A Real Loo-Loo of a Knock-Down, Drag-Out Fight

By Archibald Grey

A young man wakes to find himself paralysed from the neck down. A drunken old man named Went masterminds a cunning digital heist. An ageing bio-enhanced mercenary past his prime. And an escaped AI that wants a body of its own. What could go wrong?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hubris Books
• Release date: May 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223506683

Archibald Grey

Archibald Grey is the reasonably well selling author of the novels Muriel and The Inheritance, and the story collection The Crashing Tide. He has had his short stories rejected by many of the most prestigious conventional and science fiction publications in both print and digital, and he is noted for having won no awards. Archibald lives in Semolina, Canada and has no pets or children.

Book preview

A Real Loo-Loo of a Knock-Down, Drag-Out Fight

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Ablue neon tube flickering in the dark. Distant, crackling; a tickle in the back of your head, itching and scratching; the sound of water dripping somewhere far off. Words flutter softly across your field of vision and land somewhere in the distance.

Way out there Armondsen sees sparks. Miles off. Little shots of light that up close would burn the retinas out of the back of his eyes—but from here they look gentle, almost delicate. He stands on the white edge of a white cliff under a white sky, watching the bright-coloured flashes swell, then fade.

A car horn blares somewhere off in the distance, reverberating off the walls that begin to resolve themselves around him. A cotton din of muted voices and soft footsteps rises underneath the blank calm. The pure white nothing around him stutters with patches of texture. A shiver in the sky starts to shake colour into the polaroid of his vision. The world fades in slowly, the occasional flicker in the receding parallel lines of the street; and his eyes burn with the contrast.

And then white-blue light reflects off the polished tiled sidewalks, a soft, dry wind brushes his face and blows through the fronds of water-starved palms. Scraggly brown grass languishes in raised concrete planters dotted along the sides of the street—it’s all anyone can do to keep anything alive in this place.

Step after slow step, the marble paving stones oddly rubbery beneath his feet; glass windows on garage door runners, ratcheted up, the smell of heavy smoke, the cheese grater rasp of Arabic chatter—each open storefront the mouth of a dark cavern. Long faces lit by orange imitation candlelight, flickering glassy stares, the looks on their faces as he passes express a kind of recognition. They quietly hum strange melodies and smirk derisively.

And suddenly Armondsen feels every inch the foreigner. Calls up an entry on Arabic culture. A basic language pack. And the hard-edged murmur begins to undulate. Here and there, words floating to the surface as the program embeds itself deeper in his brain. Through the window beside, So I told him it was all or nothing. I don’t have time to waste with that kind of shit.

Across the street a man in an ochre thobe yells to a friend, Don’t forget, 9 o’clock!

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Iopen my eyes and all I see is blank ceiling. It’s dark and warm, and the curtains are drawn, a womb of artificial dark. In the corner there’s an arm chair with an old guy in it, leaned waaaay back.

His chest moves gently up and down, pulling his roly-poly belly with it. I can hear him breathing. I think he’s asleep.

I try to lift myself up onto my elbows and realize that I can’t move anything below my neck. I try to move any part of my body, every part of my body, but it’s no good.

The old man just sits there, he gives one loud pig-snort snore, wakes himself up. If I wasn’t paralyzed, I would laugh.

Hey, old man, what the fuck?

He looks up, grunts himself vertical, Hey kid.

I can’t move my anything, What the fuck is this?

He leans forward, elbows on knees, and wipes his whole face with his whole hand, and shakes his head in that way you do when your brain isn’t quite back from la-la-land, Don’t worry, it’s a common side effect. He reaches and grabs his whisky, or whatever it is. Amber liquid in a crystal glass, Should wear off in a couple hours.

What do you mean ‘should’ wear off?

He draws a nonchalant circle in the air with the glass in his hand, About one in eight people are paralyzed permanently, but you’re a strong boy, I’m sure you’ll pull through.

He stands, glass in hand, and comes over to the side of the bed, Temporary amnesia is a side effect too, nearly everybody, for a day or two. Nothing to worry about. You’ll remember in due time, son.

I don’t know who this man is, but I don’t fucking like him.

He looks down at me, smiles a drowsy drunk dreamy smile, But in the mean time, why don’t I refresh your memory? My name is Went. We spoke on the phone two days ago. You were looking for someone to help you with a little... problem.

He sits down on the edge of the bed. My entire body is numb, but I can feel the anger burning red on my face, What problem?

He pats me on the arm and I don’t feel it.

Now, don’t you overdo it, son. You’ll just wear yourself out. And the last thing we want on our little project is the boy genius over-exerting himself. You hungry?

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Men in white and green and gold kurtas move slowly down the souk, hand-in-hand, smoking small cigars or scrubbing their teeth with sticks of sewak, worshipping as they walk. Gold Skin-Lay watches glitter in their wrists, the stylized numbers ticking slowly upwards on the small display panels. They wander leisurely, aimless with affluence. Speaking of business and philosophy. They pause at stalls selling gold necklace implants and bootlegged stim chips.

The chip salesmen stand behind their tables watch the as the leisurely wanderers browse, expert eyes scanning each face, deciding who might be interested in the chips they keep under the table. Chips that even the most jaded aficionado would find, stimulating. Stimulation for only the hardest libidos, dulled by lives’ worth of rapacious hedonism, a lifetime of endless wealth and nothing else to do.

Further down the souk, in a discrete alley between two marble-clad shopfronts, women, encased in black, eyes hidden behind silver sensory-deprivation visors to shield them from the evil temptations of the physic, escorted by their pimps who masquerade as brothers and husbands, stand like statues carved into ebony or obsidian, heads bowed, waiting for their clients who, themselves masquerading as brothers and husbands, will soon approach and usher the women into American trucks, German sedan-cars, and small Japanese hatchbacks—in which