TO LIVE AND DIE FOR T.K.

PROLOGUE

i

THE WRITER leaves The Tevun Krus Times Building in a storm of drunken, drugged-up bravado. While shrugging into his leather jacket covered in metal-band-logo patches, he throws open the building's double doors, hitting a couple Editors coming back from their lunchtime recharge. They go spinning, do cartwheels and flips, fall into a nearby puddle and short circuit. The writer turns around, just as his boss comes out to beg for his forgiveness.

"And another thing," the writer says, taking a few seconds to whip out a crack pipe and fire it up. "I expect a raise. I'm the only thing keeping this shithole afloat, so if you want me to stay, I need a pay raise of, oh, let's say another hundred grand per day." He grins devilishly. One eyebrow raises. "Or I can just start my own magazine of kick-ass stories and run you knobs out of town. Your choice, grandma." Finished with his crack, he chucks the pipe at the pair of broken-down Editor-bots currently having seizures in the shallow pool of water. "You fuckers need me like I need a whore and some cocaine."

"Yes, yes," the writer's boss says pitifully. "Whatever you say, mate. We'll do anything for you, Hot-Shot! After all, you are our star! And you're right. We need you." He goes to his knees in another puddle, soaking himself to his crotch. "Will you please fuckin' stay?" He puts his hands together, raises them to just below his chin, a universal plea for help. "Pleeease?"

The writer smirks on one side of his mouth, showing off that one dimple which gets him both free girls and free drugs. He puckers his lips, like how he does in the magazine photo-ops. Relishing the moment, he pulls out a bottle of cheap warm beer he had stashed inside his jacket for exactly this kind of moment. He takes his sweet time in twisting the cap off. Relishes it. Raises the bottle to the sky, as if toasting the world for his own success and egocentricity. He chugs it, embracing the taste of foamy piss all bad beer has, wipes his mouth with satisfaction. Looking up at his boss, who's now soaked up to his nipples, he says: "I'll think about it."

"Th-Thank you," the boss whimpers, before being struck by the empty beer bottle.

The writer takes off, hops into his overly expensive convertible, hits a few buttons on the dash to call up his main side-girl. He gets the car going and screeches out of the illegal parking zone, making sure to leave a wicked skid the road crew'll never remove. On the back of the car, his custom licence plate can be seen: HOT-SHT, meaning either Hot-Shot or Hot-Shit; both applicable.

Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, sitting lazily because he's super-buzzed, his main side-girl finally picks up. "Yo, baby, get your legs open, 'cause Daddy's comin' to fool around with your three holes. Hell, maybe I'll find a way to give you a fourth, too." He hangs up before she can reply, not that he cares what she has to say.

Driving way above the speed limit, the writer pounds his horn, throws fingers every which way, and curses at people jumping out of his car's path. Not looking where he's going, he tugs open the compartment between the two front seats, rooting around for his cocaine. He tears open a baggie and dumps some powder along his forefinger. He snorts the line, sniffing and making faces. "Fuck! I think that was my powdered 'shrooms!" He shrugs and dumps the rest of the baggie's contents into his mouth, pulls out a can of beer from the glove box to wash it all down with.

He sees his main side-girl waiting outside her apartment. He pulls up and narrowly misses a homeless man, scaring the guy awake. "Get in the fuckin' car, babe."

Daintily, she hops in, augmented breasts and butt bouncing.

"Hey, give this to that poor guy there." He stuffs a wad of cash into her hands, along with a fun-bag containing a whole rainbow of illicit narcotics. Charity was close to his heart.

"Ew, I'm not touching him!"

"Where's your sense of social support, babe? Give him the goods. He looks like he could use a chemically induced lift to help him get back on his feet."

"Screw you!"

The writer grabs her by the throat, menacingly breathes bad breath into her face and takes her ear between his teeth. "Do it..." Nibbles.

"Ow!"

"Do it!"

"Okay! Okay!" She tosses the cash and drugs into the homeless man's lap.

They take off. The homeless man waves in appreciation before checking out what Santa brought him.

"I'm so hungry, I could eat you out," the writer says, honking his horn at an old lady attempting to legally cross the street. She doesn't move in time and he runs her down, biting his lip and breathing heavily when he feels the ba-bump of her corpse beneath his wheels. He pulls into WattPad Bad Food—We Make Crap! "But I'll grab some crap first, and then have the fine dining after." He wiggles his eyebrows at his main side-girl, then gives his crack-hardened trouser snake a squeeze.

In the drive-thru, he shouts into the speaker: "Yeah, get me a Double WattCrap with cheese and bacon and all that other crap. And I want some fries, too, you little turd, so don't short me like you did last time I was here. And a soda, too." He turns to his woman. "Babe, whaddya want? Oh, fuck, I forgot. You can't think for yourself, so I'll tell you what you want." Back into the speaker: "Get the lady a foot-long WattWiener. That oughtta prepare her for dessert. Oh, on second thought, just get her a Watty—she looks like she could use a whole lotta nothin'."

He floors it to the first window. An advertisement for WattPad Janitorial Services—We Clean Our Own Crap!—is plastered to it, along with the numbers of all sorts of hookers and drug dealers looking for new customers. He tears off a few numbers and throws them in his jacket pocket. Can never have enough dealers and skank-ass ho's. Drums his fingers on the steering wheel. Chugs another beer. "Come on, what the fuck is the wait!?"

The second window opens and an android looks out, waves him to come forward. He floors it to the second window, screeching to a stop.

"Hi, welcome to WattPad Bad Food, where we make cra—"

"Shut up, 'droid. Give me my damn food. Here's the stinkin' money, 'droid. And here's a tip: Drop dead. Ahahahaha! Here's the punchline: You can't die of old age, freak! You're doomed to live forever, even after this planet is a barren, irradiated wasteland! Hahaha!"

The writer races off, burger in hand. Munching on fries. Slurping on a soda. The main side-girl sips on a Watty, a cup of melting crushed ice with clumps of pubic hair and other floor scrapings tossed inside for flavour.

His mansion is located on the purple prose–laden hills of Wyndixie Loch. Only the rich and famous can afford to live there. Actors and businessmen, mainly, though also high-rolling drug dealers. Only one other writer has ever resided in Wyndixie, but they died years ago.

Screeching into his driveway, the writer kills the engine and stumbles into the mansion. He stops along the way to find the drug stashes hidden under rocks and mats, then he snorts them, eats them, swallows them and plugs them. His main side-girl follows, hiking up her skirt to leave her orifices readily available.

A day of drug-fuelled debauchery commences. One might even say it was an orgy, if one accepts the vivid hallucinations the writer saw as being applicable participants in said orgy, of course.

ii

THEN, COME nightfall: A mysterious figure approaches from the darkness. A machete in hand. They hear the forceful grunts and the gasps and moans of pleasure, the squirts and farts and sloshes of lubrication. Stepping closer. Seeing two figures engaged in sinful, carnal acts.

"Oh, hell yeah! Shove your finger deep in my ass!" the writer roars as he continues to piledrive his main side-girl.

The machete-wielding figure stops, confused by this revelation. For the woman is on her stomach, angled down from the couch to the floor, hands beside her head. No nearby fingers available to shove deep in asses.

Creeping around, so as to have a better look. And there is the culprit. A small robot designed purely for prostate stimulation. Mechanical finger wedged deep in the writer's crack.

Only one thing left to do.

They raise the machete.

1

THE TEVUN KRUS TIMES
Monday March 21, 2016
MIKE MARS, HOT-SHOT WRITER FOR TEVUN KRUS—RAPED, MUTILATED, MURDERED!

'NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER, EITHER,' SAYS ANDROID POLICE CHIEF THX 1138
by Rollie Nelson
The Tevun Krus Times staff writer

A precious moment of silence for the dearly departed, bloodily buggered Mike Mars...

Okay, moment's over—now let's get on with the fun!

---

ANGUS ECRIVAIN slammed the TK-reader to the floor and proceeded to dance across its shattered screen. He kicked pieces of the device around his office, working up a very normal amount of sweat in this latest tirade. He was sick to his stomach. Mike Mars! An asshole and an outright royal cunt: sure; a womanizer and a dope fiend: who wasn't?; but a damn good writer: definitely.

Dead.

Now who was gonna write fuckin' kickass stories for his fuckin' hit magazine?

Reflexively, he grabbed an e-cig from his keg. Took a satisfying drag—or what would have been a satisfying drag if the damned dystopian government hadn't replaced his smokes with these shitty, one-time-use vapes. The e-cig exploded with a loud pop. Black smoke came pouring out the tip. He quickly inhaled what he could, desperate to catch some kind of buzz, then tossed it.

He grabbed another. "You gotta smoke these fuckin' things 'til they explode just to get a little tingle in your pinkie." Angus tossed another exploded e-cig into the trash bin, which was already overflowing with that morning's exploded e-cigs.

And just yesterday he'd been worried Mike Mars was going to quit! Little punk made him beg. And now he was dead...

Growling in response to his thus-far horrid day, he hit the buzzer for his assistant.

Vera Elveloy took her sweet time answering his call. "You rang?" she asked, standing at his door.

"I did, yes. Ten minutes ago."

She nodded, not caring, then pointed at the bits and pieces of TK-reader scattered throughout the room. "You saw the news, I take it?"

Angus nodded grimly. He was now taking apart an e-cig to try and drain it of its liquid nicotine. Maybe he could drain a bunch of them and make a roll-up with bleached paper... Soak it in the liquid, smoke it... Somehow. Damn government banned lighters, too.

"We've got some applicants who want to fill the role, if you'd like to see them."

He looked up, eyes slitted. "Not even waiting for his ice-cold dong to be surgically reattached postmortem? Assuming they can find it, anyway..."

"Sorry," she said, "but we need his pages filled. He might've been a big smelly bag of douche, but, man, could he write up a storm."

"You're telling me. So... they any good?"

"The new applicants? Hell no to most of them, but there is one who caught my eye..."

"Send 'em in," Angus ordered. "And see if you can get Esteban to drain these fuckin' useless things." He gestured hopelessly to the keg of e-cigs.

2

CARL DANGLEBERRIES sat on the bench in the TK Times Building's lobby, sweating buckets from his armpits. He was here for a potential job interview, had submitted his story and was awaiting evaluation.

Man, this is intense, he thought to himself as he watched the secretary put down her phone, then order the janitor into screwing around with a kegful of e-cigarettes. And I can't believe Mike Mars is dead! The guy was a legend in short-story writing, and had earned himself a name as a bit of a bad boy, with his first-class taste for girls and guns, and a penchant for drugs.

The article the TK Times had put out that very morning on his death read like a horror story, or maybe a grisly mystery. The detectives involved were stumped, had no idea why the killer had decided it'd been necessary to chop off Mike Mars' balls and bat them around with a ping pong paddle—assuming the bloody paddle and the bloody table, and the bruised pair of balls beside, were anything to go by, of course. Such violence. Clearly someone who had a deep-seated hatred for the writer whose words were adored by so many. Jealousy? Maybe a rival? Or a jilted lover, perhaps? After all, the girl he'd been dating—one of a good many—had been killed as well, just as brutally; though she'd barely been mentioned in the article, just a one-sentence, oh-yeah-and-a-chick-was-offed-too sort of thing.

Carl shivered at the thought. He could only imagine the fear Mike Mars had been feeling at that moment, the pain. It was nauseating to think about. He set his TK-reader aside and figured a distraction was in order. There was a lot of action in this futuristic-looking building. The doors, aside from the front doors, slid open when they sensed your movements, like how they always were in sci-fi stories. Editor-bots plugged in to the building's mainframe to see what stories needed editing. Human writers went to and fro, always on the move. It was a wonder how they got any work done.

Speaking of work: his own story. Did they like it? It was about a guy living in a dystopian world centred around feces. Maybe a smidgen derivative of Mike Mars' own work; maybe a little phoned-in, but hey, what the hell, right? Carl was a huge fan of Mike Mars, maybe even his number-one fan. They'd called him in at dawn, after the news broke out of the brutal murder. And Carl hadn't seen anyone else there for the job, not when he'd arrived and not after, while he was waiting. That was good, right? He drummed his fingers on his knees, waiting for some kind of reassurance. The secretary seemed to be ignoring him. Not once did she look his way.

Maybe I should just walk out? he wondered—but then a woman with short, spiky blonde hair was marching his way. Her expression was unreadable. She stopped in front of the bench he was sitting on, her eyes wandered past him, down the otherwise-empty bench. Then back to him.

"Carl Dangleberries, I take it?"

"Y-Yes."

"G-Good," she said, and he felt his face redden in embarrassment. "Come this way. Angus will see you now."

Angus! Jesus Christ with a crowbar! Angus! If there was anyone who even came close to Mike Mars' legendary status, it was Angus Ecrivain, the founder of Tevun Krus, the world's greatest magazine and source of news. And I'm meeting him! Carl shouted inwardly. He read my work!

Carl followed the spiky-haired woman through the building, and then he realized it was none other than Vera Elveloy herself. She was a popular writer in her own right, and Angus' second-in-command. "So, um, Vera?"

"Yes, Carl?"

She said my name! He took a deep breath to centre himself. "Um, Vera, what— What did Angus think of my writing?"

"He hasn't read it." She spun around. "But I did. And it was pretty good. Not 'Mike Mars' good, but you could be close to his level one day, kid. So keep it up." She pointed to an empty, rounded space with a windowed wall on one side. The view outside showed a graffitied alley, and a drug dealer standing guard, looking for new customers. "His statue is going there, by the way." She nodded to herself and seemed to wipe a tear from her eye, then continued walking.

After heading up a few flights of auto-walking stairs, passing numerous quaint offices and cubicles, they finally arrived at the office of Angus Ecrivain. He was in the middle of yelling at his broken TK-reader, when Vera knocked on the wall beside the open door.

"Come the fuck in," Angus said, motioning. "I won't bite. Not unless you wear nicotine-scented perfume. Then I'll fuckin' devour you."

"Uh," Carl said, sitting down in the chair opposite Angus.

"Did I say sit the fuck down? No. Now stand the fuck up."

Carl jumped from the chair.

"Just fuckin' with ya, kid. Now sit the fuck down."

He hesitated, looked back and saw Vera was no longer standing at the door, then sat down again.

"So, Dangleberries... English, is it?"

"Actually, I think it's Welsh."

"Doesn't sound Welsh to me. Do you make it a habit of lying? Or are you just stupid?"

"Um."

"Just fuckin' with you, mate." Angus sighed, collapsed into his chair. "Been under a lot of stress as of late..."

"It's horrible," Carl said, trying to pay his respects.

Angus began to weep. His face reddened. His hair fell down over his eyes, but that didn't seem to be enough. He covered what remained with one large, hairy hand, sobbing hysterically in a way that made Carl quite uncomfortable.

"Angus...? I— I know it must be difficult with Mike Mars dead, all—"

"I need a fuckin' buzz!"

The janitor poked his head into the room. "Mr. Angus, sir." He came in with a stack of paper and a jar filled with clear yellow liquid. He placed both on the desk. "Your nicotine, sir. Drained and ready, sir."

"Oh, thank fuck," Angus said, rolling the sheet into an extra-long smoke. He licked the free end and stuck it in place, then dipped the whole thing into the jar. "You're a life-saver, Esteban."

Esteban smiled. "Thank you, Mr. Angus, sir. And, sir— Oh, no, it's not my place to say."

"No, what the fuck is it, Esteban?"

"I was going to say, sir—" The janitor looked around, seemed to study Carl carefully for a moment.

"Don't worry about him, mate. He ain't a bleedin' rat. And if he is, we'll let him wear a pair of cement shoes and take him on a scenic stroll downriver."

Esteban took out a lighter. "Please don't tell on me, sir. I could lose my job and my janitorial licence." He handed it to Angus. "It's all I have, sir."

"Esteban, I'm gonna name my fuckin' left nut after you, buddy." Angus sparked the lighter and his roll-up went up in flames. "Woooooh!" He puffed the cig, breathed it deep and even tried to catch the excess smoke coming off the lit end. "That's fuckin' better!"

Bowing and smiling, the janitor left the room.

"So, Carl, I understand you want to fill Mike Mars' space. Did you know his name wasn't even Mike Mars? His real name was Levi Yehuda Stienstein. I told him it looked too fuckin' Jewy, that the readers wouldn't read his writing 'cause they're a bunch of white-trash knobs, and he gladly changed it to something more Anglo-Saxon. That was the type of cunt old Mike Mars was. Gave it his all, no matter what it took, until his very last breath."

"I'm sure he did," Carl said.

Angus raised his eyebrows. "And what's that supposed to fuckin' mean? Eh?"

"N-Nothing. Just that he was a great writer, and I'm sure he lived life to the fullest, even to his unfortunate demise."

"Interesting choice of words there. Anywho, Vera says you're the best of the bunch, the most tasteful of the turds we've got, so welcome to the team, I guess. Your office is at the back, near the backed-up shitter. Mind the smell, won't you?"

Carl remained frozen in his seat. He felt his mind going fuzzy, felt a blackout might be on the way. He needed to take his medicine. That would be the first thing he'd do when he reached his office.

"Well, go on, get a move on, Carl. I want a story on my desk by tomorrow morning."

"Thank you, Angus, sir! I'll get right on it!" Carl Dangleberries left the office with a grin on his face. He jumped for joy and smoked his knee on a filing cabinet.

"That's the bloody cunt I just hired." Angus shook his head.

3

i

NANCY BLEW, the sole human detective for the city's police force, found an available spot in the parking lot of The Tevun Krus Times Building. Her robot counterparts were at a dead end with the investigation, totally stumped. The killer/rapist/mutilation-artist extraordinaire was good. Maybe too good. Their DNA had been found on the machete's hilt, but there were no known matches in the world's criminal databank. They had no leads that seemed even halfway decent. Her fellow detectives were saying it must be a woman, as Mike Mars was notorious for his all-encompassing, trashy taste in jealous, self-esteem-lacking girls. Only a woman scorned could have had the unrequited love–motivated bloodlust to commit such a brutal act, so the other detectives said.

But Nancy had different theories in mind.

She stepped out of the vehicle. It automatically locked and engaged its silent alarm—machine-gun turrets hidden in fifteen different places on the car's chassis—and made her way towards the entrance.

This was clearly the work of a psychotic colleague or envious wannabe. Nancy had a list of names: her suspects. All except one were employed by TK itself—the one exception was actually presently seeking employment...

She entered the building and showed her badge to the smiling, pigtailed secretary. "Detective Nancy Blew. I'm here to ask some questions regarding the death of Mike Mars. I need to see Angus Ecrivain, please."

The secretary's smile faltered. "I'm not sure he wishes to see you just now, Miss Blew. Mr. Ecrivain has been under a great deal of stress, and I'm afraid—"

Nancy yanked one of the secretary's pigtails, pulling the girl towards her. "Now you listen to me, missy. I am conducting an investigation, and if you or your superiors do anything to hinder said investigation—if you so much as fart when I'm in the same room—I will make your lives very, very miserable. I can promise you that."

"Y-You're hurting me..."

Nancy gave a final tug. "Good." She let go. "Now, tell Angus Ecrivain I'm here to see him."

The secretary pushed a button on her intercom. "Mr. Ecrivain, sir?"

A fuzzy voice replied: "The fuck is it, Wendy? I'm trying to have a wank here."

"Um, Detective Nancy Blew is here to see you, sir. She says it's about Mike Mars."

Out-of-breath puffing. A groan. The sound of a belt being buckled and a zipper being zipped. "Send her up immediately."

Nancy nodded and followed the signs. She found Angus in his office, puffing away on a roll-up with a six-inch-high flame on the end of it. If all this turned sour, at least she could bust him for the crime of smoking. "Angus Ecrivain?"

"The one and only, in the flesh." He stood to shake her hand. "What was your name again? Blow?"

"Blew. Nancy Blew."

"That's right! Aren't you the only human—"

"The only human detective, yes," she said impatiently. "Mr. Ecrivain—"

"Please, call me Angus, Miss Blew."

"Alright, Angus. Angus, I assume you know how this will go... The nature of my visit involves suspects, leads, and asking a hell of a lot of questions and making a hell of a lot more accusations."

He nodded and nearly caught his hair on fire. "Naturally."

"I think it's best if we gather every one of my suspects together. But first: Has a... Carl Dangleberries been in to see you?"

Angus raised an eyebrow. "Who, Dingdong? Yes. Matter of fact, I employed him not ten minutes ago."

"Really?" she said, surprised. "That makes my job easy. Do you make it a habit of replacing your staff less than twenty-four hours after their murder, Mr. Ecrivain?"

He shook his head and took a long drag off his smoke. "Angus, please. And, fuck no. But Mike Mars was a strange breed. Without him, who knows how long we'll last? We need to fuckin' try our damnedest. Dip a toe into the talent pool and see what bites. And it wasn't even my idea to hire so soon, you should fuckin' know, before you make wild accusations, Miss Blow—"

"Blew."

"Blew, Blow—it all involves the same sordid shit, whether you already did it or not." He sneered. "Anywho, my assistant Vera actually okayed Carl's application. She read his shit, and she told me we were already hiring for Mike Mars' unfortunate vacancy. So maybe—" He slammed the desk with his fists. "—just fuckin' maybe, you should be taking this shit up with her!"

Nancy nodded, slowly. "Quite a temper you've got on you, Angus. Zero to sixty in about point-four seconds. You could give a Ferrari a run for its money."

"Fuck off, princess." Another long drag. "In case you weren't aware, my magazine's hot-shot writer was found with his severed head shoved up his blood-lubricated arse. I think I'm entitled to a little swing of the mood, no?"

"Oh, but of course. My apologies. You said Vera wanted to fill in Mike Mars' role so soon? What a coincidence! She's also a suspect."

Angus smiled. "Then I suggest we hurry the fuck on and get to the bottom of this bloody nightmare."

Still not entirely convinced Angus wasn't the killer, Nancy said, "Then allow me to tell you the rest of my suspects."

"Super. We can gather everyone in here."

ii

POLICE BITCH.

Making trouble where you have no right to be.

Like the arrogant Mike Mars.

Asshole.

Dead asshole, now.

Maybe others will get a chance to shine under the spotlight.

Watch out, bitch.

You've got another thing coming...

4

SHE WENT around the offices, meeting her suspects and telling them where the interview was—she said interview, as opposed to interrogation; studies showed it kept suspects' guards down ninety percent better.

Vera Elveloy was easy to find, as her desk was just outside Angus' office. She was an attractive woman, dressed to impress, and Nancy naturally wondered if her and Angus were banging one another.

"Vera, I'm Detective Nancy Blew. We're doing an interview in Angus' office."

She scowled and looked up from her computer. "Is it mandatory? I'm sorta in the middle of this sexy romance bit."

"Did I say I was a detective? I did, didn't I."

With a sigh, Vera tapped out a few more words then stomped off into Angus' office. Bit of an attitude on that one.

Nancy snuck a peek at Vera's screen, looking for possible clues or psychological breadcrumbs—potential evidence of her character via her fictional writing.

With the anti-gravity in effect, Nathaniel went down—or rather, up—on Jason, and Eve watched while Indigo slid her tongue between Eve's bubble-shaped—

Oh god. Nancy shuddered away the mental images. Nothing of use in there; no over-the-top, fictitious murders involving a man named Mitch Mercury or Markie Venus. She eased the desk drawers open and sifted through the various crap within. Nothing jumped out at her, so she slid the drawers back in.

Rollie Nelson was next. He'd written the gruesome article on Mike Mars' murder, pumped it out fairly quickly, seemed to have taken an unhealthy interest in all the gory details when he'd visited the crime scene, too. And she thought the article read like he'd taken great pleasure in writing Mars' death. As if it had been something he'd longed for, dreamed of doing.

Nancy peeked into Rollie's office and saw it was completely dark, other than the sickly glow of the computer screen. She went in, flicked the switch on the wall and the sudden abundance of light in the room hit Rollie's face. He covered his eyes and hissed.

Rollie Nelson. Pale enough to wonder how well he was sleeping at night, now that Mike Mars was dead. His black hair hung across his forehead. He looked at her with a curled lip. He shrugged, shoulders slumped inside his black, see-through mesh shirt. He had a nose ring with a pentagram dangling from it. His ears were pierced with miniature bloody-edged daggers, little AK47s hanging from their hilts.

"What do you want?" he asked her.

"Rollie Nelson. We meet again."

"You just can't get enough of me," he muttered to himself.

"I could stand a little more of you if you showered regularly," she shot back.

He hissed, then looked away, beaten.

"There's a good little pet." Nancy took a moment to gloat. "Angus' office. Pronto. Got some questions for you."

"What's wrong with right here?" He gestured to his shadowy lair. Darkened pictures of naked ladies dressed head-to-vulva in S&M gear serenaded her from the walls. "Do I... scare you?"

"More like sicken me. Anyway, get a move on. Or I'll come back and crack open the blinds."

He hissed at her as she left. Creep.

Just Carl Dangleberries himself left. His office was the one that reeked like a toilet and lacked a name plate. She barged inside. "Hello, Carl—"

"Woah!" Pills went flying, scattering across the floor and the desk. A skinny little nerd juggled the empty pill bottle from palm to palm and failed at catching it. It, too, went flying. "Damn, my medicine," he said.

"Carl Dangleberries?" Nancy asked, as she bent down and retrieved the pill bottle. She couldn't help but read the label. An antipsychotic... Take twice daily, or whenever required.

Carl snatched it away, gave her a reproachful look. Maybe some worry in those eyes, too. "Yeah, that's me. Can you help me collect all my pills? I need them."

She nodded and quickly helped him gather his medication. "Carl, I understand you've just been hired."

"Y-Yeah, I'm lucky, I guess."

"Great timing, isn't it?"

"Oh, sure, I guess. I-I mean, Mike Mars had to die, so that sucks."

"Had to?"

He looked at her nervously, his lower lip trembled. "Well, I wouldn't be here if he was still alive..."

"You were a fan of his, weren't you?" She knew he was a huge fan. She'd read all the gushing letters he'd sent to Mike Mars—they'd been stashed in the murdered man's desk drawer, along with the rest of his fan-mail, every letter spattered liberally with Mike's own dried tears, so the chemical analysis suggested.

"Oh, yeah, was I ever!" Carl said, now animated. "My own writing obviously has a Mike Marsian influence. Hard not to, when he was just so good."

"So you'd say you're deeply moved by his death?"

He nodded once, eyes cast downward. Sighed. "The world lost a unique voice on that day..."

"Carl, I'm Detective Nancy Blew. I'm here to find out who killed Mike Mars. Some of your coworkers are meeting me in Angus' office. I'd like to ask you to come along."

"Okay, sure. Not sure how much help I'll be," he said, getting up. "But anything to avenge Mike Mars."

The pair of them went to meet the others.

5

i

A PRESENT for you, Police Bitch.

Delivered to your door.

Hope you like it.

Hope you choke on it.

ii

"SINCE MRS. Parish is away on maternity leave," Nancy started, eyeing her four suspects, "I feel confident enough leaving her out of the picture, unless she had her baby hanging on her breast for dear life while she hacked the man to pieces, then took the time to change the boy's diaper and freshly powder his smooth, soiled ass. The rest of you, I can think of a reason or two why you would kill Mike Mars..."

"Wait," Carl said, looking around, "we're suspects?" He started hyperventilating.

"Calm down, Carl."

He stopped.

"Good. Now, allow me to begin." Nancy paced back and forth, hands behind her back, shooting long, penetrating looks at each of the four. "Angus Ecrivain. We'll start with you."

The man compulsively lit-up another hand-rolled, bleached-paper-soaked-in-liquid-nicotine cigarette.

"Witnesses say Mike Mars threatened to quit yesterday, even going so far as to embarrass you in public, just outside the front doors of this very building. He demanded more money. He was later found quite dead." She stopped before Angus and stared into his bloodshot eyes. "Did you do it? You're obviously unhinged, the way you chain-smoke those illegal cigarettes. You're prone to mood-swings, sometimes violent ones." Nancy gestured to the remains of the broken TK-reader scattered about the floor.

"I didn't kill him," Angus said firmly.

"Maybe you had a psychotic episode and thought he was a zombie? You've been writing a lot of zombie stories lately, haven't you, Angus? Maybe you're too deep in your own world..."

"Piss off, Blow. I'm not a nutter."

She smirked. "Vera Elveloy."

The woman stared daggers at her.

"Sources say Mike Mars once tried to seduce you. You turned him down and he became more pushy."

"I gave him a swift kick to the nuts," she said. "Then broke his wrist. So what?"

Nancy nodded. She knew all this. "And I hear in retaliation, he sabotaged one of your stories, replacing all the romantic scenes with—and I quote—'Mike Mars' boner was here,' over and over again."

Vera's face reddened. "Nothing five minutes of my time couldn't fix."

"But the humiliation you felt lives on to this very day, doesn't it? And the rumours he spread about you two, as well. I believe he claims you preferred it up the—"

"SHUT UP!"

Nancy's eyebrows raised. "You've got a temper on you, too. Tsk-tsk." She stopped in front of Rollie, now. "Rollie Nelson. The way I hear it, you've been after Mike Mars' job for a few years now, isn't that right?"

He shrugged. "So?"

"Maybe now you'll get it... The increased fame and the increased pay. Awful convenient that he dies and you were the one to write his death story, no? Given your well-known low opinion of him, one sort of wonders why an individual so emotionally involved with him—in a negative manner, I might add—would be given such an opportunity to assassinate the character of Mike Mars."

"I dunno, not really."

"By the way, who okayed that, anyway? Did you let him write it, Angus?"

Angus shook his head no, looked to his assistant.

"I did," Vera said. Her eyes became slits and her smile was all teeth. "And he deserved it."

"Interesting," Nancy said. "A much-celebrated writer deserved to have his character ripped to shreds postmortem. He deserved to have lies spread about him now that he has no way of defending himself from said lies. And, yes, Rollie, I'm calling you out on your bullshit. There was no bag of shit found frozen in Mike Mars' freezer with an ice-cream scooper beside, nor was there a dwarf he paid to rub his feet while he received blowjobs from his personally trained Asian elephants." She let a moment of silence pass, then: "Rollie, did you know Mike Mars banged your sister?"

His jaw clenched, his nostrils flared. A faint hiss. But still he said nothing.

"And I hear even your mother clambered aboard his D-train..."

"MY MOTHER WAS A SAINT!" he exploded, tears flowing, fists swinging in a windmill motion but hitting nothing.

"That she was." She laughed. "I was merely testing your emotions. And you're quite volatile, too." Finally, Nancy stopped in front of Carl. "Carl Dangleberries. Mike Mars' number-one fan."

"That's right," he said, beaming. "I've got all of the limited-edition physical TK issues he was in, signed by him and stored in plastic wrap so they won't decay from exposure to the elements, and I even keep them locked inside a nice dark chest, because sunlight is bad news, too."

"How's this for a motivation to commit murder, Carl: You love Mike Mars so much, you want to be him. In fact, you roleplay as Mike Mars in your spare time, pretending to snort salt and pepper, miming the man's womanizing ways with your collection of blow-up dolls, touching yourself in the mirror as you dress up in dollar-store clothing that looks just like the clothes he wore."

"H-How did you know about that...?"

"I didn't," she said, "until you told me just now. Carl, do your employers know you take antipsychotic medication? Do they know that particular medicine is prescribed to people who experience blackouts where they often do things they have no recollection of doing? Sometimes violent things, like skinning cats or pushing old people in front of moving trains?"

His eyes were wide. He looked at the others. "I-I— No way! I'd never do that! C'mon, I loved Mike Mars! Never would I ever do that! Besides, I've got a much more likely theory. What if..." Carl started. "...And hear me out first— What if a character, or characters, from Mike Mars' stories somehow came to life and killed him?"

Angus snorted out smoke. "That's the sort of crazy bloody shit an escaped mental patient would spew. Somebody who's on antipsychotic medication, perhaps. I shan't name names."

Carl laughed awkwardly, then glared. Only Nancy seemed to notice.

"The fact of the matter is," Nancy said, sitting down on the edge of the desk, "all of you have reasons to kill Mike Mars." Now for the real bombshell. Her ace of spades. "And all of you have an item which belongs to you found at the scene of Mike Mars' murder."

6

"BULLSHIT! THERE wasn't anything like that!" Rollie roared.

"Not when you were around," Nancy said, calm and cool as a cucumber. "I purposely hid the items from sight when I saw you were the one who'd be writing the article. When I saw you marching up the driveway with a shit-eating grin on your face and a mysterious bulge at the front of your black skinny jeans."

"The fuck were they?" Angus asked.

"She's lying!" Rollie insisted.

"That doesn't really matter. And no, I can assure you I'm not lying. Either one of you placed the items at the crime scene, or two of you did, three of you... Hell, maybe even all of you."

Rollie shook his head, hissing repeatedly. "They got DNA off the machete! You can easily prove I wasn't the one!"

"That's right," Nancy said, nodding, taking out a portable device that tested blood. It was long, cylindrical like a finger. There was a slot at the front, a computer display on the back. "What you do is, you stick your finger in the hole. You'll feel a slight prick. And then it'll separate your white blood cells from the red, then compare the DNA found in your white blood cells to the DNA at the crime scene. If it's a match, you're my bad guy."

Angus lit-up another smoke. "And if not, you agree you can fuckin' blow me, Detective Blew?"

"You're on thin ice as it is, Ecrivain—what with that illegal cigarette and that illegal lighter. Don't tempt me, 'cause I will arrest you and give you a pleasant night in the slammer." Nancy held out the blood-test unit. "So, who's up first?"

The four of them couldn't come fast enough to prove they weren't the killer. She found that suspicious. Did they think her equipment was faulty? Was it a façade, an act to appear more innocent? Did they wear gloves and someone else's DNA was on that machete? Or maybe they actually were innocent. No... It had to be one of these four. Nancy was sure of it.

But yet, one by one, they each jammed their finger in and the display flashed red and read NO MATCH. She stood there, flabbergasted, looking up at the grinning people in the room. Time to save face. Play it cool, sister.

"This proves nothing, so wipe those damn grins off your faces. A man—your coworker or employee, or arch-nemesis, or life-long hero—died, and quite violently. His body was desecrated, so no damn smiling. An easy to way get around the DNA complication is to simply have worn gloves. The way I see it, you're all still my suspects."

The door slid open and a man poked his head into the room, smiling. He was carrying a box of doughnuts. "Special delivery, sirs and misses. A young lady just brought these for you all. She said she hopes you are all having a good time with whatever it is you are doing." He set the box down on the desk and grabbed a pink-frosted doughnut, then left.

"Mmm!" Carl said, grabbing one, too.

"Very suspicious."

Everyone else got their doughnut.

"Who was that man?" Nancy asked.

"Esteban, the janitor," Angus told her.

Vera nodded. "Very nice ma—"

Carl suddenly gagged and began foaming at the mouth. He dropped to the floor, writhing and twitching, eyes turning red and leaking bloody tears. Blood even came out his ears. Then, pushing through the thick foam in his mouth was a wet brown tube. Carl let out a few choked belches, filling the room with a revolting stench, then promptly died. His half-eaten doughnut sat beside him.

Everyone tossed aside their own half-eaten doughnuts.

"Did his fuckin' esophagus just come out of his fuckin' throat?" Angus asked, quickly rolling another cigarette.

Nancy put two fingers to Carl's neck, knowing there wasn't a pulse. Just a formality. Instinct. She took a deep breath and let it out in a huff.

"So, er, Dingdong's dead, eh? Vera, how good was the second-best person?"

"Not very," she told him.

"Oh, well. I guess we can have RD Burger fill in, in the meantime."

"Quick turnover at this place, it seems," Nancy said, standing up. "And what happened just now has pointed out the obvious to me, what I've been fighting this whole time."

"Yeah?" Rollie asked, his ear to Carl's chest and a hand down his own pants.

"None of you people are the killer. I bet that man, Esteban—he's the killer."

Vera shook her head. "Esteban donates his time off at Christmas to read to sick children at the hospital."

"And Mike Mars donated half of his salary each year to helping end homelessness," Nancy shot back. "But we can all agree he was still a prick."

The other three seemed to agree.

"So go arrest the bastard," Angus said.

"I need to have a little chat with him first. Can you call him in?"

He nodded and hit a button on his intercom. "Wendy, have Esteban come see me. Immediately."

"Yes, Mr. Ecrivain," the fuzzy voice replied.

Esteban came into the room a minute later. Smiling his dazzling smile. Damn that bastard. "Hello, sirs and misses. Were the doughnuts enjoyable? I quite liked mine." He looked down at the corpse that was Carl Dangleberries. "Oh, dear, it seems there's been a horrible tragedy."

Nancy wasn't buying the shitty acting job. She held out the blood-scanning device. "Esteban, I'm Detective Nancy Blew. I'd like for you to slide your finger into this. It will read your DNA through your blood."

"Certainly, Miss Blew." Esteban, still smiling, went to provide his finger for scanning—then, suddenly, he kicked Nancy between her legs.

She went down to her knees, gasping. He started running. "OW! I'm on my fucking period, you bastard! Stop, Esteban! You're under arrest!" She limped after him.

Rollie took off like a bat out of hell, gaining on Esteban as they passed the cubicles of lesser employees. He took a running leap, arching his left leg and pointing his right toe out, going for the flying samurai kick. He connected with Esteban's neck, bringing the janitor down, then he sat on him to keep him secured.

Nancy caught up, still limping and holding her crotch. The others in tow. "Thanks, Rollie. I misjudged you. You're not a creep."

"Whatever," he said. "God is dead." In a flash, he had a razor blade in his hands. He brought it to Esteban's neck and sliced across. Blood sprayed. He brought his lips to the flowing red fountain, and drank from it.

"Fuck, Rollie. I guess you still are a creep. Nietzsche would be proud."

Suddenly, Rollie started coughing. He wiped his mouth and saw black instead of red. Esteban was now bleeding motor oil! "He's a 'droid? Weird."

"Illegal android. Jesus, don't you people do background checks?"

Angus laughed. "Detective Blew, we're writers. If we did bloody background checks, I reckon this whole fuckin' place wouldn't even exist."

She nodded. "Damn heathens, you writers." She bent down and quickly jammed the blood-scanner around one of Esteban's fingers. It flashed green, MATCH. "Good thing I got that before he bled out completely."

Rollie had picked up the pricked finger. "There's still more in him?" He started sucking.

Nancy shook her head in disgust. "So I guess that solves that mystery," she said to the other two. "Shame about Carl. I suppose only one of the doughnuts was poisoned, and I was supposed to be the one to eat it."

Angus shrugged. "Eh, he seemed like trouble to me. We probably avoided a shooting spree."

"I better head over to Esteban's house. Check for anything that can give us some indication as to why he did what he did. Anyone want to come with?"

"Sure. I've got nothin' better to fuckin' do. Vera, hold the fort while I'm gone. And don't hire any more illegal-android janitors, please."

7

i

THEY WERE outside Esteban's shabby little hovel. It was in desperate need of repairs, with broken windows and what appeared to be bullet holes riddling various parts of the house's front side.

"Mike Mars was known to be rather 'droidist," Angus said as they went up to the front door.

Nancy sighed. "That he was. What with his staging anti-android rallies in the streets. But was that Esteban's only reason? How long exactly has Esteban been working for you?"

"Few years, I think." He rolled up another smoke.

She tried the door but it was locked, so she kicked it open instead. 'Droidroaches came scuttling out of the dimly lit home. She found a light switch and flicked it on. What they saw was eye-opening, to say the least.

The walls were lined floor-to-ceiling with pictures of Mike Mars that had been snipped from magazines. Large red X's had been drawn over each picture.

A map covered one of the windows, little red and green pins stuck here and there—totally random to Nancy, but there must've been some method to Esteban's madness; something to link those pins. Why were some red, and others green? They'd probably never know.

In the fridge they found a thawing bucket of ice, mostly water now. Floating in the water, purple head bobbing at the surface, was a severed penis—somehow still hard.

They went to search the rooms. The bathroom was spotless. The bedroom, however, was some kind of ritual site. Various issues of Tevun Krus had been stuck to the walls, each one turned to a different Mike Mars story. Angry red words had been slashed onto each one: LIAR, HACK, PHONED IT IN, TALENTLESS, VERMIN, etc.

"Chap was off his rocker," Angus noted.

And there at the desk was an old-fashioned typewriter. Sitting in the paper table was an unfinished manuscript, titled TO LIVE AND DIE FOR T.K. A wastebasket sat beside the desk, on the floor. Inside were crumpled balls of paper. Nancy fished one out. TO LIVE AND DIE FOR T.K. Another one. TO LIVE AND DIE FOR T.K.

"They're all the same story," she said, disturbed and surprised, continuing to pull the wads of paper out, reading each one. "Only the words are different."

"Like he could never get the fuckin' thing right," Angus said.

ii

ON THE other side of town, inside the home of the late Carl Dangleberries.

A piece of paper lay on the otherwise-clean desk. A scribbled mess of words covered much of the page, but there at the top—plain for all to see—were these three words:

KILLING MIKE MARS