.|. COHERENT COMICS PRESENTS ----X----------------------------------------------------------------------- '|` =====, ======== ====. ===. ======= ======= // // // )) //|| // // ===== // //===< // || //=== //=== // // // \\ //==|| // // `===== o // o // // o // || o // o ======= o Superhuman Tactical Resources and Affiliated-Field Experts original concept by Dave Van Domelen development by Marc Singer and Terrone Carpenter Issue #13, "Carnivalesque" by Marc Singer Copyright 1999; a Legacy House production ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Cover shows Teller and Arc attempting to embrace in a crowd of costumed partiers. They gaze at each other tragically and try to touch hands as they are separated by the crowd. Arc's other hand is being caressed by a very dapper Labyrinthe; Teller is being beaten mercilessly by a midget clown.] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Friday, May 3, 2024 - Porto Genetico, South American Redevelopment Zone] ...Joaquim Porteira elbowed through the crowd nervously. He had thought the Santo Genetico Festival would provide safety in anonymity, but in his expensive white suit he only stood out from the drunken revelers in their bead necklaces, spray-on glitter bikinis, and feathered masks. And he couldn't see his contact anywhere. Porteira pressed on, trying to keep sight of the cathedral spire, trying to reach it before they caught up with him... "Guess who?" Claire Auger, the European superagent known to the world as "Arc," yelped and knocked the hands off her eyes. She spun and dropped into a fighting stance, ready to smear her attacker with the kinetic energy stored in her fists. Fortunately, she recognized him first. "*Jay*? What are you doing here?" Jay Teller stepped forward and hugged her. "I pulled a few strings and got my dream job, to come down here and look for you. And I couldn't have picked a better time for it." He left his hands on her hips but hopped back a step so he could take a look at her. She was much more modestly dressed than most of the partiers...particularly the women with bulging codpieces and men with pendulous breasts...but Claire still looked fantastic in her swimsuit and light sarong. "This should be a nice vacation, huh?" But Claire was already suspicious. "STRAFE sent you down here to grab Porteira too, didn't they?" Teller pulled his eyes away from her and tried to scan the crowd. "Where the hell is the little guy, anyway?" ...The police whistles burned like fiery drills into Joaquim Porteira's skull. Half the crowd had them, but every time he heard one he was convinced the _policia_ were coming for him. Or worse yet, the _corporales_.... But the cathedral was up ahead, and he could even see two _gringos_ on the steps waiting for him. Suddenly hopeful, Porteira shoved through a throng of bird-masked children and ran towards the steps. He never noticed as one of the masked children silently moved after him.... "This is the weirdest damn holiday I've ever seen," Teller said, shading his eyes with one hand so he could watch a float pass by on the street below. Flower petals were arranged on a wire mesh grid into the shape of a blond- haired and blue-eyed saint, bestowing upon the peasant masses his twin holy gifts: cheap pharmaceuticals and a genetically-engineered pig. "That's how much CostaGenCo runs this country, Jay," Claire explained. "They took one of the local saints' days and retooled it into propaganda." She watched sadly as the raucous mob celebrated the float's passage with the blowing of police whistles and the waving of huge styrofoam sticks twisted into DNA helices. "That's why it's so important to get Porteira's report out of here. To give the people a chance." "And to give the Eurasian Union a chance at bullying CostaGenCo, right?" Teller smiled bitterly. "Or flat out buying them...if Porteira's internal review was as damning as they say it is, the owner would have enough dirt to run CostaGenCo *and* this country any way they liked." "Naturally," Claire said, a little irked. "That's why the North American Combine sent *you* here, right?" "The Combine, and the United World. Officially I'm using STRAFE's UW sanction to assist you, but Bill Cook's spooks want to get their grubby hands on that report." "And you call this a pleasant vacation." Teller dropped his smile and pulled his face close to hers. "It's time with you, Claire. I'm sick of only talking to you through e-mail. After not seeing you for months...after New York...I took whatever I could get. I know they sent me because they thought I could...neutralize you, but Claire, it's all we've got." It was the most serious Claire had ever seen him. "Look, we'll work something out. We've got to." "There he is!" Claire pointed down the steps and started jogging towards a paunchy, intensely sweaty man in a white Panama suit. Teller... briefly hating the man for stealing Claire's attention so quickly and completely...trotted down after her. Claire approached the man and said, "Senor Porteira, I presume?" The man nodded. He nodded so heavily and with such grave authority that his nod continued all the way down, turning into into a full-body tumble that ended with him flat on his face at the foot of the cathedral steps, a small feathered dart sticking from the back of his neck. "Poison, no doubt," Teller said. "Hey, if I'm ever on the run from deadly killers, remind me *not* to take cover in a vibrant Latin American street parade. It's like having sex in a horror film." "Jay, *please*!" Claire said, kneeling over the body. "This man is *dead*." "And this is now police business. Step away from the body, please." A stocky, dark-complexioned man in the white-and-gold uniform of the local _policia_ marched through the crowd, which was quite eager to get out of his way. "I am Captain Calderroa, and this," he said, gesturing to a tall blonde man in an unseasonably dark suit, "is Mister Jorgenson of CostaGenCo Internal Security." A few onlookers muttered _corporale_ and moved even further away. Teller flashed his credentials. "Jason Teller, STRAFE and UW." He glanced down at Claire; she was rifling through Porteira's clothes, silently begging him for more time. "So," he asked the cops, "which of you is in charge?" "As this is an entirely domestic problem," Calderroa said, glaring at him, "I am." "Although as a matter of CostaGenCo corporate security," Jorgenson reminded his confederate, "my jurisdiction takes precedence." "Jorgenson..." Teller said. "Wasn't that the name of the first guy who got a sex change operation?" The _corporale_ fixed him in the murderous stare of someone who'd heard that many times before. "I don't see what that has to do with..." "Yeah, George Jorgenson! Say, your name isn't George, is it?" "Maybe," he said sullenly. "Hey, what's she doing?" Jorgenson pointed angrily at Claire, caught slipping a small optical disk into her handbag. "That's CostaGenCo property!" Calderroa drew his service pistol. "You are both under arrest." Jorgenson drew an identical gun, screaming, "*My* arrest!" Then both officers blinked; they were suddenly further away from their quarry. The one slab of sidewalk separating them had turned into two. They blinked again, and two turned to four. Eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two. The sidewalk shot forward like a freight train, carrying the confused cops down the block. "Oh, shit," Teller said, "*Labyrinthe*." "Does Khadam want this data too?" Claire shouted, to nowhere in particular. "Or is it the Conclave of Super-Villains?" "Both, actually." The Quebecois master of spatial magicks stepped out from behind the cathedral doors. He had eschewed his mage's cloak for a lightweight tropical suit, albeit one in this season's trendy supervillain- inspired primary colors. "We'll sort it all out later," Labyrinthe said, sauntering down the steps, "but for now I'll have to ask you to give me the disk. And by the way, Arc..." he walked straight up to her, brushing past Teller without so much as a glance. "It is wonderful to see you again. You're looking as lovely as ever." "Okay, I am *not* putting up with this on my vacation!" Teller pushed in front of Claire and got in Labyrinthe's face. "It's time to drop the Maurice Chevalier crap!" "I don't see your ownership tag on her," Labyrinthe said, his voice infuriatingly smooth. Their tiff was starting to attract a new crowd, mostly jugglers and dancers. "She's an independent woman. Why can't you let her decide?" Claire grabbed both of them and hefted them off the ground. "Boys, boys, *boys*..." They were interrupted by a calm, quiet voice. "We apologize for interrupting your private emotional pain," it said. All three looked around for the speaker. "We wish to disturb you as little as possible." The voice was coming from below them, seemingly from a small child in a powder-blue clown suit and wooden bird mask. Yet his build was all wrong for a child... he was a midget. And his eyes stared out from behind the mask with cold malice. "You will give us the disk now, please." The street performers lined up behind him menacingly. Then it dawned on Teller: these people had killed the whistle-blower. The sequined dancers, the fire-eaters, the clowns on unicycles, they were all in on it. Even the midget...hell, he'd probably shot the poor guy with a blowgun. It seemed the standard form. He was facing a Carnival of Crime. "You see, my friends," the midget explained, "we long ago realized that our itinerant company was the perfect guise for a traveling criminal enterprise. Now we steal valuable secrets, auctioning them off to the highest bidder, because we feel that..." Teller tuned him out. There was probably some good reason, some compelling historical force or deep psychological motivation, why an entire carnival troupe would turn to international industrial espionage. Teller didn't care what it was. All he cared about was, *he was facing a Carnival of Crime*. "There *is* a God," Teller said, drawing his guns. The jugglers came for him first, trying to bean him with their heavy pins, most of which appeared to contain some sort of bomb or blade. Laughing like a schoolboy, Teller shot their pins in mid-air, detonating them harmlessly above the crowd. Then he got fancy, telekinetically directing his bullets into the grips of the pins, knocking them sideways so they'd spin into the fire-eaters who were preparing to roast him. The fire-eaters dropped their torches and ran; the crowd clapped appreciatively, believing they were watching some sort of show. Labyrinthe was laughing and clapping, too. Then he noticed Claire grappling with the midget, who was trying to slip the optical disk out of her bag and replace it with an identical one. With a wave of Labyrinthe's hand, he and Claire were surrounded by a bubble of disconnected space. The midget was knocked backwards, and flying pins and gouts of flame warped harmlessly around them. Labyrinthe watched carefully as both disks fell back into Claire's bag. Teller was busy playing to the audience. Next he blew the tires out of the unicycles, sending clowns flying. But when he paused to reload, he found himself under attack by the dancers...the three women cartwheeled across the plaza, then broke ranks and somersaulted at him from different directions. Before he could react, two of them kicked him in the gut while the third locked her legs around his neck and squeezed. Claire turned to Labyrinthe. "I have to help him," she said. "You're wasting yourself, Arc. But I will let you go...for the disk." She handed it to him, and he sighed. "You could have least hesitated a *little*." He shook his head, and the bubble dropped. Claire charged the dancers, grabbing the first two by the long feathers sprouting from their skullcaps and slamming them together like cymbals. Then she pounced on the one who'd trapped Teller in a body-knot. "I'm warning you, Jay," Claire grunted, "you'd better not be enjoying this." "Don't worry," Teller choked, trying to breathe around a thigh, "it's horrible...wait!" He realized the dancer was merely distracting them while the final member moved in for the kill. It seemed the standard form. Teller's gaze raced across the plaza until he found the midget, lifting a reed pipe to the beak of his bird mask. Teller fired his last bullet. Right into the mouth of the blowgun. He kind of hoped it would peel back like a cartoon banana, maybe blow up in the midget's face; instead the midget coughed, lifted his bird mask, and spat out the poison dart. He paused just long enough to flip Teller his middle finger, and then disappeared into the crowd. The dancer disentangled herself and ran after him, and soon all the carnival members were picking themselves up and melting into the mob, which was applauding wildly. Teller reloaded his guns and started after them, until Arc grabbed his arm. "There's no point," she said. "We need to get out." Labyrinthe was waving goodbye and disappearing, as the cops ran back up the street. "But...the disk..." "*I* have the disk," she hissed. "I gave Labyrinthe the midget's decoy." Teller stared at her. All the noise of the crowd muted into the background as he marveled at her deviousness. He was seeing something new about her, but something he'd always admired, as much as the soft slope of her cheeks or her tiny but perfectly formed lips. "Claire," he said, only just realizing it himself, "I...I..." "*No time*!" She grabbed his wrist and yanked him into the throng. "Listen, everybody saw me grab this." She reached into her bag and pulled it out: a blank optical disk in a clear plastic case. "I want you to take it. It's safer." The disks, the criminals, his sudden feelings for her, her sudden show of trust...it was all making his head spin. "Claire..." "Meet me back at your hotel." She kissed him, lightly, on the cheek. "Now go. Go!" She darted into the crowd. Teller saw the cops closing in and he ran, through the parade, to the sound of police whistles. * * * * Labyrinthe watched the "touching" exchange from the comforts of his private penthouse suite. He couldn't understand why Arc even gave that uncultured cowboy idiot the time of day. His "power" was little more than a party trick. The mage sighed and went back to work. He held both arms up, with the disk Arc had given him in his left hand. He wrinkled space and the disk disappeared..to be replaced, in his right hand, with the disk from Teller's jacket pocket. He knew Arc would be impressed by that stunt, but he couldn't exactly tell her. No, there had to be another way to remove his competition... Labyrinthe picked up the telephone and made an anonymous call to the police. * * * * Teller was sweating profusely by the time he reached his hotel, but that was the least of his concerns. He didn't know what to do with the disk. He could transmit its contents back home...and completely violate Claire's trust. Or he could give it back to her and blow the mission. Not that he cared much if he failed the Combine's trade interests, but a failure wouldn't make it any easier for him to find time with Claire; in fact, it might guarantee he'd never get assigned to work with her again. He telekinetically spun the disk on one finger, trying to unravel the problem, as he opened his room door. The problem didn't seem so pressing once he stepped inside. The room was filled with white-uniformed _policia_ and black-suited _corporales_, all pointing guns at him. Teller froze, and the disk spun off his finger. "Well, well," Jorgenson said, grinning like a cat about to devour a very troublesome mouse, "it seems our tip was right on the money. Don't try to resist us with your fancy powers, Teller." He nodded to one of his fellow suits, who was frisking Teller and removing his guns. "Mr. Soames here is an anchor." "I am getting, like, *so* sick of you guys." The anchor ignored him, so Teller focused back on Jorgenson and Calderroa. The towering Aryan and the squat mestizo looked like brothers, raised over many years to have the exact same manner of swiveling their elbows sharply upwards, leveling their smooth identical gun barrels at him, and scowling determinedly. Teller appealed to Calderroa. "You too, man? Now would be a great time to remember your native loyalties, throw off the shackles of corporate oppression, turn on your partner and let me go..." Calderroa's face was as impassive as Jorgenson's, and Teller's voice slowly trailed off. "At least throw away that bottle of Vichy water..." Calderroa blinked with boredom. "I am sorry," he said, "I do not understand your forced and inappropriate _Casablanca_ reference." Teller raised a finger, confused. "But if you don't get it, then how could you...?" "Come on," Jorgenson snarled. He grabbed the disk and marched out of the room. The local cop and his flunkies followed behind, shoving Teller roughly out the door. They led him outside to a car and a jeep which were being squeegied by mobs of children who, inexplicably, used grimy old "Fantasy Island" beach towels. The children scattered as the cops arrived. Both squads pulled Teller towards their vehicles, but with a nod from Jorgenson the _policia_ backed off and he was dragged to the CostaGenCo car. Teller coughed loudly and said, "Technically you can't do that, Jorge. As the only other national representative here, only the Captain can take me in." "The spy *is* my prisoner," Calderroa insisted. "Fine," Jorgenson snapped at his dumpy Latin twin, "*you* take him. Mister Soames, ride along with them." Teller climbed into the back of Calderroa's "decomissioned U.S. army green" jeep and clasped his hands demurely in his lap. The anchor started to climb in after him, until Teller said, "Wouldn't do that, Jorge. You've caught me, but Labyrinthe is still out there. He could reach right into your pocket and snatch the disk. Replace it with a bomb...or an overly friendly hand massage...unless of course you'd like to keep the disk safely anchored by giving it back to me." "Or I could hold it," Calderroa said, trying to sound horribly disinterested in the very prospect of acquiring all of CostaGenCo's financial secrets. "*Fine*!" Jorgenson shouted. He snapped his fingers, and the anchor followed him and the disk into the "low-budget government conspiracy TV show black" sedan. Calderroa shrugged his shoulders, piled into the jeep with the other _policia_, and tried to keep up with the corporate car's squealing tires. Teller took stock of his situation: unarmed, handcuffed, sitting behind Calderroa and the driver and between two hulking cops...all heavily armed and looking like they didn't need *any* stinking badges. "I have just one thing to say," Teller announced. "And what is that," Calderroa groaned. "Bang." The pin popped out of his handcuffs and drilled forward into the dashboard. It ricocheted and banked down into the driver's holster, where it bounced around a few times before it was lined up to push back the trigger. The gun went off, shooting the driver in the foot even though it wasn't pointed that way. The driver involuntarily slammed his foot into the accelerator and the jeep surged forward, rear-ending the company car. Teller let the surge roll him right off the back of the jeep, but not before he grabbed onto a _policia_ gun and the beefy _policia_ attached to it. He twisted in midair and let the cop break his fall; then he grabbed the gun and ran down the street, cheered on by children waving their dirty Spelling Productions towels. The CostaGenCo car was turning around, while the _policia_ were hopping out of the jeep and running him down on foot. Teller flung his gun arm backwards and fired; the bullets found the cops' hands just as they were drawing their own guns. Calderroa ducked behind his jeep. The CostaGenCo car careened down the street towards Teller. First he fired at the engine, but it was armored. Then he shot the tires, but they were solids, and then the gun clicked empty. Teller pumped his legs furiously and looked for some alley, side street, any escape that wasn't filled with laughing kids. The car roared and closed in behind him... Suddenly Claire was sprinting from the hotel lobby. She shouldered Teller out of the way (sending him tumbling across the street) and dove into the front of the car. Her burst of speed converted into super-strength and she was heaving the left front corner off of the ground, trying to lift the whole thing above her head. But while she'd converted all of her momentum, the car still had its own. The front bumper knocked her aside while the entire left side heaved into the air. The car briefly balanced on its two right wheels, then slammed down again...and CostaGenCo decided to cut its losses and run like hell. Teller picked himself up and grabbed Claire. "We've got to get after them!" he shouted. "They have the disk!" "No," Claire told him, "they have encrypted copies of all your damn e-mails." She smiled at him. "I gave you a decoy, too, to throw everyone off." He panted heavily, staring at her. "Oh my God," he said, "I love you." He pulled her up into him and they kissed. The police fled and the children ran joyously out onto the street, each one waving the shit-stained image of Ricardo Montalban in triumph. * * * * They were both pacing frantically in Claire's hotel room. Claire had said the police hadn't gotten the disk, but that didn't solve all their problems. Teller had said he loved her, and that hadn't solved everything either. "So if you have the real report," Teller said, "what do we do with it? Who do we give it to?" "You think you can just tell me you love me and that's that? Time to go back to work?" "I thought *you* were the one who said we didn't have time for this." "That was before you told me you loved me!" "You mean you didn't know before?" He stepped foward, lowering his voice and cradling her tiny, perfect elbows in the palms of his hands. "In Siberia, in Rome...even in Haven." "I knew, Jay...I didn't want to believe it at first. I didn't have time to acknowledge it. But..." She sighed and pulled him closer into a hug. "Why does it always have to be so hard?" "I don't know. God, why couldn't I love the easy women?" "Jay!" "I mean the ones who are easy to love...the ones who cater to you and have time for you and hinge on every word you say..." He caressed the back of her neck and stared past her, at nothing. "I guess they aren't so easy to love. It has to be the hard ones with me." "Me too," she said. "A drawling jackass who's in the wrong agency on the wrong continent." He smiled. "A snooty hardass who never lets up on me." "Who wouldn't have it any other way..." Claire sighed. "You're right. It's so easy to fall in love, when I know it's going to be hard." Teller brushed his nose against her forehead, his voice dropping to the softest whisper. "You're perfect for me." "And you're perfect for me," she said. "And our lives are perfectly wrong." "This is *so* touching," another French-accented voice said, jolting them. They flew apart, Claire dropping into a fighting stance and Teller drawing two guns. "Sorry to interrupt," Labyrinthe said, stepping out of the tacky floral print poster on the wall, "but the concentrated drama in this room was getting so high, it threatened to engulf all of South America in a nauseating lovers' vortex." "Okay, Maurice Chevalier," Teller said, clicking his safeties, "that's the last time you bother us." Space rippled and suddenly Teller was pointing the guns at an exact duplicate of himself, who was pointing them back at him, while Labyrinthe and Claire stood on a ceiling which had multiplied to contain dozens of hotel chairs, light fixtures, and beds. "Please, Teller, don't waste my time. You can't possibly touch me, and I would never harm this angel." He bowed to Claire, offering her a two-dimensional flower pulled from the surface of the poster. "I just want to know why that disk you gave me is filled with sappy e-mail messages." "*What*?" Claire and Teller said in unison. "Oh, very well." He cleared his throat. "Dear claire-de-lune: seeing you in rome was great but things have gotten hairy here in the big apple. my friend c.j. is missing and tony is not doing so hot. the worst part is, i'm not even thinking about the mission, i'm thinking about your voice and hair and..." "Okay, okay, okay, *STOP*!" Teller waved his arms. "I believe you!" Labyrinthe shook his head at Claire. "...And you like this guy?" "Wait," Claire said, "I didn't give you my e-mail disk. I mean, it *was* a decoy disk..." "But of course," Labyrinthe said. "...but it wasn't the letters. It was the one I grabbed from the carnival midget." "Well I anticipated that. So I waited and swapped the midget disk for the one you gave your lover-boy." Claire smiled nervously. "But that was a decoy, too..." Labyrinthe's eyebrows danced upwards, delighted. "My my. Claire, you continue to impress me. And cowboy," he sneered at Teller, "that means you got the midget disk, which CostaGenCo is now reading, and Arc can kindly hand over the real one." Teller sat down on the bed and moaned. So did his mirror twin. "Except," he said, "I decided to play it safe by swapping Claire's disks on her..." "*WHAT*?" Claire shouted. "When...?" "...and she's actually holding the midget one. Which means the police just drove away with the real thing." Labyrinthe stared at him dumbfoundedly, then started filling the room with loud, derisive laughter. Claire tapped her foot and glared in silent fury. Teller looked at his twin. Both of them said, "We're idiots." * * * * The operation took some planning. There was no way CostaGenCo would move the disk away from their anchors with Labyrinthe in the country. The only way to get the disk back was to convince them they'd made a mistake. So they sat around the hotel room, which Labyrinthe had returned to normal, and they plotted. Teller figured with all the fumbles that had been going around, it wouldn't be too hard to fabricate another one. "We have at most a couple of hours before they crack the encryption," he told Claire and Labyrinthe. "We have exactly that much time to convince them that what they've got is garbage, and fool them into wanting a trade with us." "One moment," Labyrinthe said. "If we have the real disk, why would we be willing to trade?" "Good point," Teller said. Much as he hated to admit it, Labyrinthe had been filled with useful suggestions. Claire, on the other hand, hadn't said a word to him over his "lack of trust." "Well, then, we go back to the Carnival. Demand the disk, make the cops think they have the real thing. Hell, if *I* go looking, the cops will be sure they've got garbage, since I'm the one who handed it to them. So CostaGenCo comes looking to swap, and we bag the real one." "What if CostaGenCo doesn't bring out the real disk?" Labyrinthe said. "Then at the very least we've snowed them and they'll probably trash it. Toss it somewhere less protected. And then it goes to the first one of us who finds it...deal?" Labyrinthe, clearly not too impressed with Teller's abilities so far, nodded smugly. "It sounds fine. But I'm sure we're much more likely to find it working as a team...don't you think, Claire?" He stood and extended one slender hand to her. "I assure you, I make a much more competent partner... and more pleasant company." With a wave of his other hand, an ice bucket containing the hotel's finest Dom Perignon appeared between them. There were only two glasses. "That's the best idea I've heard all day," Claire said, rising to take his hand. She looked down at Teller and contemptuously threw her handbag onto the bed beside him. "You're welcome to let yourself out of the room," she said. "I may need it later." Labyrinthe let out a surprised chuckle, and the two of them disappeared. Teller waited on the edge of the bed for ten minutes, just to be safe. Then he started looking through her bag. * * * * Most of the boardwalk was still crowded at twilight, but the families and the revelers instinctively avoided the old funhouse at the end of the pier. It was closed down, but not abandoned; the junkies and the homeless, the living detritus of CostaGenCo's exploitation, slept against its walls on mattresses of old newspaper and confetti. But even they seemed reluctant to go inside. Teller paused under the gaping entrance. Damp air blew out under a hand-painted sign which read, "Le Cirque du Marche-Dieu: Exposition de L'Etrange." According to his, Claire's, and Labyrinthe's many bar-beating inquiries, this was where the Carnival shacked up. He just couldn't figure out why their sign was in French. That was about when the gunshots sounded inside the funhouse; and, as if in response, a small battalion of police and corporate cars came racing to the edge of the pier. The squatters scattered, but Teller plunged inside the funhouse door. He found the firefight at the end of a long, dark hallway filled with fluorescent monsters and tape-recorded howls. It was in a large two-story room that appeared to serve as the Carnival's living quarters, though the walls were piled high with waxwork statues of sideshow freaks. The jugglers and dancers were all wielding sub-machineguns and trying to shoot Labyrinthe, who kept appearing and disappearing in different corners. Claire was there too, trying to knock out the criminals before Labyrinthe could kill them with his magics. Unfortunately, this was right when the _policia_ and _corporales_ came charging in behind Teller. Teller dove for cover behind a plaster World's Fattest Woman as the cops and carnies opened fire, each demanding the disk. The midget...now wearing a black cloak, an opera mask, and a tricornered hat...stood high atop a twisting slide, and flung his arms out so dramatically that the entire gunfight briefly came to a halt. All sides watched as the midget proclaimed, "Scions of the state, prepare to feel the full heteroglossic force of the carnivalesque!" And then he rained down on the cops with a Thompson heavy machine gun that was larger than he was. Watching the midget mow down row after row of police, Teller wasn't laughing any more. It reminded him too much of New York. Then the midget spotted him and turned the gun. Teller dodged, leaving a trail of obliterated wax and plaster statues behind him. Finally he dove over the Siamese Twins, rolled to a crouch, and fired back. The bullet lodged in the ammo belt just before it fed into the gun. The gun jammed, but the trigger-happy midget kept firing until the whole thing blew up in his face. The midget tumbled backwards, rolling end over end down the slide. Teller ran across the firefight and reached the bottom just in time to deck the midget as he slid down. He sprawled in a pile of Bearded Ladies and Frog Boys, unconscious. The cops and carnies were occupying each other. Teller glanced desperately around the firefight and found Claire, just as Labyrinthe grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her into the Hall of Mirrors. The snooty bastard had to favor Teller with a smug wave and a blown kiss, just to rub it in. Teller ducked under the gunfire and scuttled after them. It could have been pointless; Labyrinthe could have gone halfway around the world. He just had to hope that Claire would have trusted him long enough to stay behind. Teller plunged into the Hall of Mirrors. Across the room, Jorgenson smiled, drew his gun, and ran after him. Finding Claire and Labyrinthe wasn't a problem; finding the real ones was, however. Dozens of images of both...sometimes apart, often together... cascaded around Teller, keeping him from following the true path through the maze. He figured this was karmic payback for all the optical disk games. "Claire?" he shouted tentatively. "She doesn't want to talk to you, cowboy. I should have thought that would be obvious by now." "Like you said, Maurice, she's an independent woman. She'll decide for herself." He reached out for Claire, but she was only a reflection; in the mirror, his hand overlapped with hers. "Why would she choose you after your betrayal of her, cowboy?" A mirror-image Labyrinthe reached out and tapped Teller on his shoulder. "After your lack of trust?" Another reflection pulled on his cheek. "After your total failure?" Another one tripped him. Teller tried to banish the reflections by shooting out their mirrors, but for every image that shattered, another appeared to take its place. "You're not good enough for her, cowboy. I'll always be your better." The mob of Labyrinthes swarmed around him, moving in for the kill. In one mirror, the image of Claire leaned forward and slapped Labyrinthe's face. Every mirror-image reeled backwards from the blow. "What...what did you do that for?" they all whined. A dozen Claires smiled. "Because I love him." Teller couldn't stifle a fist-pumping "Yes!" Which was a mistake, because all the Labyrinthes glared at him. "Maybe that is your good fortune, Mister Teller," the Labyrinthes said, "and maybe it's not." This time the images remained immobile, but the mirrors themselves started closing in on him. Teller ran but the pathways were sealed off, and the walls kept pressing in. He could hear Claire smashing glass somewhere in the distance, but it hardly made a difference; Labyrinthe could have crushed him with only one wall, reflected into infinity. "Damn it, Yvan," Claire screamed, "don't do this! What am I going to think of you if you kill him?" Teller could feel the mirrors pressing against his chest and back. "And when are you going to get the real disk?" "What?" "Jorgenson's here, man. Now's the time." The Hall of Mirrors snapped back to normal. Most of the mirrors had been smashed, and he and Claire were mere feet from each other. They embraced, just as Jorgenson came running in. Labyrinthe froze the _corporale_ in a space bubble and said, "Where's your disk?" "How the hell should I know?" he shouted. "The disk Teller gave me was junk!" "I *mean* that disk," Labyrinthe said. Jorgenson still didn't understand him. "We trashed it." "Wonderful," Labyrinthe said. "Then I have to go and do some dirty work. Teller, I'll leave you to wonder whether I've spared you out of self-interest or..." he smiled at Claire, "something higher." He bowed deeply and disappeared, but he left a parting gift: the Hall of Mirrors tautened into one straight tunnel, pointing from Jorgenson straight to Teller and Claire. Jorgenson howled and raised his gun. "Good night, George." Teller didn't break the embrace. He simply raised his gun and shot Jorgenson between the eyes. "It's over, honey," he said, dropping the pistol. "Maybe now we can get some time to ourselves." "I do not think so." Calderroa entered the Hall and trained his gun on them. "And now I can add murder to your crimes. Perhaps you had better hand me the disk." "Actually," Claire said, "Labyrinthe just went to look for it..." "No more games, please. I know that you originally gave him a decoy disk; I also know that Mr. Teller gave Mr. Jorgenson a decoy. That means you have the real one, and presumably have had it ever since you took it from Porteira's body. I assume all this nonsense was simply a charade to convince Labyrinthe otherwise." Calderroa used his free hand to fidget with his many medals and insignia, perhaps unconsciously. "So you can give me the disk." "Honestly, she can't," Teller said. "She left it with me and I left it at the hotel..." "Then you will accompany me..." "...where I uploaded it onto every net engine I could find," Teller finished. "The Combine, the Eurasian Union, the UW, Khadam...they all have it now. CostaGenCo is probably already folding as we speak." Teller raised his eyebrows. "And you could have your country back." More _policia_ poured into the hallway behind Calderroa, brandishing guns. A few _corporales_ milled behind them, awaiting instructions. "Do we take them in for murder?" somebody asked. Calderroa looked at Claire and Teller. Jorgenson's body. The defeated carnival members. "No," he said, holstering his gun and pointing to the Carnival. "Round up all the usual suspects." * * * * Teller and Claire strolled along the boardwalk, arm in arm. The police had long since left the pier, to stem the tide of celebrations and riots all over the city. The corporate cops had fled even more urgently; a steady stream of helicopters poured out of CostaGenCo headquarters, probably carrying the last of the country's financial assets along with them. In the distance, someone set off either fireworks or explosions. "I'm just amazed that you picked up on my plan," Teller said. "We had to improvise the whole thing right in front of Labyrinthe." "Well, I knew Porteira's disk never left my bag," Claire answered. "My only worry was that you wouldn't know I was playing along. That you'd think I really was mad at you." "Think it? I was worried sick." He smiled and rubbed his hand up and down the small of her back. "But I knew we were thinking the same thing. God, I love you." They paused to watch a bonfire...someone had dragged the Santo Genetico float onto the beach and set it aflame, and now children danced around it. Teller sighed. It felt good to topple the bad guy for a change. "I suppose we can stick around for a few days to keep the peace," Claire said, "and to extend our vacation. Will STRAFE be mad at you for posting the data?" "Not if I say it was the only way to keep it out of Labyrinthe's hands," Teller said. "Oh yes, Labyrinthe..." Claire stared thoughtfully at the rolling waves. "I suppose he ran off with the midget disk. I wonder what was on it?" * * * * Labyrinthe, comfortable and secure in his lodgings in Khadam, returned to his computer. After spending an hour evading CostaGenCo's security and rooting around in their garbage dumps, he had activated the decryption program and gone straight into the shower. This was the first time he could even think about the optical disk again. Labyrinthe reclined in his chair and thought about that idiot Teller. With a flourish of his fingers, he opened the disk's file. His speakers regaled him with demented calliope music, on permanent repeat. * * * * Jay and Claire lay on the beach, looking at the stars. They had survived yet another mission, and had all the time in the world. Until the next job. THE END =========================================================================== Author's note: I've been wanting to write this story for about five months now. Why did I finally get around to it? Well, a lot of reasons, but partly because a reader sent me a very nice e-mail and asked when the next issue would be coming out. So readers, whatever RACC series you follow, drop the author a line letting them know how much you like it; you just might get a new story out of it. Labyrinthe created by Tony Pi. The Carnival of Crime is dedicated to Federico Fellini, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Matt Rossi, for reasons neither he nor I understand. STRAFE #13 written by and Copyright 1999 Marc Singer. A Legacy House production. Editor's Note: The exact location of Porto Genetico isn't important to the story... and save for the name, it could be swapped out with any one of a dozen company towns throughout South America. Some are nicer than Porto Genetico, some are worse, and all represent something of an economical/political puzzle to the Combine, much as Manhattan does...a puzzle that may have just gotten tougher to solve....