Mobile Flesh Sculptures: Happy Kitten

By Asi Hart

Something funny is going on at Murphy's mansion, his back yard seems haunted by monsters.  The earthly remains of every reporter who goes to spy on Murphy is later found in the river.

The reporters at the World News Syndicate are too tired of life to mind dying, so they persist in their efforts to find out all there is to know about Murphy's dogs, trying out different tactics.

Meanwhile Murphy tries different approaches in his effort to divert their attention from his yard-monsters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Asi Hart
• Release date: Jun 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201997755

Asi Hart

Asi Hart is the best Sci-Fi author south of the North Pole.

Book preview

1. Creators

IT WAS A WORLD OF FLESH.  The sky was dark and starry, lighting the world with unnatural astral glow.  The beach was made of muscle, the trees of bone and wire, the ocean of blood.  The beach twitched occasionally, causing the dead calm ocean to stir and foam.  A large sprocket wheel stuck out, half-grown into the fleshy ground.  Various tubes and wires connected hidden things.

A skeletal figure approached, some bones missing, replaced with iron tubes, it moved though it hadn't enough muscle to do so, its limbs wired to some servo motors, it could see by way of a camera instead of a biological eye.

The creature saw a large centipede in the rib-like undergrowth, and caught it and plucked its head off with scissors it had fixed on its right hand in place of two fingers.  The headless centipede writhed as the figure tore out some of those rib-growths, and attached them to the centipede's legs, fashioning them into a rib-cage.

Another figure approached from the other direction, a polished steel skeleton mostly covered in meat.  It walked with a cat-like tread to the first figure as it was constructing this new skeleton from the bone-undergrowth, and it watched.  It started to help.  It went and tore into the trees, fashioning them into bones; thigh bones, leg bones, arm bones.  And it made smaller bones to be arranged into fingers, then hands.

And the two skeletal figures tore the flesh out of the ground to make into muscle, and they went into the shrubs and found animals which they pulled apart and kneaded their innards and organs and stuffed them re-formed into the body which they were making.  All the varied springs and sprockets that could be pulled from the fleshy ground they fashioned into clockwork, which they put into their creation's head.  Side by side they carried the creation into the blood-red sea, and it came alive when they baptized it there and it walked back with them, where they finished it by wrapping it in skin and giving it long hair on the top of its head.

And the creature was tall, thin smooth skinned and well proportioned.  She had a thin waist and wide hips, an oval face with thick red lips, pearly white teeth, large grey eyes.  Her creators stepped back, satisfied as they beheld their creation...

Murphy opened his eyes.  It was another one of those weird dreams.  Larsen the butler was letting the sun in.  He had placed a cup of tea on Murphy's bedstand.

Murphy went and sat by the kitchen table in his mansion to have his breakfast: a bowl of Honey nut Cheerio's.  It was either that or Trix.  He smiled and continued dining on the little crunchy O's.  He thought he should really be having steak in that setting, or at the very least caviar.  A man of his wealth shouldn't be having some dry packaged meals.

Something crashed behind him.  He looked around, and saw that a drone had struck the top of his wall, surrounding the mansion. 

Clear skies... he told himself.  He shrugged and continued with his cereal. 

The large wooden table was big enough for twenty people to sit at, and just as ornate as the surroundings.  Mr. Murphy liked wood.  There was something about wood that created a feeling of well being.

When he finished, Larsen appeared and removed the bowl, the pack of Cheerio's and the carton of milk.  Murphy waited until he was finished to ask him: are there any news?

No, sir, said Larsen.

How about my security system?

The scientists will send someone to look at it today, sir.

What just crash-landed on my wall?

Looks like a spy-drone, sir.  An unusually large one, sir.

Murphy rubbed his hand together.  He wasn't leaving home till he had had his security system looked at.  He was sure it wasn't feeling quite right at the moment.  He was sure he had seen movement in the bushes now and again for the last week, and the system was ignoring it.

Did they say when he would arrive? asked Murphy.

They informed me that he would arrive around noon, sir.

Murphy looked at his watch.  It was only an hour to go.

Let me know when he comes.

Certainly, sir.

2. At the newsroom

THERE WAS THE USUAL ruckus in the newsroom.  People walked back and forth with their coffee while others typed down headlines they hoped would attract readers or at least curious viewers.  Anything to get people to look at the commercials: the source of all their income.

Alan sat by his little desk, the coffee in his cup already getting cold, faced with the daunting task of trying to figure out a way to make changes in the market value of corn in Africa sound interesting to the regular news-audience.  He didn't need to, but having been doing the market news for three months now he was getting bored, and figured he should try doing something more artistic with the material at hand.  He had been testing some headlines in his mind, like "corn bites man, or price of corn threatens to overthrow government", but he figured that those might get him fired at worst, at best get him laughed at.  He was staring at the ceiling, mulling this problem over, when Preston Calico and Gary Funkeln walked up to him.

Preston put his hands on Alan's table and leaned in while Gary stood behind cradling his camera: Nadarien, right?

It's pronounced Na-darien.  Emphasis on darien, not Nada-rien. 

Right.  I forgot.  What are you working on?

Corn.

Corn?

You know I'm doing the financial stuff this month.  You know what they have me do if I don't turn something in every day.

Preston sighed, financial, great.

No, I don't want to trade, said Alan, sensing a question coming.

Preston rose to his full length: but it pays the same.

Actually I think we may be getting a little bit more... said Gary, but neither of them listened to him.

Alan raised an eyebrow at him before he spoke again: you do realize that cat-girl duty is punishment? 

Cat-girl duty? said Gary, they still calling it that?

Oh, am I supposed to call it that behind your back?

Preston glared at Alan; that was two years ago.

And that was many cat-girls.

Three, said Gary, showing his fingers.

Shut up, said Preston.

Alan was very calm as he explained: nobody wants to go to the morgue to look at bodies.  It's your own fault for being lazy.  You know the rules: you don't write anything for a week, and you get cat-girl duty.  It's easy, just a couple lines about who or what the joggers found in the river.  If you don't do that you get half-pay...

I know the job details.  I'm the one doing it, that's why I'm asking.

You know that a hundred years ago they'd have simply fired you.

I wish they still had that system, said Preston.

Me too.  You stay at it and you'll get into whatever it was you were doing before again.

Hey, I make a good living photographing heads at the morgue, said Gary, waving his camera.

Case in point, said Alan, pointing at Gary, who smiled.

Come on, just one day?  You could get to go outside, breathe the fresh air a bit.

And then go look at corpses?  No thanks.

Maybe they'll be fresh corpses.

Alan shook his head.

Maybe they won't find one today.

Not a week goes by without joggers finding some human remains in the river.  It's a big city.  Plenty of drunks.  I don't want to look at decomposing drunks.

Maybe some more human-animal hybrids drift ashore?

The only way I'll be writing about human-animal hybrids is if they start selling them at the store.  I write the business section now.  I'll be doing sports again next week.  Then you can try to annoy whoever is doing business news, I guess.  If you don't like taking notes at the morgue, then try harder when they upgrade you to something else.  What were you supposed to be doing anyway when they demoted you?

Tech.

See, you could have been writing about living cat-girls.

Preston shook his head and left.  Gary gave Alan a casual nod and followed Preston.

Alan shook his head and continued where he left off.  He was about to give up and simply write "value of African corn crashes," when Kerri stormed toward him with a much more interesting story.

Alan!  There you are, said Kerri as she saw him. 

Alan looked at her: she was her usual raggedy self, like she had slept in her clothes.  He guessed she probably did.  She probably hadn't washed for a while either, which would explain the intense perfume smell surrounding her like some toxic cloud.  Alan would have liked labelling it as cheap perfume, but like most men, he had no idea of the difference between cheap and expensive perfume.  It all smelled offensive and sickening in such great volume.  She wasn't always like this, just most often.

Kerri slammed her pad on his desk and announced: I think I have got some good stuff on that shipping mogul, Murphy.

I am working on this piece about corn, said Alan disinterested.

Give it to the new guy, said Kerri, this is big.  We're going to get our own ad space if this is right.

What is it? asked Alan, leaning back in his chair, pretending interest in what she said in the hope she would go away sooner.

Kerri sat on his desk and began talking: I have a source that has evidence that Murphy is involved with international weapons dealers.

He is, everybody knows that already, said Alan.

"I'm not finished: I am talking about illegal stuff, and unethical stuff the public doesn't know anything about.  The research and development of biological weaponry.  My source was vague on what exactly, but the data he showed me implies some really scary stuff."

Alan looked her in the eye and raised his brow. 

You don't believe me? she asked.

No.

Look at this then, she said, picked her pad up from the table and handed it to him.

Alan looked at the pad.  There was some text and some pictures.  Before Alan could look closely, Kerri began explaining: those men are Kagiso Mirembe, the African warlord, and Dr. Christian Jarvie, a known friend of Murphy's, she pointed at an image on the pad.  Alan saw two men on it, a white guy and a black guy in a very elaborate military costume.

Jarvie.  I know that name from somewhere, said Kerri.

You're probably familiar with the Jarvie clinics, said Alan.

Kerri nodded.  She obviously didn't know.

Abortion.  It's a franchise.  Jarvie has a near monopoly on the market.

Kerri considered that.  Then she continued: Mirembe is believed to supply Dr. Jarvie with live subjects to use for experiments.  In fact, that container was full of African prisoners of war, she said, pointing at a dark patch on the picture.

Alan struggled to read the text on the pad as Kerri continued talking; it consisted of bits of interviews she had taken of some people in Africa when she was there covering some upheaval or another.

There were tales of the populations of whole villages taken into trucks and shipped somewhere away, never to return.  Kerri's translator had tried to put a tracking device on one of the trucks, but had been found out and got to witness first hand what happened to all those people.  Of course he never returned, and his captors made sure that the tracking device was left behind.  The translator's disappearance made Kerri's work all the more difficult, and she returned from the Dark Continent a little later.

Okay, said Alan, I can see how we would have reason to look at this Dr. Jarvie, but where and how does Murphy figure into this?

He went to Murphy's mansion the other day, and I got this picture, she said as she took the pad out of Alan's hand and scrolled down until she found the picture.  She handed the pad back to Alan.

Alan stared at the pad, wondering what exactly it was he was looking at: what am I looking at here?

This is Murphy showing Mirembe his pet, said Kerri.

It looks like a dog to me, he said.

Kerri rolled her eyes: it is not a dog, at least not a normal one.  I swear that when that thing came scampering towards me it really creeped me out; the eyes on it, and the implants... Just sticking out... Kerri shook herself to emphasize how nasty the dog had looked; I swear, we have to go and have a closer look at it.

You mean, get better pictures? Alan offered.

What do you mean?  No, I want to know what else he has.  I am sure that dog is illegally engineered.

Do you think it is made of African prisoners of war?

Kerri was silent for a while.  No, not really, but I think this dog may be a proof of concept prototype.  It might be used on humans soon, if it isn't already.

ALAN CALLED MARTY THE new guy and handed him his first non-coffee related assignment: an interesting story about African corn.  Then he turned to Kerri again, as she began outlining her plan to infiltrate Mr. Murphy's palatial home.

Meanwhile at another desk, unbeknownst to either of them, Shiri Descartavel was working on some highly important news item about the world famous actors and high society personalities Sonica Torres and Andre Ninguem, when she got a call from the police: are you familiar with a person by the name of Lora Cortez? asked the officer on the phone after a brief introduction.

Yes, Shiri replied, but I haven't seen her for a week or two now.  I think she may already have been fired for not showing up, but I'm not sure.

I don't think that matters any now, said the officer, we found her ID on a body we fished out of the river just yesterday.

Shiri gasped: No!

We have been unable to find any close relatives to come and identify the body, and we were hoping you could come on over to the morgue and check out if it is her or not, said the officer, the editor directed me to you, he seemed to think you knew her best.

Shiri was silent for a moment, gathering her senses.  She didn't want to go and look at a body this early in the morning, or at all for that matter.  She responded: can't you just check out her DNA?

Well, we'd rather spend the taxpayer's money on something else, since her face is still intact, said the officer in an unsettlingly casual tone for Shiri.  And there were some artifacts we gathered from her person you might be interested in.

Shiri agreed to come and identify the corpse, and the call ended at that.  She took a deep breath and stopped what she had been doing.  She could not get get her mind fixed on the affairs of the world famous actors Sonica Torres and Andre Ninguem.  She had known Lora.  She was a good, if stubborn reporter.  They had always liked each other.

3. Mortal belongings

GARY AND PRESTON ARRIVED at the morgue.  The mortician showed them his latest bodies: they fished these two out of the water yesterday.  They're known.  And I have one Jane Doe, mid twenties.

Preston nodded, and uninterestedly jotted down the names of the first two.  Gary snapped a picture of them.

And this is the third one, the Jane Doe.  The cops just pulled her out of the river yesterday, the mortician told them.

Just a girl? said Gary.

Prefer them dead or alive? asked Preston.

Oh shut up.  You're not even into girls.

Dead girls have one thing in common with living girls.

Oh?

The are both equally communicative.

The mortican rolled his eyes and shook his head listening to them, and revealed Jane Doe's face.  The sight of her caused Preston to pause: hey, I think I recognize this one...

I know her, that's Lora Cortez, said Gary.

Lora, yes.  I didn't know her, said Preston, just saw her around.

I've fucked her, said Gary.

They guys looked at him.

What?  She was available.  And it was convenient.

Preston peered at him.

What?  I'm not gonna now!

How should I know, the way you talk?

Gary was grossly offended, but speechless.

Never mind.  Just snap the picture.

Gary took the mug-shot, waited while Preston and the mortician left the room.  It looked like they were going into the office to have some coffee and confirm the data.  They always did that.  He stayed behind where they processed the bodies before autopsy; that is, if anyone cared to do that.  There were three trays on the wall-mounted table that contained the loose items gathered from the dead bodies.  Among the various stuff were three cell-phones.

Gary got out his own phone.  He had an app for this, he turned it on.  He went to the first tray and got the phone that lay there.  It wouldn't turn on.  He looked for a charger, and found one in a drawer full of chargers just under the tray.  The morgue was equipped for this sort of thing.  He plugged the phone in, but it was completely dead.  He tried the next one, and it came on.  He hacked it open with the app he had, and then used a different app to open the checking account tied to it.

$2000.  That's hardly worth getting out of bed for, he told himself, but transferred the money anyway.

The third phone came on, but he needed to use another app to open it.  He looked around to see if Preston and the mortician were watching.  They weren't.  It sounded like they were chatting about coffee or some such inane topic.  Preston could vax poetic about coffee if he was in the mood.

The third phone's checking account stood at $15.000.  Gary nodded to himself.  This is why he liked the morgue job.  Dead people didn't report theft.  Dead people who had relatives of the sort who did report theft usually ended up in a different morgue.  With emphasis on usually.

Gary returned the phone and went to have some coffee with Preston.  Then they left.

Preston asked Gary: so you knew that woman?

Let's just say I had carnal relations with her.  To say that I knew her would be an overstatement.

That's more than I can say.

That so?  I thought she'd slept with everyone.

That's partially why I stayed away from her.

Why?  You really should get to know some of your co-workers better.  It'd do you good.

No.

People are beginning to think you're gay.

Whatever.  So your... camaraderie with Lora was confined to sex?

Sad to say.  How about that Shiri chick?  I hear great things about her.

No.

You're a monk, that's what you are. 

SHIRI WALKED TO THE editor's office to tell him where she was going.  She could have called, or E-mailed, but telling him directly was so much less time consuming.  The editor received so many calls that he had ten people answering the phone for him, and got so many E-mails that he could have only read a tenth of them even if he would have worked all day doing just that.

The editor was busy as usual, and just nodded with quiet understanding when he heard what had come of his lost reporter.

What case was she working on again? he asked just as Shiri was about to turn and walk away.

Shiri stopped to think of it, then answered: it was something to do with Murphy the shipping magnate.

Look into that then, from where her files left off, said the editor absent mindedly as he signaled her to go away.

Shiri suddenly got a weird feeling.  She had been unceremoniously promoted from the scandal sheets to corporate intrigue.  The pay was the same but the prestige was greater.  She had an urge to celebrate, but thought that under the circumstances that would be a macabre thing to do.  Instead she planned to treat herself to a pizza when she got home.

Shiri walked out of the building by means of the stairs, as the elevator was slow moving and prone to malfunction.  She found her car on the parking lot and opened it with her key.  She had dropped her keys out in the street once, and they were run over by a car before she could pick the up, so the remote was busted.

The car was a 2092 model Hissatsu VX which she felt she had paid too much money for.  It looked like a rat, there seemed to be chronic electric problems in it, and it rusted way too much for a plastic car.  But it always started eventually, and it made 60 miles per gallon even though the hybrid system had been completely disabled for four years.

She made it to the street before the engine stalled.  Shiri turned the key again, but this time it took the car more than the usual ten seconds to start, and people were beginning to honk at her with a bit more feeling than usual.

Finally the car started up again an she was moving.  It only stopped once more before she parked near the morgue.

Shiri was already inside the building when she got thinking whether she had locked the doors or not.  It weighed heavy on her until she realized that there was nothing inside the car which carried such value as to be sorely missed if stolen.