Who Killed the Neon God?

Who killed the neon god?

Frank Rucci took another drag of his cigarette. He forgot what he’d mixed into his tobacco that morning, but it made the burned out reds of the brick dance in front of him. He adjusted his coat to warm the cold inside him.

It was dawn on a cold and hazy day. The headquarters of Sally O'Connell lay in front of him. Boarded up windows hid the ash land ambrosia that lay within.

Sal was an old friend. She’d know what happened, and Frank would know what to do about it. That was their bedrock.

Memory crept up the smoke in the detective’s lungs as he watched the entrails of the neon god dance across the sky; its waves of sickly green made a smile against the distant sun. Everything died with that creature. That was all he knew. Something gnawed at the innards of his mind, some growing deity of unabashed violence, but Frank Rucci knew when a crime had been committed. One had been here.

He was a righter of wrongs, a solver of mysteries. He knew that of himself. There was a name for what he was, but it evaporated in smoke and light.

Sal was a helper, a healer of some sort. She was the first to act on a problem. He respected her for that; if the world was all Sals, there wouldn’t need to be Franks. Love was something meant for great cities and sprawling countrysides. It held no meaning in the flats of spewed ash that surrounded the world’s recycled and forgotten occupants. Frank still had respect for her, though. That was something stronger than the death of gods.

The door opened. A boy with two faces walked out. One of them smiled at the yellow eyed specter that smoked outside. The other just blinked. An attendant stood at the doorway,  bearing a cross of red painted over faded and ragged clothes. Frank walked over to them.

“Please, no smoking in the building.” The attendant was smeared with an oily sheen, leaving them hard to read beyond an overwhelming tiredness in their eyes. “The lungs. Everyone’s are already so weak.”

Frank finished the quarter left of his cigarette in one hefty drag, then tossed it into the broken pavement at his feet. “I’m looking for Sal. She’s in charge here now?”

“Ms. O’Connell has many appointments.” The greasy figure led Frank to a waiting room and gestured to the single free seat. “You will have to wait.”

“I’m on important business. I’ll see her now.”

The attendant laughed, a sad and abandoned laugh. “Your authority died with the neon god, old guard. I know you and your occupation. It has led you to the same ashen waste as the rest of us. Sit down.”

Scowling, Frank took his seat. Fine. He’d wait. Better to get the feel of the place first. He liked to know where he was before he did anything. An old woman rested next to him. She woke as he fished in his pocket for a notebook. As she moved, her skin slouched off looser than age should’ve made it.

“Jim? Is that you?” Her voice came out like a spiderweb, only perceptible to someone looking for it.

“Not Jim.” Frank started sketching the waiting room in his notebook.

“Oh. Oh, I’m sorry. You look just like my husband. He died in the war, though, didn’t he?”

“I guess he did.” Frank put his notebook away. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

“I forget.” She smiled behind distant eyes. “And when I remember, I remember so many names. I think mine is Ruth.”

“It’s good to meet you, Ruth. What brings you here?”

“My arm.” She pulled up her sleeve and revealed a saturated purple mass growing from the wrist. “It’s started singing to me, in my dreams.”

“I see.” Frank went back to his notebook.

“And you? Are you a patient?”

“No. I’m… I’m something from the old world. I’m trying to find whoever killed the neon god.”

“Oh, you are here on business, then?” Ruth pulled her sleeve back down and relaxed into her seat. “I was there when it was born, your neon god. It came to the cities first, and everyone flocked to it. It gave warmth, laughter, fervor. We gave it power. Then, it was perverted against itself. If you want to know who did it, I’d look at the Soviets. The communists were always jealous of it. Of course they would blow it to hell. It’s the communist way for everyone to suffer rather than anyone flourish.”

The old woman trailed off as she fell back asleep. Frank went back to sketching. A man whose size suggested youth but whose pale skin was an unreadable marble started laughing next to him.

“Old bat. Forget that the Soviets aren’t around anymore; I knew plenty of people who froze to death under the glow of the neon god and its cities. Our god was no better than anyone’s. No less cruel, anyway.” He smiled behind a transparent face.

“And who are you?”

“Nelson Raeburg. Was a mail carrier, before the bombs dropped. If you’re looking for a killer, look at the necromancers in D.C. Though, there’s not much to look for anymore. Word was they were trying to resurrect the neon god, before the waves came up to swallow their city.”

“What are you here for, Nelson?”

The mail carrier grinned wider, and a chunk of powdery flesh cascaded off his left cheek. “My body can’t seem to stay together anymore. This new god of ash and fire doesn’t care much for me either, it seems.”

“So you think your boys in D.C. killed the neon god?”

“I’m saying they killed anyone who could’ve given it meaning beyond power. It’s just as bad.”

“But it’s not what I’m looking for.”

“Maybe you’re not asking the right questions. Word of advice, by the way: I’d ask for a check up while you’re here. You’ve got something growing from your head.”

Rucci shrugged. He’d taken a slug to the chest, a few years back in a raid gone sideways. Whatever the ashen god was putting in him, it wouldn’t stop him from getting what he needed.

“Frank!” Sal was leading a man with no arms down from the stairs when she spotted her friend. “They didn’t tell me you were here.”

Getting up, Frank took his hat off. “Sal. Good to see you.”

“Let’s talk in my office.” She handed the armless figure off to a raggedy girl of thirteen years or so, and the pair left out the main doors.

“Ms. O’Connell.” The attendant’s dark circles seemed deeper under their eyes. “You have appointments.”

“Believe me, this will be quick.” Sally led Frank not up the stairs, but to a door tucked in the corner of the waiting room. Inside was a smoky chamber with a desk and piles of salvaged books. 

“Sit down, Frank.” The doctor fished through a few drawers in her desk and grabbed a syringe. “What can I do for you?”

“You using on the job now, Sal?”

“I’m using when I have to see you.”

“Fair enough. You smoke in here?”

Sal chuckled. “They couldn’t stop me if they tried.”

“Good.” Frank lit a cigarette. This one was more sour than the other, and it made the room go wavy. “I’m here on business, Sal. The neon god is dead. We all know that. I want to know if there’s any justice to be found for it.”

“You want justice?” Sally chuckled. “There was no justice under the eyes of the neon god. There was just power, and violence. You know that. You wielded both.”

“Yeah, well, there was order too. What is there out here?”

“Inevitability made literal.” The doctor’s eyes were red now. “This is a world of unavoidable consequence. Is there not justice in that?”

“You sound like you’re enjoying this.”

“No. I am finding vindication in this.” The doctor smiled. “The other day, I went for a walk. A bird fell at my feet. It had an extra limb sprouting from its chest. It’s a miracle it survived as long as it did. The mutation didn’t even kill it. The fall did when it couldn’t carry itself anymore. I buried it. Then, I dreamt a story my father told me. He took me to a lake when I was a child. I fell inside when he was distracted. He rushed to the water and pulled me up, terrified I was drowning. I smiled at him though, and all I said was ‘you can see underwater.’ I realize now that you and I are drowning in the violence of the world, and yet we can see. This is simply a world with louder violence. I find comfort and solidarity in the fact that everyone else is now drowning with us.”

“You’re helping them.” Frank coughed from too large a drag. “You obviously still care.”

“I am helping as one does a child. When a boy plays too roughly with a cat and is scratched, you heal the wound. However, you must still appreciate the lesson the boy has learned. Perhaps this is the lesson we all needed to learn.” Sal gestured for the cigarette.

Frank handed it over and waited until she was suckling the smoke to respond. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

The doctor exhaled. “I have though. You want to know who killed the neon god? We did. For every bit of power we gave it, we made it bloated. We let it fester in its gluttony until it consumed even itself. The bombs that killed it weren’t dropped all at once. They were dropped every time one of us decided not to care.”

“But the bombs--”

“The first bomb was just a goose marking a radar and a very tired man.” Sal settled into the leather chair at her desk. “We blew the world to hell. There’s no culprit but apathy, I’m afraid.”

Nodding, Frank took back his cigarette. He finished it. “Oh. I see.”

Sal laughed a laugh like her assistant’s. “Do you? Do you truly see?” She sighed and looked at Frank with a sadness that penetrated the crazed red of her eyes. “What will you do now?”

“I don’t know.” Rucci sputtered the words out. He could barely hear himself. “I need to leave, now.”

“Yes, well, I have appointments. There is so much to do, in the birth of the ashen god. I have purpose here in its bowels, to tend to its flock. What purpose will you have?” The doctor started refilling her syringe.

Frank stumbled out. He fumbled for another cigarette as he made his way to the door. Nelson tried to wave, but he ignored it. He couldn’t breathe.

The air was cold as Rucci made it outside. The cold centered him. Whatever else he was, he was cold. His arms ached. That was concrete. That was truth. He lit his next smoke and looked around. Three disheveled vagrants stood over a trash fire. He walked over.

“Get a drag, mister?” One of the men, face covered in black burns, waved.

Frank took the first breath of smoke, then handed it over. He started taking off his jacket. “Anyone want the clothes, too?”

“I’ll take them.” A one-legged girl held out her arms. “You going crazy, mister?”

“I’m going to meet god.”

“Well, you kick its teeth in for me, will you?”

The yellow-eyed specter smiled and nodded. He threw his name into the fire until he was nothing but skin and new purpose. Watching the green horizon, he stumbled out into the great white ash that made the body of his new deity.