by Nathan Lunn
“It’s not him, Kye,” Douglass whispered, fear and sadness battling for dominance in his delivery. “He’s too weak, he hasn’t done anything like that. It was us, and we need to accept that.” Kye’s face morphed, and he clutched the jam of the door, his arm wilting under the accusation. “I have. I understand what our actions have done. You need to understand, Kye.” Kye shook his head, intent on ignoring Douglass’ comments, and slammed his hand into the door to try and raise it’s size once more.
“No, no, no, no, no! We didn’t kill anyone. I’m not responsible, it was the Croft family,” he yelled, his voice cracking. Venom laced, he spat once more, “These fuckers, they’re the reason why it began, and they have to be the reason why it ends. I can’t take any more, I just can’t!” Kye span around, shocking the orderlies who had been moving to help Arthur up out of the way; his pistol was aimed directly at Arthur, and his arm was shaking, almost uncontrollably now.
“Kye, no! He doesn’t deserve this, he’s just an old man,” Douglas yelled, pointing his baton out far.
Kye strained – his face in pain and arm unstable – looked back to Douglass, and cried out, “He’s the enemy. He has to die!”
“Listen to yourself! You’re no better than Danny,” Douglass yelled back, jabbing with his baton. “Stand down!” The electric prongs got a little too close to Kye and he slapped them away, all the energy leaking out of his arm as further purple chips dropped to the floor. His entire body seemed to sap, his head and arms drooping low as Douglass’ words sank in.
“I’m nothing like Danny, Douglass,” he said, the pistol clattering to the floor. “Right?” Douglass kicked the pistol away, zapping his purple arm again, slowing it down a little. Kye had become numb to the feeling entirely, and slid against the stained glass and sat on the floor, subdued. “I can’t be,” he whispered to himself, staring remorsefully at the purple arm which spasmed periodically in his lap.
“It’s alright, Kye. We should just go, just leave and be better. We can retire. Yeah? No more innocents?” Douglass soothed, taking a stance next to the shattered Kye. “Should we let these gentlemen finish their procedure?”
Kye looked up to Douglass, his naivete complemented by Douglass’ wisdom – his last human eye searching for understanding, for teaching or some sort of guidance. Sliding a finger up to his temple, Kye brought up the hacked PR application and considered bringing Charlie back for a moment.
“No…” he said, dropping his head between his legs in acceptance. He closed the system down and gave up, dropping any guard of damage entirely. Douglass, in seeing this defeat, decided to nod up at the orderlies, asking for assurances as he rolled the stun baton away in a gesture of goodwill, “You can go ahead and complete it now. We can leave once it is done, you promise us that?”
Frightened and willing to agree, the orderlies collectively nodded. “Very well. We apologise.”
The full procedure didn’t take all that long at all – it seemed as though Kye and Douglass had interrupted nearer to the final stages. The silver case was opened with a sterile hiss, and the cap to the small black hump was taken from inside, and placed over the top of Arthur’s temple, slotting in nicely over the bump that had already been applied. A magnetic click sounded, followed by a low whine as the electric device began to charge up. A fizzle of light ran through Arthur’s body, and Douglass looked away, uncomfortable to see someone his own age go, even if it was peacefully. Kye’s head hung low aside his knees, uninterested in paying attention to anything that was happening. The fizzling noise and shaking ended, and after a moment of silence, Douglass turned back to look at the corpse.
The empty bed surprised him for only a moment, dread just beginning to grip his heart, before a standing and reformed Arthur Croft arose next to him, a malicious smile printed where his slack jaw had just been. Grabbing the spare pistol from the floor, along with the stun baton, he moved forward to a gasping Douglass and Kye, zapping them immediately in the ribcage and sending their vision dark.
36
Kye was cold. The searing frozen pain of the metal he thought he was lying on was pressing against the unstunned parts of his body, turning them similarly numb as his arm and head felt. A thick blindfold had been slipped over his eyes, the coarse canvas material scratching at his recently healed scar and blocking out the light and any semblance of an indication as to where he even was. This, coupled with the stun baton’s vicious bite, helped to disorientate him, and even though he was still, the room still felt like it was spinning.
Though unconscious for a good deal of his travel, he had woken around an entire hour before his body was dumped unceremoniously onto the floor – deciding to stay quiet for this time, and play limp when he was grabbed, he had ample time to think. Unfortunately, this didn’t equate to ample time to escape, and the lack of opportunities and space kept him in his place. Unlike the previous time he had been blinded, his captors had also chosen to bind both his hands and feet with a biting material that stabbed into his wrists and ankles. His commlink had been entirely wiped from his internal display as a result of the frying, and though he wasn’t sure, he imagined his prosthetic had also been shut down (the pitch black made it hard to distinguish between his working eye and his disabled one). As far as he could make out, he had been transferred into a vehicle at least seven different times, then dropped onto the metal slab he felt now. Unable to move, he was waiting for something to happen, his arm still dead and frozen by his side – on numerous occasions, Kye had attempted to break free of his bonds when he suspected he was alone, rendered entirely unable to do so as a result of his deadened prosthetic.
Anger bubbled under the fear at all times, threatening to overwhelm him; his mind raced with no stimuli to stop it. He couldn’t wrap his head around the choice he had made, and how Douglass had managed to convince him to stand down, and, unable to react in time, how he had been so easily dispatched of. It seemed, from what he had seen, that Arthur had raised a new lease of life, his body changing as his mind returned to its former glory – but this was all speculation. Mostly, Kye felt worry – a palpable, mind-numbing and paralysing anxiety that kept him still and complacent. With his main source of weaponry rendered obsolete, and his arms and legs bound, he was at a more vulnerable state than he had ever been. Finding himself at the mercy of an angry vengeful Croft was not what he had expected from this venture, and it was especially disheartening to know considering just how well the heist had been going up until that point. But he knew if he just bided his time, his arm would reboot and he could escape. He just needed the time. Everything went wrong when he lost his temper, though was it all his fault? Kye pondered on Douglass’ opinion, and why it had been so polarising to his own – seeing the endless stream of empty Croft rooms had enraged him, knowing that the last one was still full – and the reveal of the silver cases contents was more than he could have handled. It was only that reason why he–
“Pick him up, please. There is absolutely no need to have him tied up like that, just make sure he is restrained adequately. He is clearly awake; have you not interrogated him yet?” A polite and soft voice cut through his thoughts, the first he had heard in a few hours, and clearly attached to an older woman. His hearing was still a little deadend, but he was able to make out most of the words – his heart freezing when he realised she was talking about him.
A gruffer voice by his side replied, “Yes Ma’am.” As soon as he heard the words, he felt hands on his body, lifting him to his knees and ripping the coarse blindfold down to his neck. Kye held his eyes shut, sensing the bright shift in lighting before he was revealed; another rough voice spoke to his other side, replying to the second half of the woman’s questions, “No Ma’am, he didn’t appear to be awake yet. We would have alerted you immediately if we had noticed – he’s just been lying here, staying still.” Kye kept his eyes shut, choosing to slowly open them over a long period of time to acclimate to the light. Almost as immediately as he began, his prior suspicions were c
onfirmed – only his right eye appeared to give any optical feedback – the left remaining entirely dark.
“I’m sure he fooled you well. Oh my, he looks hideous,” the woman chuckled, planting herself directly in front of him. “Nothing like his photos. Okay, time to talk.”
Kye had fully opened his eyes by now, and was ready to take in his surroundings, albeit through a one-sided delivery system.
He found himself in a tall, clustered space, that began wide on the bottom, and slowly got thinner as it reached the ceiling, resulting in a tightly packed conical interior. The room around him was definitely bright, though the lighting was not coming from a single source – instead, an irregular grouping of bulbous pods could be seen, popping out of the thick metal wall like sores and glowing with an artificial power, shadows shifting behind a frosted glass which hid their true purpose. A tangled mess of different coloured wires slid along the walls and into the pods, liquid pumping through some and power coursing through others, but every single one stretching from a central point at the top of the room and continuing down until it reached the final pods on Kye’s floor. Here, the nearest two pods glowed with a light blue, a steady stream of super-cooled vapour diluting through the glass membrane and out into the air around them, providing the source of the room’s entire chill. Kye couldn’t see a doorway out.
As he had suspected, two male guards stood to his sides, and a single man and woman in front of him. The guards had been armed with a high-calibre rifle each, complete with a Shatterpoint ammunition variant, and an all-encapsulating gold and silver exo-skeleton armour, currently the highest available of its kind on the market – the interlocking panels made it near-impenetrable and capable of surviving the harshest possible conditions. Kye gasped aloud when he recognised the woman and the man, though it was more from anger than surprise, and it soon turned into a vicious snarl.
Arthur Croft, dressed in a buttoned-down morning suit and looking far healthier than he had earlier in the day, stood next to the side of Lucille Croft, who was similarly dressed in her finest – though they both sported an enormous fur coat to keep the cold out. Each had a chilled glass of clear liquid in their hands, and were standing, waiting for Kye to speak. Arthur’s plastic bump shone with a hidden light from the underneath, the polished monocle above his eye taunting Kye. They smiled when they saw Kye looking their way, and inclined their glasses, Lucille taking the forefront of the conversation.
“Good to finally meet you, Mr Jones.” She noticed Kye bristle immediately, raising an eyebrow in mock disbelief. “Surprised? It is no matter. May I call you Kye? Feels to me as though we should have been acquainted by this point – you meeting so many of my family members and so on.” She smiled once more, and started to pace around. “Guess I’m the final challenge, right?” Kye stayed silent and she continued monologuing. “Well, at any rate, you aren’t much of a challenge to me. Though I must admit it has been incredibly taxing, the way you and your little friends have been crawling around, taking care of my family members. Our big reveal, forced to wait. Even the destruction of our first silver case, though it was eventually inconsequential, the delay in production and returning of my husband was quite difficult." Kye was confused by her casual tone and unfazed delivery. She picked up on this confusion almost immediately, widening her smile, but deciding against discussing it further. “You’ve created a good deal of problems for us, Kye, and it’s so good to know that my dear husband here could have put a stop to it.” Lucille smiled back at Arthur, who nodded to her lovingly.
“Yes, I must thank you there, Kye,” Arthur took over, swiping a hand across the frosted glass of one of the nearby pods in an almost loving manner. “Had you attacked me in my shameful form, I would not have survived the assault. However, as you waited for me to get better, and were so gracious as to stand down and help the nursing team in their procedure, well…” He paused a moment, looking behind him to the metal wall. “Needless to say, your friend was wrong.” Kye struggled at the mention of Douglass, pulling a bemused reaction from the Crofts as they watched him flop about in vain.
Lucille added to Arthur’s comment, casually, “That’s okay though, dear, he paid for that mistake.”
Seeing their smirks, Kye finally spoke, and chose to yell at them, “What did you do to him?”
Both Lucille and Arthur regarded him as you would a pet who had just barked against orders.
“He talks! He’s alive!” Arthur shouted, his voice echoing off the shiny wall of the chamber. Lucille laughed at his joke – a high pitched and slow laugh that was grating to Kye’s ears. “At least we know he can hear us. Maybe check if he can see us – that cheap and ugly prosthetic can’t be online.”
“I can fucking see you, alright? How do you know me, I’m meant to be off the database,” Kye spoke slowly, a little slur remaining in his voice.
“You don’t think ShadowWalking still means something anymore, do you? I believed you to be less naïve, Kye. We have our own databases, and those are non wipeable. I could give you details on anyone in the nation,” Arthur spoke, his voice overly-commanding and confident in comparison to Kye’s timid and slowed tone. “Maybe you’d like to hear about Peter Owens, down in the capital, about his highlights and likes and interests?” He paused, waiting for an answer from Kye he knew he wasn’t going to receive. “No? Then maybe you want to hear about your lady, Julie Adams.”
Kye locked eyes at her name, spitting to the air in a weak-hearted attempt to hit him.
“Don’t you dare say her name!” Kye roared, his spit landing too early. Despite this, Arthur inclined to the guards, standing back for a moment. Given no time to prepare, an armoured fist landed directly against Kye’s face, splitting his skin and drawing blood – he fell to the metal floor, no support to hold him up, but was hauled back to his knees immediately, chin pinched and head tilted back.
“A little bit of a sensitive subject,” Arthur said, remaining further back despite Kye’s restraining. “Should I change it?” Kye stayed silent and he pushed forward. “Maybe you want to hear about Kye Jones?” Kye’s eyes smouldered, and he stared down Arthur, taken aback by the strength he saw behind his eyes.
“You don’t know me,” Kye said, a trickle of blood running down the side of his face.
“No, I think it is you, who does not know yourself. We actually do know you,” Arthur tapped his temple and a screen in the wall turned on. Another tap and the image appeared, a younger Kye, stoic and expressionless, facing directly towards the camera. “Kye Jones, born December 2nd 2117 in the lower Los Angeles sector of the MidMeri state, to a pair of loving parents who later abandoned him. Is that why you attacked my family, Kye? Were you jealous I had one?”
“You killed my family first, you fucker!” Kye’s loud voice didn’t faze any of the other occupants, but expending the energy to shout certainly tired him out further. Arthur tapped and the image changed – he was older and clearly wearing some kind of uniform.
“Hate the troops, Kye?” Arthur asked. Kye stayed silent, though he recognised the image he saw. “This is you at your draft ceremony, pictured a few days before those valiant men went off to war. You didn’t join them, though. Why?” Arthur paused as though he was thinking. “Do you hate killing?” He looked at Kye and smirked. “No, that can’t be it. You’re a murderous psychopath, you would have loved it out there. No, it must have been something stronger, something more innate, something you have been dealing with all your life.”
“Stop talking, and tell me where Douglass is, you sanctimonious prick!”
Arthur fanned his face in mock offence. “Quite rude. Douglass – I’ll tell you where he is if you would like?” Arthur clicked and the image morphed into a live feed, drawing a cry from Kye despite his best attempts to show no weakened emotion.
Much like Peter Owens, the Crofts appeared to be executing a similar method of interrogation on Douglass before Kye’s unflinching gaze. Unable to look away. Kye watched as scores of wires punctured his scalp,
drawing a pained expression with each stab, striking unnaturally like a viper on speed. The lack of audio was haunting, as Douglass babbled strings of words over and over, unheard by anyone, and Kye yelled at them to stop, his frantic words falling on equally deaf ears. Blood dripped to the floor around Douglass as he shook without control, spasmodically slapping against the restraints of his chair in a twisted broken dance. Suddenly, the image shut off, and Arthur had Kye punched once more, silencing him and allowing him the opportunity to talk.
“He provides your information, right? Well, I guess we have him on our pay roll now – it’s a real shame he can’t retire yet.” Kye looked up, and Arthur raised an eyebrow. “Yes, we’ve been keeping an eye on you for a while, doctoring you to our needs and it's really played well. Seeing you grow. Starting with strong feelings of cowardice and inability to confront, but over the last few days, I have to say you’ve changed. I am almost proud, though I don’t know you well enough to say that.” The image changed to the one taken of him and Julie on a date which he had been presented so long ago – Kye’s heart dropped as he looked at her face.
“Certainly, the vengeance streak you have found yourself on, it’s… well, it’s brought you out of your shell. Brought the real Kye to the forefront, so to speak. The real Kye that Julie was so worried to see.” Kye struggled, and the image changed again – himself in the back of the vehicle, hit by a bullet from the drone. “Tremendous adversities placed against an individual can really be revealing. You know what you have revealed to us, or more importantly to yourself?” Kye shook his head, his chains biting into his arms as they waggled. “Would you like to?” Arthur asked, clearly waiting for an actual response.