All the Time in the World to Read Them

He looked down at the woman who occupied his bed. Her nude form glistening in the light, from earlier activity. She was sleeping heavily, he had assured that. He sighed a little and began to pull on his favorite outfit, starting to slide on his prosthetic arm extensions, clicking them in to place and feeling the interface take hold.

He looked down at her, flexing the claws that now extended from him. As soon as he completed his dressing, he would disembowel her with these claws. It was for her own good really, the locals would do far worse to her after she left here. For being with him. Better to be disemboweled by a sadist deep within a drugged sleep, then to be drug to the town square fully conscious only to be slowly stoned to death.

What started off as a clear-eyed idea of freezing people like him out, had become an article of religion these days. His name was Edgar Wallace, heir to the vast Wallace fortune, as much as people even said his name anymore, or for as much use as his money was anymore except to him personally. So funny, the privileged are so blinded to the direction of the wind until the sand storm is on them.

The last stock market crash had sealed it, even though nobody fully realized it at the time. There had been an increasing series of trends, that everybody, including his family's accountants figured would just die down. Instead, people just stopped buying things. More specifically, they stopped buying things from his families companies. Everybody on the Forbes top fifty list suddenly had a target on their back it seemed. If it hadn't led to this for him, he could almost admire the ingenuity of the new economy they created, just to get rid of people like him.

He kept looking at the girl, and found himself realizing he was lonely. Well, lonely for somebody who wasn't a member of the ten families that is. Lonely for something that wasn't pre-programmed for his pleasure. Something spontaneous, something human. He made a decision then, he'd let her sleep it off and then use her again, maybe he would even talk to her a bit. Another human voice, but he wasn't ready to let her go just yet, that he knew.

He began removing the prosthetic limbs feeling them disconnect from his senses, as the interface was severed. She was dead, she had known it when she had come up to his door. His money at least, could still be transferred and turned in to credits in certain amounts. They hadn't taken that from him. Of course, there were limits now on anything people bought. No more factory takeovers. His family figured that out after the crash, the obvious solution to people not buying your companies products, buy companies people didn't know you owned. Unfortunately the powers that came soon figured that out too, and kyboshed that avenue of power.

Now though, even talking to one of the remaining fortunes representatives was instant hatred. She had been with him, they would deem her "unclean" by association.

Dark thoughts on his mind or not, his body was not bothered by such trivialities and was demanding food, so he wandered out of his bed chamber, and went downstairs through tastefully decorated Victorian styled hallways and stairs and to his kitchen area. After pressing in his breakfast order, he turned on the tri-d to check in with how the rest of the world was turning.

At first, it was the same boring news, different day, but it gave him something to watch while he ate. As he listened with half an ear one item caught his interest, Hallison had finally died. Hallison was the only other scion of one of the families that still lived on Earth, the rest had their own terra-formed planets as remote and isolated as possible. Well if nothing else that gave him a plan for what to do with his day.

Any time one of the heads of one of the families died, it made news. In this case the crazy old coot had no heirs, so his fortune would end up being split among an approved by him list of charities eventually. Lord only knows what those would be, the man had been a drooling nutter towards the end, Edgar had begged off from seeing him personally for years now.

But that meant that invariably the AMOUNT of Hallison's fortune would be reported, and that meant the natives would be restless for a few weeks. They could keep him a virtual prisoner in his keep, but that couldn't keep him from having some fun playing with them.

He finished his breakfast and went up to the bubble. It was clear to view through, giving him a commanding view of the Arizona mesas, but it was built out of a material that could withstand a nuke strike. The People's government might have been able to freeze the families out of the corporate world, but they still had an anything goes attitude if you could prove it was for "personal use" which made sense in a way. The amount of money those families had at this point, even if it just sat in a bank it accrued so much interest it was the only way short of mass murder to get any of their money back in to the economy.

His father had built Home before he was born, and it was unreachable by any conventional method, but still, the locals tried. As the terra-forming revolution happened, there weren't exactly the best and the brightest left in the more inhospitable areas of the Earth, and resentment of him ran high. The girl in his bed was a prime example of how low they could still go. In a society that doesn't allow anyone to fall below subsistence, who gives their daughter over for a death sentence just for a wad of cash? From someone everyone professes to loathe no less?

Getting up in to the bubble that stuck out on top of the roof of Home, he turned on what he called "the party lights." Club lighting, and music, loud, real loud. Hey if they were going to resent him, let them think he had everything to resent right? He went back down leaving them on. As he descended the steps, he smiled as he was rewarded with a loud shuddering noise, as something undeniably explosive was absorbed by the bubble's defense screens.

That should hold their attention while he achieved some more amusement at their expense. He went down into the sub basements. Connecting to them was a network of tunnels, some of which lead to the surface in fully concealed openings. He began putting on another one of his tech exoskeletons. Most of them he had designed personally to, at first glance, look like some of the more "frisky" alien life forms humanity had heard rumors of in it's expansion throughout the universe.

This one was a favorite. Claws that had flexing links that extended a full foot from the eight digits on each hand, a fully functional tail, and a head full of teeth. It was almost completely impossible to see him in the suit, and the suit hooked up to his nervous system to give him complete control over it.

He had worked really hard to get rumors into the local celebrity press about his "exotic zoo" for a reason. To be fair HE DID actually have an exotic zoo in Home, but nothing quite as interesting as the press had speculated. Always lay your groundwork in advance. Advice to remember.

He clicked on the screens showing the view from the exterior cameras. He knew some locals were hiding out there with blood, his blood, on their minds. The explosion on the bubble was all the proof of that he needed. Now all he had to do was find someone likely that he could play with.

By the time he had gone through the cameras he came up with about 20 potential choices. Some people must be news viewers he decided. Normally there were only ten at a maximum. Of them, he narrowed it down to six, but two specifically caught his eye. They had unwittingly placed themselves near one of the tunnel entrances and from the looks of them, they did not look like major contributors to society.

Finally, kitted out and ready, he hit the door panel and went in to the tunnels. Cold steel the whole way, but not particularly well lit. He knew them by heart, he had played in them as a child. Not that it mattered. The suit's eye visors provided better vision then his own. He thrilled at the power he felt in his control with in the suit. Physical prowess that no amount of surgery or exercise could possibly provide.

Coming to the exit, he spoke the code to open it. He had no worry about anyone re-opening the door after he stepped out, all of the doors on Home were set to a genetic code scan, which it could do even through the suit along with a heart rate scan to ensure he wasn't dead or hostage. No one short of his own child could walk in to Home, and he had made sure he never sired one of those.

The two men he was stalking were both turned staring at the bubble trying to see if all the smoke and noise had meant penetration and damage. One had his rifle trained on it. The other had his pointed towards what, as far as the world knew, was the one and only door to Home. Too easy, but it should be amusing nonetheless, he wasn't out here for real exertion or challenge. Just for chuckles. It might be cruel, but then again, these men were in the middle of a desert hoping to murder him, so cruel at that point, becomes a matter or perspective.

He moved slowly and deliberately behind the first man. Drawing back his arm, he thrust forward with the full strength of the machinery he controlled. A gurgling erupted from the man's mouth and his gun dropped with a crash of plastic and metal. The prosthetic claws burst forth out of his chest.

The other man turned gun in hand to see what had happened. Edgar triggered the machinery in the tail bringing it about in a whipping motion. The other man crashed to the ground , his gun crashing and from the sound of it, breaking on the rocks below them. Edgar advanced then, the first man still dangling from his claws gore dripping on to the dusty ground. A fully formed horror heading towards the man.

The man was obviously dazed from his fall, but was already scrambling away. This he stopped by slamming the tail mech over him, slowing him long enough so that he could get one of his great clawed feet to pin him to the ground. At this point he took the mangled dying thing that still bubbled and gurgled and dangled it over the man, blood and spit drooling out of the dying face on to the panicked living one. Slowly and with exaggerated care, he lowered the mutilated one down until the face of the dying one was just above his uninjured compatriot. The man made pitiful noises as he tried to back in to the ground itself. Finally, he lowered the still barely alive one to the point where its lips just barely touched the face of his terrified friend.

As suddenly as he began his grisly amusements he pulled the almost dead one straight up and whirled his arm so that the body flew down the hillside they were on, leaving a graceful but hideous trail as it arced over the abyss. He immediately released all pressure upon his live friend, chuckling inside as he watched him scrabble away, finally getting to a half crouch allowing to pick himself up the rest of the way. He looked at the hideous clawed and fanged thing before him as it appeared to study him. A low guttural howl escaped his lips, seeming to well up from deep within him, before he turned and fled as fast as he was able down the slope towards civilization miles away.

Wallace was laughing aloud by the time he was returning back to Home. He had rationalized it years ago. These men had been there, maybe for days at a time, hoping and praying with all their might that they might have an opportunity to eradicate the evil they believed he represented. Well, now they had had it. All anyone can hope for in life is an opportunity. His family had long ago reached a begrudging accommodation about Home and it's environs, he asked almost no protection for himself, and they asked almost no questions about what happened here one way or the other. If the one that lived was believed at all, and sane at all when he reached a town, and was still stupid enough to report it, Edgar might get a text asking if any of his animals had escaped recently.

Some time later the girl had awoken, and they were having dinner together, "What I don't understand," she said," is, you'd still be rich. You wouldn't be completely trapped in here if you just did the voluntary fortune reduction, and you'd still never work a day in your life."

"Pride I suppose," he responded. "Since the old families were given a choice, reduced wealth, but enough to last that generation from one end to the other, or hold on to every penny, most of them did give it up. If not in the first generation, once they realized how ostracized they were, within one or two. The Wallace's, what we have, we keep. Every red cent."

"But you can't go out, you can't be normal......"

"I suppose you could make a case, that the people who accumulated such an incorruptible amount of wealth in the first place, already lived like that really. Every single picture I've ever seen of my great-great-grandfather in public, there were at least 6 bodyguards between him and the world. We just, became accustomed to it, to the manor born and raised."

"What of it though," he continued," if I have an heir one day, let him make the judgment call, I am my father's son though, better an outcast who will never know want, then one of the teaming masses out there, saving their pennies to buy a missile to hurl at my defenses."

"I don't know......."

"Of course you don't my dear, if you were even as moderately wealthy as is allowed now, you wouldn't be here would you?"

A scowl flicked across her face, and he said gently to her, "But, I'm quite sure, we could find more pleasant ways to spend the evening then discussing and debating the troubles of the poor pitiful ultra rich? It's both tedious and redundant. My family and the other nine, well eight as of today, are the holdouts. We have become, even I will admit, an evolutionary dead end. Hell, we're the only ones left who still own finance that can even be counted in 'dollars' and not just credits. The system gave us a choice, and we chose this, and thus one day, we will be absorbed back into the system, if only by time, like an irritant. Whatever evil we represented, as far as control of the system was neutralized. We, are just remnant, but tonight, there are only you and I. So, shall we adjourn?"

And, they did.

Hours later, he had sated himself by using her. After, they had shared wine and held each other. Her wine, had contained powerful sedatives. His had not. She was again in a deep sleep, arm splayed out across his bed in the dim warmth of the synthetic candlelight.

He was hungry again, he had not eaten his fill earlier, hoping to forgo a lengthy discussion with her about a point of view that she couldn't possibly understand. Nor did he want to hear her problems and her point of view, which he, frankly, did not want consider. They were different people, and he didn't want to play "Empathy, The Home Game." She came from a family who had found a way to screw it up, to need money desperately enough to sell her, in a society that refused to let anyone go hungry. He came from a group of people, whose pilfered wealth had funded that societies foundation. Well maybe not his family personally, his forbears had seen to that. Better to die alone then give anything away to a society capable of producing people like her.

Hallison, that fool. Now his entire property would go in to a receivership for 10 years, unless he had specified charities in a will. If no genetic heir turned up, off it would go to the very state the 10 families had resisted for all these years. One way or another, Wallace was going to ensure that didn't happen to him. At this point, he was considering one of the women who were advertised on the distant poorer planets. Anything but mating within the 10 families, constant inter-marriage between only the families was starting to show problems, but again, anything but just handing it right over to the state, after what his family had gone through to ensure the continuance of the legacy.

He ordered himself a late night meal. Real steak, medium rare, some rolls, some fries and some real honest to god beer should do nice. The mech-chef had it done within moments, and done to perfection. He picked his plate up, and his beer in a chilled glass and sat down to enjoy.

Shame about the girl. She hadn't told him what her family had done to get in such a bind that they were willing to sacrifice her for a payday. He hadn't asked. It was none of his business really, but that reminded him, before he finished her tomorrow morning, he should finish the transaction. Life had always had a price, all the way back to when there was no money to set prices. In this case, the price of hers was 100,000 credits.

He opened up a pad at the table, and set about making the transfer card. He'd have it delivered to her family by courier tomorrow. It was what they wanted. One card one hundred k, unlimited usage. Frankly, once delivered totally untraceable. Not total idiots he supposed. They didn't want to pay taxes on their little windfall, the instructions she had arrived with, were a little hard-hearted even by his standards.

He punched in his access code. He was about to hit print to create the card when he stopped chewing on his steak for a moment to check it over. That was the moment when he noticed he'd forgotten a zero, so he quickly punched in another.

He swallowed his meat then. Suddenly, he felt a sudden pain in his throat. Oh my god. Oh my god!, he couldn't breathe! He tried to yell for help but no sound at all exited his mouth, clutching at his throat, he lunged out of his seat. Dear lord his chest hurt. He tried desperately to tighten up his stomach, anything to get the steak to dislodge. The girl! If he could get to the girl! Quickly, quickly! Things were getting dark. He had to.....hurry.....to....the......steps.......he was vaguely aware of hitting the floor, and then, he was aware of nothing. Ever again.

She, awoke in the morning. In many ways, nobody was more surprised by it then she was. She knew full well what happened to girls who were sent here, but her family had insisted. They had, more then insisted. They had told her bluntly that they would sell her to a whorehouse they knew of otherwise. That wouldn't even begin to cover the gambling debt his father had run up, and for that, she would be turned in to one of those walking dead women she saw at the illegal houses. Bruised and beaten, often strung out on drugs, no government supervision or protection in those bottom of the barrel slave trading places, but always a demand , for a place where there were no rules, and the women desperate enough to accept it as their fate. Better one night or two, and then a quick death.

The house around her was silent. Which she thought odd, but then again, she wasn't expecting to still be alive so the whole day was odd at its onset. None of the other girls she had heard about had made it to a third night before the body was found in the hills near here. She felt oddly detached about everything as she got up, still naked from the night before.

She left the room and walked to the steps downstairs to the dining room. Upon reaching the landing, she saw him collapsed at the foot of them, hand reaching out to the bottom step. She felt nothing. No screams, no terror, nothing at all. She was expecting to be murdered, and there below her unmoving, was her assumed murderer. Maybe it was the remains of the drugs in her system, or maybe the improbability of this reprieve was so unthinkable, that it left her blank, or possibly, knowing that if she went home now, it was probably still the whore house or worse, being stoned to death driven by the fanatical nature of the locals. Her reprieve was in many ways unwelcome. Edgar Wallace had in his power the ability to save her, and, Edgar Wallace was not moving on the floor.

Feeling like she was still asleep and dreaming, she went down to his immobile form. Turning him over there was no doubts left. Protruding tongue, rigid, and blue was not a sign of good health. There was no helping him, so she moved on to the kitchen, seeing the half eaten meal.

Looking over she saw the screen. She saw the cursor blinking over the amount. Languidly she pressed zero twice, and then print. The hard card ejected from an unseen slot in the tabletop. She stared at it almost unseeing for a second then snapped it up, and set it back down. If it was to be any use of her, she would have to find a way out of here. Surely the man had vehicles, some means of egress from this fortress. That none of the locals knew of. It was time to get dressed and scout around, and make plans for a future, a future she hadn't even considered needing to plan for.

A half an hour later, the front door, the only one readily known to the local population, of the dwelling known as "Home" slammed open. A hover board floated out in a slow ghostly manner carrying a grizzly cargo. The door slid shut immediately after the payload had cleared it.

Slowly men crept in from all around. A doctor was called in. Soon there was an enormous crowd clustered around. All to confirm that they had seen it. The thing on the board, was the body of Edgar Wallace. The monster of the mountain was indeed dead.

Within moments the thoughts of all there turned to the hoard the beast must have had within it's home, that it had now vacated along with life itself. Soon they pressed themselves against the door. Pounding at it, but it seemed that his fortress was just as impenetrable, even if, he himself had not proved to be immortal.

A rock wall in the desert. The base of a long hill of rock reaching down to the flat lands themselves. It slides aside. A vehicle is in the entrance, custom built and expensive. It looks like something from the earths distant past, when vehicles ran on CO2 emitting fossil fuels. Built to look like, what a student of the time period would call a Bel-Air hot rod. Its engine though runs silently, fueled by syn-gas.

The vehicle speeds away, and the wall slides instantly back in to place.

The driver's name is Ivy. Ivy de Caudecot, but she is thinking about changing the last name already, it calls attention to itself. She is suddenly very wealthy and suddenly treasures her anonymity . She speeds away into the desert morning, but she will return one day. She is carrying with her, the last scion of the vast Wallace fortune.

THE END

Bio: Mr. Lubaczewski has done a lot of different things in his life. He was the lead singer of the NYC Punk Band The Repressed in the late 80's and early 90's. He has also caved heavily and contributed articles for both NSS News and Speleo-Digest. He was also an editor for Los Angeles music magazine “Spark-Plug Magazine.” He's married with one son at home in Appalachia,with two adult daughters living in his native Pennsylvania. His photography is viewable on both Redbubble and Fine Art America. In his spare time he is the owner of the Facebook horror page A Touch Of Evil and a contributor to the horror page Long Live The Horror.

E-mail: Paul Lubaczewski

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