it.”
Images played across the inside of Hellequin’s reengineered retina. Weevils, billions of them, invisible to the naked eye. Masticating Soul Food at a macular level. Transmogrifying the plant feed into poison.
Lulu continued talking. “HawkEyes opened our eyes to the truth then tried to stop us killing each other when the civil war broke out. For that, me...” Lulu circled his hand to indicate the others in the bar. “...we, are eternally grateful. But, my darling, you did choose this lifestyle, and yes, only the Saints know why...”
Hellequin brought his cyborgian face close to the ladyboy’s. “Most soldiers did have a sight fault. But that’s not my story. My choice, if it can be called such, was to undergo the procedure or face being court-martialled.”
Lulu got the same tight-eyed look he’d had when slapping Pig Heart the previous evening, and Hellequin clammed up. Why risk his livelihood, the canvas over his head, his proximity to Nim by sharing any more information? But then he stared across the room and saw a flicker of neon at Nim’s forehead. The short circuit barely registered with her and she continued to share her laughter with Asenath. She had a life aside from the modifications fostered on her, and that’s what he wanted too.
The metal mass dominating his features, draining any true emotion from them, he confided, “My family owned Soul Food Farm. We flew over what was left of it this morning.”
Lulu’s mouth slackened. His painted gaze darted off to the corners of the bar. “Jeepers, Hellequin! That old skeleton? By the Saints, your kin have a lot of blood on their hands.”
Hellequin let the machine in him lead the conversation. “My dad was the biological engineer responsible for splicing the genes that gave us Soul Food – or for poisoning the land as it turned out. I had no interest in the family business. I was a tactician, got a passion for military hardware, skills which led me to sign up to the Humock Guard. My father stuck by his farming methods. I stuck by my unit. Then I got wind of the intention to blitz the farms that had spread the diseased stock, Soul Food Farm being top of the list.” The amber lens burned liquidly. “I guess you’re right. I did have a choice at that stage. I chose to go against my country and warn my family. And it did buy them a little time. But not enough to protect their land long term against the Humock Guard, against me.”
“You took down your own family?” Lulu shuffled in his seat.
Hellequin experienced an echo of the pain he’d felt when ordering his men inside the boundary fence. It prickled his conscience, but only faintly. “By then, I’d already been hauled up before my superiors. There was no other way for my family to have prepared against previous assault attempts as they had without my feeding them data from the Humock Guard base. I received an ultimatum – give an eye or face being court marshalled and most likely shot by firing squad.” He focused on the ladyboy, the concentric rings of his HawkEye whirring as they rotated.
“Two weeks later, I gave my first order as a HawkEye. From my lung basket, I saw a chink in the barricades
