Dead in the Water_A Space Team Universe Novel Read online

Eventually, Dan sighed through his nose. “He’s not coming out.”

  “Give him a blast o’ the horn,” Artur suggested.

  Dan shook his head and pressed the car horn. It emitted a single disappointing parp that barely registered as audible. “No use,” he said. He opened the door. “I’m going in.”

  “Ye’re not!” Artur gasped. “Are ye?”

  “Got to. If he isn’t coming out, I’m going in,” Dan said. “You coming?”

  “Shoite, no. Not if ye paid me,” Artur said. “Well, I mean, it would depend how much, I suppose. How much are ye offering?”

  “I’m not,” said Dan.

  “Ah well, feck ye, then,” Artur replied, folding his arms across his chest. “Ye’re on yer own.”

  “I’ll come,” said Ollie.

  “No, you won’t,” replied Dan. He caught the look of disappointment on her face. “Trust me, I’m doing you a favor.”

  THE MOMENT DAN opened the door, a spring-loaded Loopy Lou puppet twoinged at him, its arms jiggling, its plastic mouth twisted up into a grin. Electric motors inside it whirred gently as its jaw flapped up and down.

  It was… what? Dan had no idea. Some sort of anthropomorphic animal? A member of some off-world species he’d never seen before? A half-assed attempt at a mascot kids would love, but which had inadvertently gone on to haunt their nightmares instead?

  Probably that last one, he thought. He’d never known kids to actually like the character, but they would generally sit there in a transfixed stupor as he paraded around for their – and Dan used the word very loosely – amusement.

  “W-w-w-welcome to Loopy Lou’s!” the puppet cried in a loud deliberate stutter. A few notes of utterly tuneless music blasted from some sort of speaker hidden beneath its colorful satin clothing and it began to sing. “Loopy-Loopy-Loopy-Loopy-Loo-pee Lou’s, it’s fun for me, and it’s fun for—”

  “Shut the fonk up,” Dan muttered, pushing past and leaving the thing singing at the empty doorway.

  Loopy Lou’s was even more depressing than he remembered, and he’d remembered it being practically suicide inducing. It was made up of three distinct sections – a soft play area where children could jump and climb without fear of smashing their heads open on the floor, a café where parents could sit and watch them, and a little stage where Loopy Lou himself would occasionally come out and ‘entertain’ the audience.

  It wasn’t the real Loopy Lou, of course – there was no such person. Instead, it was someone wearing a genuinely unsettling full-body costume and carrying an assortment of tediously predictable props.

  Hidden panels in the floor parped, honked, tinkled and made assorted other annoying sounds as Dan trudged across the scuffed vinyl floor to the café counter. A single individual sat behind it, bent double so their forehead rested on the glass countertop, not moving.

  Despite the fanfare of farts and whistles that had accompanied Dan’s arrival, the shriveled prune-faced man sat up with a start when Dan rapped his knuckles on the glass.

  “Whootcha?” he yelped, kung-fuing the air in front of him.

  There was a crash as he fell backward off his stool and disappeared out of sight. Dan flicked his eyes around the place while waiting for the guy to reappear.

  It was hard to pinpoint what, precisely, was the problem with any given branch of Loopy Lou’s. It wasn’t that there was one single thing that made the places so bleak, but rather a multitude of little things, from the cracked mirrors on the café walls to the cordoned off sections of the soft play area where Tribunal ‘Do Not Cross’ tape delineated the boundaries of various major incidents.

  Generally speaking, patches of damp would have been painted over multiple times, before eventually being left to do their worst. Half the lights wouldn’t be working, and those that were would emit an annoying buzz that was loud enough to hear, but quiet enough to make you doubt if it was all in your imagination.

  Music was piped in constantly through tinny speakers that vibrated unpleasantly on all the bass notes – the same tune looped over and over and over again.

  And then there were the characters.

  Loopy Lou was the main one, of course – a grinning, goggle-eyed whatever-the-fonk who wore a vibrantly yellow t-shirt on his top half, and nothing whatsoever on his bottom half. This, in itself, wasn’t unusual. Dan had seen plenty of cartoon characters who wore a similar get-up. The difference was, someone somewhere had decided that Loopy Lou should be anatomically correct. And generously anatomically correct, at that.

  Given the age of the clientele, this was a mistake, Dan reckoned. He also noted that none of the other characters had any genitals to speak of, but chose not to get bogged down in the psychology of it.

  Limp, glassy-eyed mannequins of them all were tied high on the walls around the place, displayed like the contents of a serial killer’s trophy cabinet.

  Dan faced front as the prune-faced man clambered to his feet. Despite the wrinkles, his voice suggested he was young. It also suggested he was terrified.

  “W-welcome to… to…”

  “Loopy Lou’s,” Dan finished for him.

  “Huh? Right! Welcome to L-Loopy Lou’s,” he said in a high-pitched nasal whine. “Um… What do…? How can…?”

  He sort of gave up at that point and just shrugged. “There’s no money in the register,” he said. He raised his hands. “Please d-don’t kill me.”

  “I ain’t here to rob you, kid,” Dan said. “I’m looking for Finn.”

  Prune-face kept his hands up. “Finn?”

  “Tall guy. Tanned. Says ‘brah’ a lot, though I have no idea why.”

  “Are… are you going to hurt him?”

  “Not deliberately,” Dan said. “Is he here?”

  “I… I don’t… I mean…”

  “Hey! Dead dude!”

  “Guess he is,” said Dan, not yet turning. “Put your hands down, kid.”

  Prune-face looked at his hands as if only now realizing they were raised. He let them flop to his sides and sat down as Finn shambled over to join them. He wore four-fifths of a Loopy Lou costume – legs, body, arms and furry genitalia – and carried a head under one arm. He grinned at Dan as if seeing a long-lost friend for the first time in years.

  “Hey, brah! Good to see you. What brings you here?”

  A frown briefly troubled Dan’s brow. “We were going to do that thing.”

  Finn saw Dan’s frown and raised it. “What thing?”

  “You know. You were going to take me to see your boss.”

  Finn pointed to the floor with a fluffy finger. “Of this place?” he asked, then the memory popped back in there. “Oh! You mean Krato.”

  Dan glanced back at Prune-face, but the kid had obviously concluded none of this was anything to do with him and had returned to his forehead-on-counter position.

  “Not so loud,” Dan warned Finn. “But yes.”

  Finn shook his head. “Sorry, brah, I can’t. Got a show.”

  Dan looked around at the empty space. “A show? For who?”

  “Got a birthday party coming in.”

  “Here?” said Dan. “There’s a birthday party coming here?”

  “I know, brah. Crazy, right?” Finn said, breaking into that easy grin of his. “It’s for a family of, like, Noogins or Snoobins or whatever. Puffy white guys. Heavy into irony. They can’t get enough of this place.”

  “Damn it,” Dan muttered. He knew asking the kid to skip out on work would be signing his death warrant. The Tribunal didn’t mess around when it came to the city’s workforce taking unauthorized time off. And since holidays and sick days were outlawed, all time off was unauthorized.

  “Fine. Then just give me the address,” Dan said.

  “No can do, brah,” Finn said. “I never had it. I’ve only seen the place once, so I can’t even draw you a map. But I know how to get to it.” He shrugged, although it was hard to see it beneath the padded shoulders. If it hadn’t been for the suddenly penduluming penis, Dan wo
uldn’t even have been aware of the movement. “I can take you when I’m done.”

  Dan sighed. “And how long will that be?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know… Two hours?”

  It was not the news Dan had wanted to hear. Now the toilet monster had been taken care of, Krato was next on his list of priorities. He had been itching to get his hands on the mass-murdering fonk for days, and any delay was an unwelcome one.

  “Well, I guess I’ll just have to…” Dan began, then he stopped. “Wait. What do you have to do, exactly? For the show, I mean.”

  “Just, you know, sort of dance around,” Finn said, kicking one foot out a little and waving a hand at his side. “The head’s got, like, motors or robot parts or whatever. It’s synced up to the rest of the show, so it does most of the work for me.”

  Dan nodded slowly. He pointed to the suit. “And is it adjustable? Could it fit someone a foot smaller, say?”

  “Yeah. Oh yeah, totally, brah. There’s an adjustable dial inside that—”

  “OK, OK, I don’t need you to read me the instruction manual,” said Dan. “Take it off.”

  Finn looked down at himself. “But… the show?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Dan. A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “I’m going to get you a stand-in.”

  OLLIE STOOD in the headless Loopy Lou suit, idly flapping her big fluffy penis.

  “So, you know what to do?” Dan asked her.

  “Not really, no,” she admitted.

  Dan sighed. “Like Finn says, all you have to… Will you stop doing that?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Fiddling with that thing,” Dan said.

  “It’s fun,” Ollie said. “I’ve never had one of these before. What’s it for?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Is it a bell? The end bit looks like a bell.”

  Artur wheezed. He had been curled up on the floor wheezing for a while now, his beard sodden with laughter tears, his arms wrapped around himself as he attempted to stop his sides from splitting.

  “A bell!” he shrieked, barely able to breathe. “A feckin’ bell!”

  “No, it’s not a…” Dan began, then he slapped Ollie’s hand away. “It’s not a bell. The point is, don’t touch it.”

  “It’s hard not to, brah,” Finn pointed out.

  “I know, right?!” laughed Ollie. She waggled the furry penis and made a sort of blimminy-blimminy-blim sound which almost killed Artur stone dead. Dan slapped her hand away again.

  “Cut it out!” he warned, then he shot a look to Finn. “Tell her what she has to do.”

  Finn stepped up in front of Ollie and smiled at her. As he did, several different expressions passed fleetingly across her face.

  “You’re tall,” she said.

  “Thanks. We haven’t really met properly. I’m Finn.”

  “Right. Yes. Finn. Good. Finn. Yes.”

  Ollie blushed slightly, cleared her throat a couple of times, then briefly went blimminy-blimminy-blim with her artificial penis, before concluding that it possibly wasn’t the right time.

  “Ha! Yeah, I do that all the time,” Finn said.

  Ollie looked pleased by this. “Isn’t it great? I mean, it’s just right there!”

  “Yeah! Great,” said Finn. He gazed at Ollie for a while. “Totally great,” he sighed, then he realized he’d said that part out loud and quickly glanced down.

  Dan’s eyes narrowed a little as he looked between Ollie and Finn. Even with his limited detective skills, he couldn’t miss the goofy grins on both their faces.

  “Oh great. That’s all we need,” he grunted. “Just tell her what she has to do so we can get going.”

  Finn thought for a moment, then let his arms sag limply to his sides. His whole body flopped a little, like all tension had left it. “Just, like, do this.”

  Ollie sagged as best as she could inside the suit. “Like this?”

  “Beautiful!” Finn said, which made Ollie blush again. He picked the head up from the floor. “Just do that and you’ll be fine.”

  “What about the dancing?” Dan asked. “I thought she had to dance?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Finn said, easing the Loopy Loud headpiece over Ollie’s own head. “The electric shocks do that for you.”

  Ollie’s voice came muffled from beneath the mask. “Wait, what?” she asked, then a jolt of electricity surged through her, making her arms and legs flap, and spinning her into a twirl.

  “See?” said Finn. “Takes care of itself. The kids love it. Well, they don’t love it, but they can’t stop watching. It’s… what do you call it?”

  “Horrifying?” Dan guessed.

  “Hypnotic,” said Finn.

  Ollie spasmed and Artur erupted into laughter again. “Oh… Oh, shoite. That’s priceless,” he said, watching Ollie jerk around helplessly. “That’s the greatest thing I have ever seen in me life.”

  “Does it hurt?” Dan asked.

  Finn shook his head. “No, brah. I mean, not really. It’s unpleasant, but that’s all. Although one time it did make me wet myself. But only, like, a cupful.”

  Dan lifted the headpiece off a little and Ollie’s jerking stopped. “You OK in there?”

  “Are you kidding?” she asked. “That was awesome! Put the head back on.”

  Dan glanced back at Finn, and both men shrugged. “Fair enough.”

  “Once the kids arrive, you can’t take it off, OK? Don’t want to spoil the magic for them,” Finn said. “They all love it.”

  “Magic my arse,” Artur snorted. “Ye mean ye don’t want anyone reporting to yer boss that it’s not you in the suit, or ye’ll get fired.”

  “That, too,” Finn confirmed.

  The headpiece clicked into place at the neck. There was a muffled, “Whoa!” as Ollie flapped and flailed around again.

  “Looks like she’ll be fine,” Dan said. He motioned in the direction of the door. “Now, lead the way. With any luck, I can get this scumbag put down by lunchtime.”

  “Aye, and if there’s one thing we’re renowned for, it’s our luck. Right, Deadman?” asked Artur, wiping away his laughter tears on the billowing sleeve of his cream satin blouse.

  Dan grunted. “Got to be a first time for everything,” he said. Then, with Ollie flapping and twirling behind him, he honked, brrringed and whooped his way to the door.

  TEN

  DAN AND FINN stood on a rooftop in one of the more upmarket sectors of Down Here, peering into a window of what appeared to be a bog-standard apartment block standing on the opposite side of the pedestrianized street.

  They were eight stories up, which afforded Dan a decent view of the streets immediately surrounding the apartments. From this height it was also possible to watch dozens of cargo ships ascending and descending between Down Here and the floating cities of Up There. That was where the real wealth was. Even relatively decadent Down Here areas like this one, where the cars were all under six years old and the walls were mostly free of obscenities, were considered ghetto-like by those living above.

  Dan had left the Exodus parked a few blocks away so as not to draw too much attention. The car wasn’t quite old and broken down enough to be noteworthy in most of the other sectors, but it’d stand out like a sore thumb here. A sore diseased thumb. With failing brakes and a shizzy engine.

  Finn looked the building up and down, then gazed along the street in both directions. “I think… I think that’s it,” he said.

  “That’s it,” Dan confirmed.

  Artur, who was nestled in Dan’s breast coat pocket, frowned. “How d’ye know that?”

  “There are bars on the windows of the first three floors,” Dan pointed out. “And it’s the only building on this street with a guard stationed out front.”

  “Well, I never,” said Artur, almost sounding impressed. “Would ye look at that? Maybe ye’re not such a useless big bollocks, after all.”

  “I appreciate that.”


  “I said ‘maybe.’ Let’s not get too excited,” Artur said, then he puffed out his cheeks. “So, what’s the plan? Sneaking in the back door? Shimmying up the drainpipe and smashing through a window?”

  Dan reached into his coat and took Mindy from her holster. “Thought we might go noisy,” he said.

  Artur nodded appreciatively. “I like yer style, Deadman. But won’t that mean he knows we’re coming?”

  “Yeah, well.” Dan nodded. “Maybe I want him to know I’m coming.”

  “Whoa. So, you’re going to, like, kill him?” Finn asked.

  “Here’s hoping,” said Dan. “But first, I have to be sure he’s responsible.”

  “Yeah should probably just shoot him and be done with it, either way,” Artur suggested. “I mean, we know he’s a wrong ‘un, don’t we?”

  “I need to know I’ve got the person who killed all those people,” Dan said. “If it wasn’t him, it was someone else, and they’re not getting away with it.”

  Artur nodded. “This one really got to ye, didn’t it?”

  “Thirty-eight kids,” Dan said, not taking his eyes off the building across the street. “Twelve of them were in a damn toy shop.”

  “Oh wow, brah. That’s horrible.”

  “That’s your boss,” Dan said.

  “I told you, he’s not my boss! I did one…” Finn’s smooth forehead crinkled as he tried to recall precisely what he’d done. “I don’t know. Whatever it was. I don’t remember seeing any weapons, though, brah. Although, for some reason, I don’t actually remember very much.”

  “Hey, Deadman!” Artur said. “I think we’ve been made.”

  Dan’s head snapped down and saw the guard looking up. He was barking orders, presumably into some hidden microphone. There was a series of clangs from the upper floor of the apartment block as metal shutters slammed closed across the windows.

  “Fonk. They’re going into lockdown,” Dan realized. “Wait here, kid, and stay back from the edge. Artur, hold onto something.”

  “What? Why?” Artur asked, then he gasped as Dan stepped up onto the ledge. “Don’t ye fecking dare step off this—”

  The rest of the sentence was lost as it became a gurgled scream at the back of Artur’s throat. Dan plunged straight down the side of the building, his gun in his hand, his coat billowing out around him. It all looked very impressive, right up until the point he crunched against the ground, when it immediately became far less so.