by Andy Graham
He should have left the paper, but his curiosity, or possibly the repetitive nature of his current life, had got the better of him. Ray felt in his pocket. The message was still there. He still wasn’t sure why they’d gone for the theatrical version rather than just booby-trapping the tree. Unless — and this made him feel bilious, it smacked too much of torture and mind games — someone was playing with him.
Ray squeezed his eyes shut. The bursts of fireworks that had caught his attention still burned on the back of his eyelids. The taste of sulphur tickled the back of his throat. He laughed softly. “Fire and brimstone.”
Brimstone.
Brooke’s voice echoed back from under the Donian Mountains. It was followed by Sci-Captain James’s snigger. “That word hasn’t been used since the witch-burnings,” James had said.
Ray opened his eyes. The fireworks behind his eyelids had become the pulsing red rock seams of the cavern. Brooke was lying in a heap on the cave floor, legs pinned beneath her. James was off to one side, twitching. That thing was towering over them. The Monster-under-the-Mountain had taken out most of his old squad of 10th legionnaires with ease. And now there was a creature cut from the same flesh chasing Ray through the Weeping Woods.
He fumbled in his pocket for the piece of paper, now sweat-stained and grubby. The words swam into focus. They listed a date, a place, bait and a threat. The bait, both of them, were now sleeping at his feet. He hadn’t had a choice. His guilt at dragging Stella Swann into his family’s turbulent history hadn’t let him. Neither had the tiny possibility that this may not be a trap.
He pulled a flask from his belt, took a sip and dabbed some water on the kids’ lips. There was a thin line of congealed blood on the back of his hand. It traced a smile from small finger to thumb. Fresh blood welled up under the old as he flexed his fingers.
The forest was quiet again. He had to go. Whatever the government had sent to hunt him was getting closer.
With a grunt, he picked up the children. The little girl burrowed her tousled blonde head into his neck, her breath warm puffs against Ray’s sweaty skin. Adjusting the children into a more comfortable position, he pushed the dull throbbing ache in his low back away and moved deeper into the woods.
It stopped again and growled softly to itself. This wasn’t right, it had already been here. Those footprints were its own.
The silence of the forest was broken by a distant roar and an explosion of fluttering wings. Despite his tiredness, Ray grinned. The false trail, decorated with blood from the smiling cut on the back of his hand, may not have bought them much time, but anything was better than nothing. And now he knew roughly where their pursuer was. The adrenaline brought a flush of energy to his limbs. He pushed on through the trees, deeper into the forest’s heart.
2
Just Doing My Job
Sub-Corporal Jamerson Nascimento watched another drone being swallowed by the clouds. As the red flashing light disappeared, a star winked at him from a hole in the clouds that could almost have been a skull. “Had they ditched the Natural Navigation classes by the time you got to the 10th Legion, Orr?” he asked his companion.
The stocky man nodded.
“You missed a treat. They were taught by a broomstick that thought it was a woman: Lieutenant Cole. She looked like she ironed her face as well as her uniform—”
“—and talked like she’d swallowed the starch. Yup. Heard it.”
“Did I tell you Franklin aced those classes? It was odd, like one of those precocious kids you read about. You know what kids means, right? It’s another word for child. You were probably one once. Before you got too old to know what a joke is.” Nascimento gestured with his rifle. “I’m not sure that pair of sadistic thugs ever were children, though. Captain Brennan is only half a dozen years older than us and his hair is greyer than your future. As for Seth and that knife of his, what the fuck’s that all about? He’s—”
“You talk too much, Nasc.” Baris Orr slipped his baton out of his belt and stalked over to one of the many cages dotting the field.
“You should try talking. You used to be good at it,” Nascimento called after him.
Captain Brennan and Corporal Seth were hunkered around a screen. Accompanied by a rapid beeping, the image on the screen crashed through dense undergrowth. It ducked under branches, peered around tree boles and slapped its way through leaves. The picture lurched to show a pair of feet sloshing through white-tipped water. The images slowed. The beeping calmed. A foot was raised, fingers probing at the callused sole.
“Hit the amber button, Seth,” Brennan said, “just once.”
“Yes, sir.” Despite the cold night, there were drops of sweat on Seth’s forehead. He tapped a circular icon outlined in one corner of the screen, his breathing getting shallower.
The image of rushing water was blocked out by a dirty forearm. The skin over the disc in the wrist was red and shiny. The muted light under the skin flashed amber. A series of numbers on the opposite side of the screen shot up. The beeping noise got higher pitched and quicker.
Seth sniggered. “Oh, look, it’s scared again.”
Brennan’s lips were set into a downward twist. The wrist light winked green and the picture sped up, crashing around trees again.
Nascimento squatted down beside them. “This is wrong, Brennan. You know that. If we’re going to hunt Franklin down, let’s do it ourselves, not send that thing after him. Surely we owe him that at least?”
Brennan cast him a sidelong glance. He had a deep vertical furrow in his brow that split his forehead in two. “Not your call to make, Sub-Corporal Nascimento. We owe him nothing other than what he’s due as a deserter. You break the law, you pay for it. That way the balance of society is maintained.”
“Lighten up, Nasc, it’s just a bit of fun,” Seth added.
“I know what your type of fun involves, Seth. It makes my blood curdle just talking to you.”
Seth shrugged. “You can’t have heroes if you got no villains. While your daddy was stroking your privileged little cock to make you piss straight, my old man taught me what really makes the world go round.” He held up a clenched fist. “And it’s Corporal Seth, to you, little man.” He grinned. “The government pays me to do what I do. I’d have to do it if I enjoyed it or not. I guess I got lucky. But if the government tells me it’s OK, it must be, right? It’s only torture if the other side is doing it.”
“Hunting men with animals is wrong,” Nascimento repeated. “And that man might as well be an animal now, after what he’s been through.”
“I don’t see you complaining about hunting animals with men.”
“For food or survival, yes. For shits and giggles, never.” Nascimento stood up from his deep squat, his large frame blocking out the little moonlight that was left.
Seth eyed him up and down. “Quit with the morals, Nascimento. We got to bring Franklin in, them’s the rules. Rules that come from way up higher than you. And we get to try this new toy out, too. At least this way your old boyfriend gets a chance. If we used the drones, he’d be dead before he knew it. And that really is no fun.”
“Like I said, this is wrong. Face-to-face is a fair fight, not all this experimental shit.”
Seth stood, the screen knocking against the side of his thigh. His chest swelled against the zipper of his jacket. “I’ll do a little face-to-face with you, Sub-Corporal. All your cute little jokes are getting on my nerves.” He tossed the screen into a tuft of grass. In the near distance, a chatter of shouts and snarls was cut off by the sound of a baton being dragged across metal bars. Seth stomped over to Nascimento, his boots flattening clumps of grass. He placed one hand on his head and slid it over to Nascimento’s, dropping it down until his palm was cupping the top of Nascimento’s skull. “I think you’re just jealous you’re not the big guy anymore.”
“Dude, really?” Nascimento knocked Seth’s wrist away.
“Don’t dude me, Sub-Corporal.” Seth pushed his nose up to the o
ther man’s face. “We’re not in your precious gym. There is no brotherhood of brawn. All that bragging about your lifting totals on the gym floor and in the showers is a little too needy for me. It smells like juiced-up teenage boys who can’t get laid, kids in a cock-waving competition. You city boys should come work the fields for a few days. I know old men with real-world muscle stronger than peacocks like you. Men with enough hip-and-grip strength to outwork the sun.”
“What about the women who work the fields?”
“Good for breeding, feeding and, if they don’t belong to you, bleeding.”
Nascimento scratched at the stubble on his chin. “Dude, on behalf of every woman ever, I’ve got to apologise for being the same gender as you.”
Seth twisted Nascimento’s jacket lapel around his fist. “It’s the way it is, Sub-Corporal. Farm strength tops gym strength. I don’t care how ripped your mirror muscles are or how much you bench, I’ll still fuck you up.”
Nascimento grinned. “Yeah, I’ve had a couple of fights, too. I just don’t brag about them. And I can squat more as a warm-up than you can count. Now let go of my jacket before you crease it, Seth.”
“Corporal Seth.”
“And I don’t know what it’s like never to get laid. I’ve always had the opposite problem, Seth.”
The hoots and cheers behind them got louder. Captain Brennan appeared out of the gloom. “When you two are done, we have work to do.”
Neither man moved.
“Now, gentlemen.” Brennan’s voice dropped to a whisper.
A bead of sweat traced its way down Seth’s face, across his flushed cheeks. He wiped it off with his middle finger and flicked it at Nascimento.
“Corporal Seth,” Brennan said, “speed up that freak in the woods. I want Franklin caught. Nascimento, you’re not in the 10th Legion anymore. You Rivermen are a liability dressed up as a shambles. In the Unsung, you do what you’re told, when you’re told, and nothing else.”
“Yes, sir.” Nascimento turned on his heel and walked over to Orr. “I never thought I’d say it, Baris,” Nascimento said with a glance over his shoulder, “but I’m glad at least you’re here in this freak show of a unit. Someone who’s at least related to normal.”
Orr ran a hand across his shaved scalp, the shadow of a widow’s peak just visible. Deep rings surrounded his dark brown eyes. “Seth’s a dick, but a dangerous one. Careful with him.”
One of the shapes huddled in the cage lurched towards him. Orr stood his ground and gave the metal bar a rap with his baton. The man dropped to his knees, whimpering.
“This is sick,” Nascimento said. “Some of the stuff we did in the 10th was questionable, but all this Unsung shit is just plain wrong.”
Orr’s eyes were fixed on the man cowering in the cage. Next to him a woman was curled up in a fetal position. As she rocked back and forth, the green light flashing from her wrist disc shifted into view. Orr flicked the switch on his baton; a burst of blue light exploded at one end. Both figures shied away from him, pressing themselves into the far side of the cage. The light flickered back off the scars carved into their flesh. The people trapped in the other cages beat themselves against the bars, like birds trapped in a flaming aviary.
“Stop it, man.” Nascimento grabbed Orr’s arm. “They’re people. Your people.”
“They’re not people anymore. You said it yourself. They might as well be animals. And the Donian aren’t my people. My people were wiped off the map by the 10th Legion, our old legion. Or did you forget that?”
Nascimento jabbed a finger at his colleague. “The Donian tribes accepted you as one of their own. They near enough had you married to every available woman there. I think even Kaleyne, the old lady with all those hair clips, would have said yes if you’d asked.”
Orr shook his head. “I won their hearts and minds, Occupation Basics 101, and I beat their champion. I got us access rights for that bloody cave system where it all went to shit. I was doing my job. That’s all. Just my job.”
Nascimento pointed to one of the cages, inside it cowered a boy with a tangle of black hair. “I recognise that kid. He brought us food when we were sitting around their fire. Does that mean nothing to you?”
Orr shrugged.
“They’ve injected them all with samples of that element we brought back, gwenium, or whatever hokey name they’ve given it now.” Nascimento shivered. “That and this fucking mind-control voodoo shit they got going on. I’m telling you, it’s sick. I signed up to protect my people, not all this cloak-and-dagger, hybrid warfare crap.”
Another man in the cage stared up at them. His bloodshot eyes gleamed in the moonlight. Odd-shaped lumps poked up from his skull. He shuffled closer, walking on all fours.
“Don’t be a dick, Nasc. You’re a soldier, you sign up, you do what you’re told. That’s the deal. Same as me. Same as Seth. I was just doing my job.”
Nascimento rounded on Orr, his voice rising. “Yeah, like taking kickbacks for more samples of that element? I remember you doing that under the bloody mountain.”
Orr’s left eye twitched.
“If you hadn’t been so greedy we’d all have got out of there alive. And we probably wouldn’t have been dumped into this freak show with Brennan and his sidekick Seth, ‘the sadist who is blessed in his job as torturer’.”
Orr held his baton up in front of the cage. Blue sparks spat from the end. The boy behind the bars recoiled, face contorting with fear.
“Listen, Jamerson. If we hadn’t got to the Donian Mountains first, someone else would have got there soon after us. I beat Lukaz, I won us the respect of the tribe. I got us access to the mines and the gwenium. If I hadn’t, the government would have sent in someone much worse than us.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Seth was hunched over the screen, finger hovering over the amber icon. Brennan, face impassive, was watching.
A little way off, Renna, a 13th legionnaire, was shouting commands at a shrivelled old man. She kicked the back of his knee, poleaxing him. Renna knocked him down as fast as he could stand up. She held the screen that was linked to his wrist disc up in front of his face every time he slowed down.
Orr grabbed Nascimento’s sleeve. “Brennan, Seth, Renna, and the rest. Would you want them running riot amongst the Donian? Whatever that thing was waiting under the mountain wasn’t my fault. But I bought the tribes some time. If they’ve got any sense, they’ll be getting ready for us. Next time we go back, it’s not going to be as friendly. Best remember that.”
“Listen, Baris—”
“I bought us time, too.”
“What are you talking about?”
Orr nodded over his shoulder. Brennan was watching them, the furrow in his forehead turning the lines in his brow into a series of downward arrows.
“C’mon, Jamerson. You’re from the city. You’re supposed to be cleverer than us simple folk from the Free Towns.” Orr pointed his baton at the Weeping Woods beyond Seth and Brennan. Rows of trees watched back. Some were huddled together. Others stood defiantly up to the wind that smashed into the tree line. A few had long since rotted through and fallen to the ground. “Apart from that thing chasing Ray in the Weeping Woods, all these specimens are waifs and strays. Most are from the Donian Mountains, except for that old boy taking a beating over there.”
The wizened old man was on his knees. Renna was laying into him. Each time her boot thudded into his thighs, a shudder ran through his body in fleshy waves.
“He’s a drifter from the gutters of the capital. And where did they come from? Tell me that, Nasc.”
“What?”
“You never saw beggars or drifters on the streets before. I never saw no handicapped folk, neither. They never used to exist before Franklin went AWOL and busted up that oh-so-secret camp we’re not supposed to know about.”
“They’re just rumours. And there have always been homeless. The police used to round them up at night.”
Orr flicked the baton on. Blue light stung the
air, burning shapes into Nascimento’s night vision. “Not just the police. The Unsung go out, too; it’s called litter-picking. I’ve been on a few of those round-ups. We pick the folk up and drop ’em in a cell. When morning comes, they’re gone. We’re not asked to file any reports, log anything, or even count the buggers.” He scowled. “Suits me. Bureaucracy’s killing the world.”
Someone shouted. Renna stamped down on the old man’s leg. His shin snapped with a sickening crunch, his leg now bent in three places.
“Enough.” Nascimento fingers clenched around his rifle. “I’m going to stop it.”
Brennan was walking over to them. Seth was watching, his head cocked to one side.
Orr pulled Nascimento back. “That thing chasing Franklin was half-dead when our dodgy medics started experimenting on him. If a controlled dose of whatever this element is can turn a man like that into a berserking gladiator,” Orr whispered rapidly, “what do you think it will do to a trained soldier in his prime? When they finish testing this stuff on the Donian, who do you think they’re going to try it on next? Governments test shit like this on soldiers like us. They always have, from recreational drugs to anabolic performance enhancers, to dodgy vaccines that exist only to line someone’s pocket with a few pennies. Pray to whatever god you used to believe in that they test the shit out of this gwenium solution before they give it to us.”
Nascimento’s jaw snapped shut.
Brennan stepped in front of them. “Is there a problem?”
Orr held his baton to the cage, and flicked the switch. Blue sparks arced across the bars, cocooning the young boy inside. Screaming silently, the child fell to the ground.
“No, sir,” replied Orr. “Just doing my job.”