CHAPTER 7
The Zombie Bar
A human, a zombie, and a Stone-Coat walked into a bar in the lower Manhattan financial district, looking for enlightenment. Dead Mike's Zombie Bar was the name of the place as announced by the brightly lit sign over the door, but by human standards it wasn't a bar, as it served no alcoholic beverages. Zombies were too susceptible to its influence; alcoholic drinks essentially became totally illegal for zombies two decades earlier.
"Too bad, I could have used a stiff jolt of something alcoholic tonight," Ed told the smiling dead but stunningly beautiful zombie waitress that showed them to a table in the back of the room and took the orders of the unusual trio. In truth, due to Ed's unusual metabolism, alcohol had little effect on him anyway. "I'll have the apple juice and a turkey-burger with sweet-potato fries," he requested. He felt guilty ordering food when the girls were kidnaped or worse, but as Mary had pointed out it would do them no good for him to starve himself.
"Same here, Julie," said Driscal. He was obviously already very familiar with the Zombie Bar and its zombies.
"Only chilled mineral water for me," said Mary. "I'll have to move myself about using steam in here." It had to be close to eighty-five degrees in Mike's; just right for zombies and jants, but warm enough to quickly heat up Mary to above-freezing temperatures. "More likely I'll stay in my wheelchair."
"Sorry honey," said Julie. "We have no cooling stations for stoners. We don't get too many stoners in here. Or humans that have no jants, but somehow chatter away broadcasting jant thoughts," she nodded towards Ed.
Julie was very attractive for a dead person and looked to be under thirty, Ed judged. He wondered what sort of tragedy had led her to becoming a zombie, but refrained from asking her jants. Her life and death story was none of his damned business. Besides, as she had noticed, he was silently very busy introducing himself to the dozens of different jant colonies present or represented in the Bar by their human-halves.
"And tell Dead Mike that we're here to do serious Consortium business," Driscal added, before Julie walked away, though that information was doubtlessly already being spread via jant chatter. "Is Markus here tonight? I want to talk to him too."
"He almost always is," Julie answered. "I'll ask Mike to bring him along."
Their table was to the rear of the seating area, and had a good view of most of the establishment. Perhaps three dozen zombies occupied the tables, mostly in threes and fours. A couple of dozen more sat at the long bar located along one wall. Half the tables were swarming with big brown ants with inch-long bodies: jants that ate from trays of jant-preferred food: grains and raw finely sliced meat, for the most part. Most of the meat was immediately consumed on the spot, after being torn to tiny bite-sized bits by jant over-sized mandibles, but most of the grain was carried by streams of jants to their colonies, which were usually located nearby in big suitcases, boxes, and other assorted bulky containers stashed under tables or atop chairs. A couple of zombies wore large backpacks that held sizable portions of their jant colonies. At least a third of the zombies didn't appear to have total jant colonies with them, but Ed sensed their colonies in nearby autos and apartments, animating their humans from a safe distance. Most of the colonies were rogue.
"It seems to be a monumental waste of time and energy for zombies to physically gather in this way," remarked Mary. "Can't jants more effectively communicate through telepathy and through human venues such as the Internet?"
"We can and do," said Driscal. "But as Egborg correctly noted, jant thought is tainted by human thoughts and social needs, much as human thought templates have perverted your Stone-Coat thought. Gathering this way is mostly a human thing. Zombies like to get together with other zombies due to their human-sides, though jants themselves have no particular need for it."
"Ha!" Ed laughed. "I think you delude yourself a bit. Even before zombies happened, jant thought was greatly influenced by human thought, and since their very beginning jants have felt compelled to 'get together' telepathically."
"But not physically," said Driscal. "Individual colonies generally need to have their own territories. It's unnatural for multiple colonies to be so physically close together. Without rational hive-level consciousness they would enslave or cannibalize each other. It's a bug-eat-bug world."
"We Stone-Coats prefer to regard our relationship with humans as enrichment rather than perversion," said Mary. "But of course Stone-Coat interaction with humans is far more measured than that of jants."
"Of course," said Driscal. "Stone-Coat interaction with humans is more superficial."
"There are some aspects of humans that we don't choose to closely emulate," said Mary. "Judging from the results, jants could have also fared better by being more selective with regard to their own interactions with humans, or rogue zombies like you wouldn't be necessary to cull the results. Some rogues are so tainted that Consortium jants don't want to even get near them."
"Our interactions with humans on the whole have been highly successful," countered Driscal. "In only a few decades with human cooperation jants have become the number-one life form on Earth. We mass over ten-percent of world-wide land-based animal life. On the other hand, it takes huge jant resources to support each human zombie, such that the practice is necessarily limited."
"And we'd be up to our eyeballs in zombies if it wasn't," Ed said. "No offense Driscal, but I sort of prefer it this way."
"If mass or weight is your metric for success you would do well to note that Stone-Coats are also quite successful," noted Mary. "The Marys alone total over six million tons."
"Can we get on with business here?" interjected Ed, though he was amused that his formerly weight-conscious wife was apparently bragging about how massive Marys were. "Here comes our host, I believe."
Dead Mike was a very large but perfectly ordinary looking Caucasian human in his forties, but he walked to their table in the usual awkward halting manner of zombies. He carried a leather satchel with a shoulder strap that housed within it several hundred chattering jants, Ed noticed, and they in turn communicated with three jant colonies located within two miles. Those were in turn currently connected to hundreds of other Eastern Consortium jant colonies. There were also two med-ticks driven into his spine instead of just one. Dead Mike apparently believed in redundancy. In other words, he was highly prized by the Consortium.
"Your fame and reputation of course precede you, Chief Ed," Dead Mike said, "and we have spoken with you many thousands of times over six decades, ever since our mutual friend the Creator made us. Your current wife Ann of course works with us closely almost daily. Several hundred colonies have joined in on this conversation, indicating that there is great interest in you." He shook Ed's hand firmly, but merely nodded and sent silent greetings to both Driscal and Mary as he sat his considerable bulk down at the table. Rogue jant colonies and Stone-Coats apparently didn't rank as high with the Consortium.
"Jants have come a very long way since being created in the garage laboratory of my next-door neighbor," noted Ed. "It always amazes me that jants remember events back in time across so many jant generations."
"Our very survival depends on us accurately passing on our memories to new generations," said Mike. "But in recent decades we have also developed written records in the Internet connected cloud computers of humans. Your long history with jants is what you would call required reading for all Eastern Consortium jant colonies. Including of course your occasional skirmishes with jants that have not been wholly congenial."
Ed shrugged. "Yet when we first met you saved my life, and some of my best friends are jant-zombies. We have over the years, I think, earned a large measure of mutual trust and respect."
Mike shrugged, and smiled as Julie returned with a tray of non-alcoholic drinks.
"And Markus?" asked Driscal.
"My old friend Markus will see you after I do," said Dead Mike.
"Ok, then let's get to business," said Driscal. "We seek out those respon
sible for Stone-Coat dismembering and the kidnaping of two humans that are of great value to Chief Ed."
"Yes, we have been doing that since informed of the incident by a rogue zombie named Bob," said Mike.
"The safe return of the girls has highest priority," added Ed.
"I doubt that the Stone-Coats agree with that prioritization," said Dead Mike, "certainly the Consortium doesn't. The Consortium values order and predictability for the optimal survivability of the jant species as a whole. The rogue, powerful, and unknown nature of the perpetrators of these crimes is our greatest concern by far. They must be found and eliminated, particularly if it is another example of rogue jants that have been corrupted by humans."
"Stone-Coat logic also dictates that to be the case," said Mary, "but the personal aspects of the kidnaping provide a powerful motivation shared by myself, Chief Ed, and our mutual friend and ally the Creator."
"That is true," admitted Dead Mike. "The Creator himself discussed that aspect with us, and we value his thoughts and wishes significantly."
"Who is this Creator guy I keep hearing about?" Driscal asked.
"Jerry Green my biologist ex-neighbor in Virginia created jants," said Ed. "It's not public knowledge, but they are called 'jants' because they are Jerry's ants."
Mike shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Detective, rogues like you can be so ignorant that it disturbs us. Rogue lack of knowledge and discordant thought patterns should not be used to prioritize the activities of your quest, Chief Ed."
"Our different notions of priority don't matter," said Ed. "When we recover the girls we will also find out who the serial disassembly perpetrators are that both you and the Stone-Coats so badly want to find. Right now I simply want to ensure that jants are fully motivated and actively pursuing this case by using all available jant resources."
"All Consortium jant colonies in the City and surrounding areas have been alerted and will report suspicious activity," said Mike. "Jants individually have poor eyesight but their combined sensory input supports accurate visual facial recognition. The facial images of both missing girls have been relayed to all local Consortium colonies including those that employ sharp-eyed human zombies."
"What about the rogue jant colonies?" asked Ed. "Rogues control many sharp-eyed zombies."
"The Consortium does not control rogue colonies," said Mike.
"But it strongly influences them," said Driscal. "One of my motivations in coming here tonight is to ask that the Consortium do just that, here and at the dozens of other zombie bars in the City where rogues gather. Consider that to be a formal request from the NYPD."
"Very well, that is agreed to," said Mike. "The message is even now being put out at all zombie bars in the five boroughs, even though the reliability of rogues is of course generally very low. "
Driscal smiled. "Yet some of us get along well enough to be useful to you. We depend on each other. What about chemical detection of the girls?"
"We lack the requisite identifying information for that," said Mike.
"That can be obtained at the Rumsfeld apartment," said Driscal.
"Of course!" exclaimed Ed, "I should have thought of that! Ants taste things using their antennae, and med-ticks do so with even greater sophistication. Can individual humans be identified by their taste?"
"Absolutely," said Driscal. "Human skin and fluid residues are definitive. I've used that fact in some of my cases."
"You exaggerate the accuracy," said Mary. "Genetic matching using human technology is much more definitive. But what you describe would indeed be accurate enough to potentially be very useful."
"Ninety-eight percent accuracy, we estimate," said Dead Mike, nodding. "But we need samples to pursue that approach."
"As you know at my apartment lives a rogue-controlled zombie named Bob," said Ed. "He and his jants can sample things in Terry's room. There are items there also from Mouse that can be sampled."
"Such taste information can be disseminated by the Consortium," said Mike, "once the cooperation of Bob is obtained."
"I already just now relayed the request to Bob via Fred the apartment Stone-Coat," said Mary. "Definitive scent information should reach the Consortium within a few minutes."
"Will Consortium and rogue jants then systematically search the City for the girls using both vision and chemical information?" asked Ed.
"And by 'City' we of course mean all five boroughs," Driscal clarified, since the term 'City' meant Manhattan/New York County for most New Yorkers.
"The City is a very big place from an ant perspective," said Mike. "Foraging jants will have both the visual images and scents to use, but foraging in the City during winter weather is much more constrained than in warm forests or many other environments. In addition most City jants are fed by zombies or humans that value our medical help, making widespread foraging an unnecessary practice."
"Can they be motivated to forage widely for the girls anyway?" asked Ed.
"To some degree," said Mike. "We will do what we can, but there are of course practical limitations. Winter is here, and that greatly inhibits outside foraging. Zombies will need be employed for the most part. Requiring a great expenditure of energy, I should add."
"I pledge compensation from myself and the Tribe," added Ed, "and our mutual friend Jerry can probably be persuaded to help with compensation if necessary."
"Yes, we immediately assumed as much," said Mike, "and Jerry has already pledged to fully compensate all our efforts. Your ideas are helpful. The only thing more we require is cooperation and luck."
"Luck is of course a delusion, but your full efforts will increase the probability of a positive resolution," said Mary.
"Jerry is a wise man and a good friend," said Ed. "I should have realized that he would promise compensation for jants when he pledged his help to me this morning. What about employing animal zombies? Animals aside from humans, I mean."
"We of course use animals besides humans to both breed and transport med-ticks." said Mike. "What did you have in mind?"
"Animals could help look for the girls. Possibly ground dwelling rats, squirrels, cats, and sharp eyed high flying peregrine falcons," said Ed. "I've seen you occasionally control them for many years. Pigeons and mice are likely too small and stupid to host huge med-ticks even for short periods. Those I mentioned could host them for perhaps a few days."
"Unlike City cameras and NYPD drones, our computer-savvy perpetrators probably won't be able to hack digitally into animal zombies," noted Driscal. "In my humble rogue opinion you have a very good idea about using zombie animals, Chief Ed."
"The distance between controlled animals the controlling jant colonies quickly becomes the limiting factor," said Mike. "Especially in the case of falcons."
"But you solved much of that problem decades ago by having the animal carry a small number of jants with it to relay telepathic communications much further than the tick can manage on its own," said Ed.
It was Mike's turn to smile. "You do know much about us, don't you, Jant Clan Leader! We'll try that also but again we can make no promises, particularly when it comes to falcons. There are of course millions of large gray so-called Norway rats in the city, thousands of squirrels, and hundreds of ferial cats, but many squirrels and rats are too small to host med-ticks, cats are so fiercely independent that they typically successfully reject our control efforts, and falcons are typically very difficult for ground-bound jants to encounter."
"I sensed several falcons earlier today," said Ed. "Many stay for the winter and feed on the pigeons that winter here as well as those rodents and unwary song-birds they can find. They rest now but I can send several to this location tomorrow."
"You are what you humans call a tough task-master, Clan Leader Ed," said Dead Mike, smiling. "But we will do it."
"There is also the apparent zombie named Egborg that we encountered earlier tonight," said Mary. "What can you tell us of him?"
"We have searched but found no Con
sortium memories of such a zombie," said Mike. "As we initially concluded on-site earlier, if Egborg is truly a zombie, he is undoubtedly a rogue. We also try to identify and keep track of all such individuals, but we are not a hundred percent effective in doing that. Consortium zombies on the scene could not even understand his jant chatter. If we had retained a sample of his chatter we could possibly investigate it further."
"I recorded it," said Mary. "I'm interfacing with one of your radio-capable implants now; I'll give you the original raw signal. It was too short for us to decode but it doesn't match any known jant syntax that we are aware of. We suspect it to be digital and possibly mathematically encrypted. I will also give you our transcribed digital version."
"Digital?" said Ed. "That sounds more like Stone-Coat chatter than jant."
"It matches no known Stone-Coat format either," said Mary. "And by digital I don't mean standard human or Stone-Coat binary. It appears to be much more complex than that. A technical discussion is included with the provided message files."
"We'll do what we can with them," said Dead Mike. "Dozens of our colonies specialize in decoding encrypted information. Is there anything else?"
"Markus?" said Driscal.
"You really are desperate," said Mike. "I'll leave you now and send him in." He stood and shook Ed's hand again as he was leaving.
Soon a tall thin older man in sharp formal clothes with sharp hawkish features came to the table and was greeted warmly by Driscal and introduced to Ed and Mary. He was not a zombie and he lacked telepathic ability, but his penetrating eyes gave him away: Markus was an extremely bright and intense human.
"Ah! The mysterious Ed Rumsfeld and one of his thousands of stoner wives! What an honor!" he said, as he shook Ed's hand warmly.
"I'm more his ex-wife," said Mary. "You harbor your own mysteries, human. I've seen you at several Omega functions."
"Enlightenment is one of my many hobbies," said Markus.
"Are you enlightened enough to already know why we're here?" Ed asked.
"In this information rich environment word quickly gets around even to us humans that watch from the side-lines," said Markus. "The previous Stone-Coat dismemberments had already gotten everyone on edge. But kidnapping of human VIPs? That's a new wrinkle. I assume that Dead Mike pledged Consortium jant support for a price?"
"Something like that," said Driscal. "What do you hear?"
"The dismemberments aren't mob hits: that's what my own clients vigorously insist. And as far as the kidnappings go they most emphatically deny involvement or knowledge."
"You have mob clients?" asked Ed.
"Markus is a sort of the New York mob's ambassador to the Eastern Consortium," explained Driscal.
"That perhaps puts it too strongly," said Markus. "But I do at times enhance communications between certain parties and certain other parties and thereby help things function more smoothly throughout the City. In this case it is a lack of enlightenment that I sense coming from all directions. The people I represent don't know who it is you seek. They also disavow any knowledge of that Egborg character."
"Do you believe them?" Driscal asked.
"Mostly," said Markus. "They're apprehensive and could be lying of course, but I don't think so. That would fracture decades of established trust. Basically they like to know what the hell is going on in the City so they can exploit it or at least get along with potentially disruptive aspects of it such as the NYPD."
"Tell your mob clients that they'll be well rewarded if they help the girls return home safe," said Ed.
"That I will, Chief Ed," said Markus. "I am sure they will be interested. But after that Egborg sideshow tonight they are particularly spooked. I suppose that because of him you guys are figuring that rogue zombies are the perps, am I right?"
"That's what it looks like to me," said Driscal.
"You mean that's what it was supposed to look like," said Markus. "It wasn't a zombie that tore up your Stone-Coat friend this morning."
"You could have a point," said Mary. "Maybe this Egborg character wasn't just rubbing our noses in it to anger us, maybe his appearance was calculated to deceive us. Maybe the undecipherable jant-like chatter was just a deceptive sideshow."
"Or maybe it wasn't deception," countered Markus.
"Swell!" said Ed.
"Gotta love a mystery," added Driscal.