From: jgoodric@dante.nmsu.edu (GOODRICH)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: Carnivore 1/3
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:04:36 GMT
Organization: New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM


             Carnivore 1/3
      Copyright 1992 by John Goodrich
    Characters portrayed in this story may
       or may not live down your street.

    The day had that hot, humid, dead August feel to it.  
Polluted air sweated from the pores of the urban sprawl, 
creating an all- pervading haze that filled lungs and bodies 
with the excreted filth of innumerable factories.  While 
thousands of air conditioners strangled, only the wealthy 
could afford to have their names put on the top of the 
enormous repair lists.  The repair businesses were making a 
mint.  The rest of the city just lay festering in the filth 
and heat, praying for relief that didn't exist.  The only 
breezes moved the swollen air from one blistering Hell to 
another.  Infrequent rains steamed off the sticky asphalt, 
clotting the air with reeking clouds of vapor.  The city was 
restless.  Human vermin crawled from one place to another 
seeking shelter from the oppressive heat and pollution.  
Desperate men and women were willing to kill for the 
privilege of a few breaths of cool air. The murder rate 
skyrocketed.
     	Kiv walked into Slammer's Gym.  He seldom entered 
any of the local exercise emporiums; the smell of 
perspiration made him queasy.  He passed a few bucks over 
front counter, and explained that he was looking for the 
owner.  After getting his directions, he entered the primary 
training area.  The stifling heat and pervasive perspiration 
made the sweatshop stink like a week-old carcass.  Trying 
not to breathe too much, Kiv walked down the center of two 
rows of sweating, pumping women and men.  Perspiration 
rolled down faces and chests, gleaming in the dim 
fluorescent lights. Metal weights clanked, giving him the 
impression of an enormous engine that used bodybuilders for 
pistons.  Somewhere in the blinding reek was the man called 
Damage.     
	Spying his intended target, Kiv walked up to a man 
with biceps the size of Kiv's own thighs.  He was enormous, 
well over two meters tall, and massively built.  Damage 
wasn't so much a human being as a walking edifice. The giant 
was currently bench-pressing a hundred kilos in fast 
repetitions, eyes closed.  Kiv thought for a few seconds, 
wondering if the man was aware of him, then decided to 
announce himself.      
	"Yo maggot!" 
    	The clanking stopped, and heads were raised, 
wondering who was being spoken to.  After a few seconds, 
everyone was back to their endless labor, but the fleshy 
giant below Kiv didn't even open an eye.  
	"Kiv, you fucking rat, watchoo doin' here?"  The 
mountain of meat moved; waist-thick legs swung off the bench 
and planted themselves on the floor.  Damage stood, towering 
over Kiv, at least double the smaller man's mass.  A thick 
finger slammed into Kiv's chest.  "You fucking trash.  I 
told you never come here." The finger hammered into Kiv's 
sternum a second time.     
	With a snarl that was gone in the blink of an eye, 
Kiv tried to knock the offending finger aside.  It didn't 
move.  Suddenly angry, he grabbed the finger with both hands 
and tried to force the leather-sheathed paw down.  Damage's 
hand closed on both of Kiv's and flexed a set of muscles 
that belonged on a cape buffalo, and all three hands shot 
upwards.  Kiv's shoulders screamed as his body ascended half 
a meter and hung from the massive, outstretched arm.    
	 Kiv looked down at the face below his own.  For the 
first time, Kiv saw the fine network of hairline scars that 
flattened the right side of Damage's face.  It looked like 
he had been pressed with a hot frying pan.  The cheekbone 
had been smashed and badly reset, forming a flat plane 
between the side of the massive head to the face.  The scar 
tissue was a slight unhealthy gray that Kiv had always 
assumed was some omnipresent shadow.  The eye on the scarred 
side of the face was milky-white with a cataract, but the 
other was a deep, almost soulful brown.  Neither eye 
betrayed strain or anger, just calm and wariness.    
	"You and your fucking polymer bones." Kiv said in 
disgust.     
	Damage grinned something that passed for 
pleasantness and dropped Kiv, who landed catquiet on gray 
sneakers.  The clanks and grinding of men and women making 
repetitions filtered back into his consciousness; he hadn't 
realized they'd been gone.     
	Damage's office was sufficient, but dim, and 
spartan, but less oppressive then the main weight room.  
Whatever sunlight that fought its way through the 
omnipresent cloud layer was effectively stopped by the grime 
caking the window.  As Kiv sank into a naugahyde chair, his 
host took a seat behind the massive wooden desk.     
	"Hey Kiv, why you wearing a knife? You always pack a 
pistol." Damage had a deep, subbass voice that could 
outpower helicopters.  Kiv was afraid they'd be heard all 
the way down the weight room with its endlessly pumping 
pieces of meat.    
	 "The knife keeps you from looking for the pistol in 
my pocket."  Even in the tremendous heat, Kiv was wearing 
baggy, gray pants.  From a flapped thigh pocket, Kiv 
produced a small, chromed handgun slightly wider then a 
cigarette.  "Small, but effective."     
	The giant on the other side of the desk was 
apparently discomfited by the small handgun, and began to 
fidget.  Kiv concealed it again in his pocket.  Damage still 
didn't look happy.     
	"Watchoo here for, anyway?  You never show up unless 
you need somethin'." Damage's tone was sharp, and he still 
shifted uncomfortably behind his desk.  Kiv was getting 
nervous watching him.     
	"I need a spare hand on a small job."  Damage knew 
what kind of work Kiv did.    
	 Damage scowled, "Your standard?"     
	"Yeah."  There was some uncertainty in Damage's 
voice that Kiv couldn't place.  Damage was one of those rare 
people who was in a constant calm.  This strange edginess 
made Kiv very uneasy.  Wondering what boil might be under 
the surface, Kiv prodded. "What's your problem, never done 
the wet thing?"    
	 Damage started as if he'd sat on a wasp.  "I've 
killed," he slammed a hand on the desk, which threatened to 
collapse under the punishment.  "Shit, you're twisted.  You 
know everything, gonna take on the world with that edge of 
yours.  Get this straight, you little fuck, long after 
someone's put splattered you across the sidewalk I'll be 
here, helping someone just like you do the same thing.  Got 
it?  Trash like you comes and goes, but I'm here to stay."     
	Kiv rolled his eyes.  "Y'know, Damage, I hadn't 
pegged you as an old fossil, but I guess the age 
requirement's gone down.  You got any friends just like me 
who need some money?  Somebody who likes guns?"    
 	Damage elevated a thick middle finger as he stroked 
the stubble on his chin.  There was silence for a few 
heartbeats.  "Try Firedancer.  She likes your kind of 
pacifiers, hangs around the entertainment district.  Or the 
Vegetarian, he's probably mugging people in the park.  
There's Nikita, she likes big guns."    
	 Kiv frowned.  "Nikita's gone corporate.  I think 
she took a job with the French government," he grinned, and 
stood up. "Still, I owe you, you steroid-popping freak."     
Damage stood also, and grunted, "Don't die with it on your 
chest."    
	"Ape," Kiv jabbed, retreating toward the door.     
	"Cat molester!" Damage called when he was halfway 
down the corridor.  Kiv closed his eyes and walked on.     
Half a minute later, Kiv walked out of the gym and back into 
the wan sunlight.  The heat was still stifling, but at least 
the cloying reek of sweat left him after he got out of the 
gym itself.    
 
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