Technobabel Read Free Page A

movement. I have to tell them I’m not dead, that they’ve made a mistake. I have to get out of here. I hear the doors of the van clunk open, and I can hear the men talking again. Weizack is saying something about the Urban Brawl game he lost some money on last night. His partner Riley just grunts in response to his ramblings.
    Rough hands lift me out of the back of the van, and I try to squirm or struggle inside the body bag to tell these two they’re not handling a corpse. I manage to flex my hands a bit, curling the fingers in to form fists, but I still can’t move my arms. The thought of Weizack and his chummer dropping me in fright and cracking my skull on whatever is under me if I move flashes briefly through my mind. I could end up needing a body bag for real then, but I have to try and make them aware of me.
    Then I hear a new voice speaking.
    "Is this him?" the voice asks, barely audible through the thick vinyl body bag. The sound of it is low and whispery.
    "Yeah, right where you said he would be," Weizack says, his voice gone flat and cold. The newcomer is obviously not a friend.
    "Let me see," the other whispers.
    I am lowered to the ground, and someone unzips the body bag. There is a rush of cool night air, and a foul stench assaults my nostrils. It is the smell of death and decay from the meat-wagon, but much worse and without the acidic tang of the disinfectant to cover it. The touch of the cool air and the terrible smell send another surge of adrenaline through my system, and I fight to move or see what is going on.
    "Good, good," the new voice whispers, and I shiver a bit at the sound. Did they see that? "He’s still in good shape, his aura is still bright and strong."
    A dry hand gently caresses my cheek and I nearly gag at the touch. It’s like the touch of a corpse. I can feel sharp nails like claws just barely grazing my skin.
    "Ah, fresh meat," the same voice whispers again with a sigh of pleasure, sending a whiff of hot, foul breath wafting across my face. Hearing those words, I regain some control over myself. My eyes snap open and I stare up into what looks like the face of death itself. The figure crouched above me is pale and hairless, with skin tinged the gray of the grave and drawn tight over his bones. Thin lips curl back in a cruel smile, exposing sharp teeth that remind me of a small, meat-eating animal. A narrow tongue of a darker shade of gray emerges to lick his lips like a man sitting down to a feast. His hands are bony claws tipped with sharp, rending nails, and his eyes are the worst of all. White and blind, they seem to focus on my face, and yet look past my flesh as if they were peering straight into my soul.
    "Good evening," the gray figure whispers to me, and I realize it is night, the dark sky covered with a gray shroud of clouds. I also realize neither my two "handlers" nor the creature crouching above me are surprised or shocked to see me awake. They know I’m not dead, and the implications break over me like a wave. If they knew I was alive the whole time, then I haven’t been taken for disposal like some kind of rubbish off the streets but for some other purpose. The ghoul’s comment about "fresh meat" comes to mind and I shudder again and try to move. My limbs jerk spasmodically this time, causing the creature to stop smiling and back away a bit, even as he waves the two handlers in closer.
    "No, no," he whispers in his low voice, "don’t try to move. You’ll be better off if you stay still. We wouldn’t want you to injure yourself." His words are intended to sound comforting, but they only make my skin crawl. I look up at his pinched, gray face and his sightless eyes and see no pity or sympathy there.
    "Bring him," he tells the two handlers. "You can come back for the rest later. It’s not like they’re going anywhere." Chuckling a wheezing laugh at his own joke, the creature turns and moves off as the handlers each grab one of my arms and lift me up. I notice that