Midas: Part Two: Look In Glass

The bar was snarled up with traffic and Barnacle was pissed yet again, just like any other night at the Watchmaker’s Inn. He sat there with the glass and bottle that they kept behind the bar just for him and he wondered why it was that he never did anything different – he got back off a mission out somewhere exploring the depths of history, exploiting the simplicity of the locals, and he would get back here and piss all his hard-earned paycheck up the wall. Why did he do it? Probably because there wasn’t much to do and he had slowly – over the years – become a man of very little imagination. When you could travel to the far ends of the universe and the timelines what exactly was there left in store for you but to become a boring old bastard? Anything you could imagine generally showed up somewhere in some strange culture and constantly finding out that your weird fiction daydreams had been realised deadened that part of your mind. He’d thought once upon a time that he might be able to use the inspiration his travels would give him to launch a successful career as a writer but it had done the opposite instead. The thing was, the only people that he ever hung out with had exactly the same possibilities before them and therefore had exactly the same bloody stories to tell as well – they bored each other to no end.

He’d been waiting around here with intent today though – he had heard that Bluth was back in town, and that was always good for laugh – at least it had been in the past. The grapevine was a little slow in squeezing its whine into his earhole though – he was no one of importance so one told him anything of any import any more. By the time he had found out that Bluth was not likely to be around for quite some time he had already drunk was too much, and the thought that he may have been able to do something to help his friend was useless when you had reached his particular level of inebriation. Well, okay, if he wasn’t allergic to the Set-Right drugs that could squash a hangover then he would have been fine.

‘So,’ he asked Sekti, the guy who he had heard the rumour from ‘What’s the stupid bastard gone and done this time to get himself thrown in the slammer?’

‘I have heard that the person they have in custody might not even be Bluth – they say that Bluth turned up dead a while back and that this guy they have under arrest is an impostor; some guy using gene-tech to mask his true identity.’

‘Sounds like more than a rumour. You have sources, eh?’

‘Yes, I have sources, what you want to see my resume?’

‘Okay, Sek’ keep your hair on – no need to get all shirty with me; I’m only asking a question, is all.’

‘Fine, fine, whatever – I’m not that bothered. Looks like Bluth is really fucked up whoever this person the authorities have is.’

Barnacle signalled for the girl behind the bar to bring him another bottle – there wasn’t a damned sight that he could do for anyone now; might as well let himself get a little more worse for wear. Do it with spirit, he’d been told once, and if you can’t do that then do it with spirits – he liked the sentiment of that idea and it could pretty much sum up his philosophy of life.

Tanja brought him over the bottle, which he knew they specially ordered in for him from some far distant epoch that had a name none of them knew how to pronounce, and she placed it in front of him with a smile. He smiled back, almost absent-mindedly – it wasn’t that he was beyond such things as appreciating a beautiful woman it was just that his thoughts were generally scattered and they were, at present, even more so given the news about his friend. Perhaps whilst in his cups he might come up with a brilliant plan that would save the day – it hadn’t ever happened before and was unlikely to occur now, but one could hope, couldn’t they?

‘Did you hear the news, Barnacle?’

‘What, about Bluth? Yeah, I heard. Don’t yet if I believe it – need to hear myself what he has to say before I’ll give it any credence.’

‘No, friend, not about Bluth – that shit’s old hat – nah, I’m talking about Verimen.’

‘Verimen? No, what the fuck’s happened to Verimen? And bear in mind I’m not in need of too much more bad news – what with the shit that’s already hit the fan, so to speak.’

‘Ah, well, then I had best move along and not tell you anything.’

‘Come on, you’ve already baited the hook and I already bit down upon it – you can’t really leave me dangling now, can you?’

‘I suppose not. OK, well, as I hear it, Verimen was found crucified on the side of his ship – bolts through his hands and feet and a note pinned to his chest that read: “Jesus died for somebody’s sins; but not mine.”

‘Seriously? You’re not just shitting me? It’s not nice to pull an old man’s pisser.’

‘Barnacle, I’ve told every single bloody person I’ve seen from the moment I found out. It’s fucking insane, i’n’t it?’

‘No shit. Do they have any idea who did it?’

‘Well, apparently he did it, but it’s not self inflicted.’

‘Run that one by me again.’

‘A past self iteration did it.’

‘Interesting.’

‘Interesting how?’

‘Oh, never mind, just an old drunk babbling on?’

Barnacle wondered how exactly it was that no one had noticed what to him seemed a glaringly obvious similarity between the case of Bluth and Verimen. But then perhaps it was obvious enough to have already been investigated and discounted. Too much drink – too much bloody drink. He decided then and there it was time for him to go and get some shut-eye and try and wake up more human tomorrow than he had been in a long time.