New Carson Blues

Seance Deangelo was sitting at a bar in New Carson. It was nearly deserted, very few humans, iguanas the main inhabitants. Not iguanas like people from before the Desert would remember, but IGUANAS, like big lizard people, the kind that people used to worry about existing before they were actually real—before the radiation, before the vast change happened to the rock some old man named Earth.

Most of them were drinking quetzalcoatl, which is similar to tequila but has an added blend of ayahuasca that to the iguanas has a slight sedative and hallucinogenic effect, much like absinthe to humans. While absinthe is a mild trip for the average human, quetzalcoatl is not—Seance had tried a bit of the stuff only once and after seeing the iguana's god of death, she never had a second interest in the brew. Naw, Seance mainly drank whisky when the poison could be had, but would also sip a cervasa if the desire for intoxication emerged.

Seance struck a match. This was not time for casual moods, no. She lit the cigarette in her mouth, a sloppy, self-rolled affair, and inhaled deeply, her eyes slits in her face as she gazed through the hazy surrounds looking for a particular lizard.

The iguana's name was Jorge and he was wanted further north, up near Billings. It wasn't quite the same Billings as was in the lost state of Montana, but it was built on the old site. A bounty-hunter-turned-lawman had settled the town, deciding to keep the near-ancient name as a sort of tongue-in-cheek joke, as it was the place bounties were exchanged for bills.

Seance wasn't looking to cash in on the head of Jorge, instead she was looking to save his scaly hide. She had met the hombre a few years back in a bar close to the Hot Belt. The iguana was impressed and curious by a human so near the atmospheric tear. Most fur skins didn't dare head much south of New Nevada due to fear of radiation exposure.

“Don't see many of your kind 'round here these days, 'specially if they got a bounty on their head...”

The hair on the back of Seance's neck would have rose if the voice wasn't so familiar. She knew the iguana speaking before she turned around to look him in the eye.

“Jorge... I was starting to think you found some other rock to crawl under.”

“Not quite. I prefer on the rocks, anyway. Speaking of which, can I get you a drink?” asked the lizard, already cradling his own drought and looking greener than usual.

“Time like this ain't for drinking. Getting loose while the noose is waiting to tighten is something only a drunk or a fool would do.”

“Noose don't snap our necks like it does yours. What you doing here anyway Deangelo? Anyone looking for me's going to flag red seeing something as curious as you walk into this cantina.”

Seance's eyes traveled around the room. The iguana had a point. Every face on the scan around the vicinity was turned in their direction. Cockroach eyes scattered before they met hers, but she could tell everyone was looking at the odd pair of herself and Jorge.

“I know they are coming Seance. The noose, as you say, is already tight.”

Seance's eyes locked with a particular lizard sitting in a corner shadow. While it wasn't a surprise she didn't see him before, it was unsettling. A chameleon. They didn't come around these parts much, so she wasn't looking for one—that camouflage made it near impossible anyway. Though she had no problem with any species of lizard, she found chameleon eyes unsettling—something about the way they could glance in two directions at the same time always made her feel as though they were one step ahead.

That was when she saw it. One of the lizard's eyes moving toward the door while the other remained fixated on her companion and herself.

As soon as that drifting eye touched the entrance, the passageway burst open with such force some of the regulars toppled out their seats, tipping their caps in a most nontraditional way. Scaled bodies and headless hats littered the ground like trash under a highway overpass.

Three figures stood in the opening. No one could make out their faces, eyes still adjusting to the sunlight shoving between the combined silhouettes. Seance only knew a trio took up the space as she counted a trinity of right hands holding pistols at the ready.

This was when things became curious. Everyone in the bar froze, stone still, rigid as steel. To an eye less experienced than Seance's, the whole sight would have appeared unreal.

It wasn't as though no springs sprang when the strangers burst in—far from it. Unsuspecting iguanas had leaped from their seats, six shooters ready for the imminent scene. The band, one drunk salamander with a harmonica, had stopped playing. The barkeep broke conversation to observe the ruckus.

All this was before the phenomenon occurred. That mentioned prior was expected reaction, just wild cowboys in their natural habitat. The thing that was abnormal, near-supernatural, was the fact that after the initial uproar, time had seemingly stopped.

Now, it wasn't that the scene had frozen entirely, like someone pausing a VHS. Inanimate objects in the room still remained in motion—hats falling on the adobe floor, fabric of duster jackets waving like rags on scarecrows, whisky pouring from the tender's bottle into an overflowing shot glass—it was the patrons themselves who were in a static state. No one in the cantina showed the slightest trace of movement, no one but those tres pistoleros en la puerta.

No one but them, and our heroine.

Seance peered hard through the still drifting smoke. She thought she saw something strange in the off hand of the center man. Could it be what the Commander's crew used to call a Heart Stopper?

While everyone in the room was frozen in the present, Seance's mind was traveling to the past, to a life she had tried her best to forget. Thoughts of those contraptions sent her back, far back, back to a time that one of those wicked machines would have worked on her as well. Back to a time when she was more woman than fancy engineering. Back to a time she still had a heart to stop.

You see, Heart Stoppers only worked on the organic. A mechanical heart like the one beating in Seance's chest left them inoperative. It was something about the way the mechanisms triggered the nervous system that made them effective. Seance's heart beat all on its own, independent of her brain—she liked to joke that it was one less thing on her mind.

The three bad hombres lumbered forward. As they passed the threshold and Seance's eyes adjusted to the light, their features emerged. Now she was certain, the center man held a dated Heart Stopper in his left hand, thumb on the button centered at the top. That model, a version Seance was all too familiar with, was shaped like what some might remember as a heart shaped locket. It was visual gag by the twisted and then recently divorced designer, thrilled by the thought that his creation could cause more pain than a heartbreak.

Immediately upon entering, the unwelcome guests began profiling the crowd. It was clear they were searching for someone. Seance had more than a sneaking suspicion that it was her statuesque companion. The group was made of two iguanas and a man. She could see the signal blockers on their persons—the iguanas wearing bracelets with lights blinking in pattern, the human wearing his like a trinket at his throat.

Locating their target, the assassins proudly sauntered toward their prey. The only alternative to eerie stillness was that of their spurs, and whisky now running off the bar from the tender's never-ending long pour.

Seance's moment arrived. No sooner than the three had raised their trio of barrels to point straight in the face of Jorge, one of the vigilante iguana's guts burst open with a bullet that had just seconds ago been in the chamber of the woman's pistol. Pulling the hammer back to ready the next round, the cowgirl sprang forward, fingers outstretched to yank the medallion from the human's neck.

Success do-si-doed with a gun blast! The man went rigid with one leg in the air and fell like a fresh cut log leaking red maple syrup to the tavern floor.

One more to go. Seance over-swiveled on her boot heel and slipped backward, away from the unwounded iguana. The lizard pointed his weapon at the stumbling assailant but found himself too slow for the seasoned shooter. He collapsed on his back, two holes in his chest. The desperado landed on her saddle sores. The floor was sticky with blood and whisky. Seance manipulated the toggle at the top of the Heart Stopper.

Almost immediately the room reanimated. Freed from their static time-state, the patrons' faces showed a mixture of shock and disorientation coupled with excruciating pain. That was the thing about the wretched devices—they caused enormous strain on a living body. In fact, if someone was left in that imposed state long enough, they could come out paralyzed, or not at all.

Jorge was clutching his chest and gasping when the second attack began. The chameleon was the first to strike and the sound of a whip crack reverberated around the enclosure. Now Jorge was wrapped in the attacker's tongue. The camouflaging aggressor was reaching toward the handle sticking out the holster on his hip.

Seance instinctively pulled her trigger. The echo of this gunshot seemed louder than the others. While everyone else had experienced the stoppage of time moments before, Seance was having a taste of something similar now. The chameleon, hurt but still in action, had managed to pull his weapon and the gunslinger could see him squeezing off a shot aimed at the iguana.

What Seance didn't notice, was that even though her bullet was unsuccessful in killing the target, it did make the lizard loosen his grip—the grip of his tongue at least. With the lack of strength in constriction, Jorge was able to acquire enough slack to draw his own six shooter.

The report of Jorge's sidearm snapped Seance out of her trance. The chameleon never managed to fire before falling lifeless in the dirt. The surviving pair nodded at each other before Seance broke eye contact and looked at the floor as if she were embarrassed.

“Any more of them around here you think?”

“For now I think we're clear...” Seance responded, glancing anywhere but her compatriot.

“Wont be for long, we best get a move on,” the iguana said as he scooped up his duster and walked toward the door.

“What did you do anyway, Jorge? They usually aren't willing to risk their own kind for some scant bounty on drunken alley cat.”

“Drunken alley lizard, Deangelo... And it's a tale longer than my tail. Maybe I'll tell you later.” Jorge smirked. The reptile glanced back once at the woman before walking out the door.

Seance gripped the Heart Stopper in her left hand and holstered her handgun with her right.

The patrons, flabbergast with what had happened and recovering from suspended paralysis, last saw the duo of vaqueros loping toward the horizon and the setting sun. By the time the cock crowed, Seance and Jorge would be far from town, knowing that more hunters were bound to be hounding their trail.

This was when the trouble would truly begin.