Neon Revenge

by Graeme J Greenan

  She followed the sounds of voices – a cacophony of complaints from the group of vagrants, and barking commands from the armed men – and thumps of footfalls, making her way further into the building. It soon ceased to be replaced by a metallic scraping which resounded to her position, quickly followed by the steady hum of what sounded like an elevator.

  She pushed through a set of double doors and was met with said elevator. It was the biggest elevator she’d ever seen; the doors spanned twenty feet across and ten, or fifteen feet high. Above it, a display board showed numbers running down in the minus. Seventeen, eighteen, finally halting at nineteen.

  She turned back the way she’d came; her mind conflicted. She considered calling for backup, but the captain’s reproachful tone sprang back to mind dissuading her from making the call. She waited ten agonisingly long minutes before pushing the call button, situated on the left-hand side of the doors, and waited as the numbers began to creep back up to her floor.

  The doors slid open – quicker than she’d thought for being so far down – and she slipped inside. She pressed nineteen on the keypad. As the doors closed, she was unaware of the double doors opening slightly.

  The neon numbers – a vibrant shade of red – on the internal display descended to minus-nineteen, all the while, her heart raced with fear and anticipation of what she would find when she reached the bottom. Where were those poor, wretched people being taken to? Death… or something far more sinister? The image of the young man being beaten to death didn’t fill her with much hope. After the guard had finally ceased his onslaught, his comrades had dragged the bloody body back into the pod.

  As much as she was fearful of what those men could do, she had to keep going. Besides, she had the years of training to deal with combat, should the need arise. She’d been relentless in her pursuit of the truth for months, but at the same time, hadn’t fully prepared herself emotionally for the outcome when she found it. She’d lost count of the amount missing. She was astounded, troubled, and suspicious by her superior’s apparent lack of interest with so many citizens having vanished off the face of the earth. She felt alone, but if she was able to provide her boss with some concrete evidence, it may change things. It had to…

  She was brought back to reality by the loud clang doled out by the elevator as it slowed, then gently stopped with a creak. She pulled out her sidearm, aiming its barrel towards the doors, as they slid open. She breathed a sigh of relief as the only thing awaiting her was the acrid stench of disinfectant. She placed her free hand to her mouth in a futile attempt to stave off the disgusting aroma from invading her senses.

  She slowly stepped out of the elevator, where the stench increased tenfold. She tensed as the sound of the procession suddenly emanated from the other end of the corridor. She slowly put one foot in front of the other and followed the noise, her investigator’s curiosity giving her focus and spurring her on. Her personal negligence – brought on by her need to see this out – made her unaware of the elevator doors closing and ascending back up to ground level.

  ~

  “So, what did she find that started all this mess?” Hall asked. From what she’d heard in the last few hours, her initial hatred - mixed with fear - of the woman had subsided considerably. The fact Moretti had saved her from the clutches of the man responsible for her partner and captain’s deaths certainly played its part.

  Oliver rose from his chair and beckoned her to a bank of monitors to the back of the room. She scraped her seat back and got up, following him. She stopped by his side as he pointed to a list of names on one of the screens which ran from the top to the very bottom. Beside these names was a brief log of basic information; sex; age; ethnicity. She also noted, from the size of the scroll box on the right-hand side, that these names were but a few.

  “What am I looking at?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer.

  “If you went into NewHaven and typed in any one of these names into the city archive search, do you know what you would come up with?”

  She glanced back to the front door, then looked Oliver in the eye. “I take it these are the names of everyone who reside within this compound?”

  He shook his head, a sad smile creeping across his features. “I wish it were so, Veronica. If all of the people on this vast list were crammed in here, we’d struggle to breathe, let alone move.” He sighed, suddenly looking tired, but at the same time, she noticed there was a deep resolve set in his eyes as he gazed at the screen. “A small fraction is under our care. The rest...”

  She didn’t like his ominous tone. “What happened to the others?”

  ~

  The procession stopped in front of what looked like a wall of smooth steel. The armed men fanned out and herded the group so that they were huddled a few feet from the wall. One of the men began to bark commands to his comrades, who then began to separate the people into three groups; old, young, and children. Parents screamed as their children were wrenched from their arms. The sight made Lex sick to her stomach. She thought of her Julian and felt glad she had taken the precaution of getting him to safety before she’d set out to this terrible place.

  Suddenly the claustrophobic tunnel filled with an ear-piercing whine as the wall of steel began to rise. A cold wind blew into the tunnel, howling towards where she squatted.

  Beyond the door was a barren landscape. An old battered road led away, flanked on either side by hard soil patched with tufts of pale grass. It was the outside. Wasn’t the outside steeped in radiation? Disease? She involuntarily covered her mouth with her sleeve.

  Once the door had stopped its ascent, the area was filled with the ear-splitting boom of automatic gunfire as the armed men spent their ammunition on the elderly group. Bullets ripped through them; the vacuum of the outside world blew the stench of blood and misery to her position.

  She tried to cry out, but a course hand clamped over her mouth, stifling her screams. “Be quiet, Lex,” a familiar voice hissed in her ear, “or we’ll be discovered. I’m going to take my hand off your mouth. Stay quiet. Nod if you understand.”

  She twisted her head around to be met with the face of her captain, Malcolm Jacobson. She nodded and he let go. “Captain, what are you doing here?” he whispered.

  “I’ve come to get you. I told you to drop this, Lex,” he said, barely concealing his anger.

  She ignored the rebuke. “Julian? Is he safe?” she asked. She’d fed the captain a pack of lies about one of the local triad leaders gunning for her blood and had asked him to get Julian to safety. She wasn’t surprised he’d saw through it.

  “He’s fine. I’m a bit disappointed you couldn’t trust me enough to tell me the real reason why you wanted your son hidden,” he said, sounding genuinely hurt.

  Lex turned back to where the people were being forced through the threshold of the giant door. “I had to, Captain.” She pointed to the group. “They’re being sent outside, why?”

  “You’re a good Investigator, Lex. But this is necessary,” the captain said.

  “What’s necessary...” She turned to face her superior, noticing he was holding a stun-baton... held inches from her neck. She lowered her gaze to the faint glow emanating from its tip. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry, Lex. I like you, but this is greater than you or me,” he said, nodding to the carnage beyond them. “If it were up to me... but, you’ve seen too much.”

  She tried to back away, but the captain was too close. He drove the tip of the baton into her neck, sending a bolt of voltage through her body which reduced her world to agony.

  Then blackness took her.

  ~

  “Watch his fucking head, you idiots,” Li snapped, as Morgan and Tullisa carried Deacon into their van. They held him by the legs and his armpits like they were hauling a sack of potatoes. She knew she wasn’t mad at the pair of reconnaissance operatives, but there was no one else she could take her ire out on. “Is there a doctor at the safe-house?”

&nbs
p; “Yeah, boss,” Morgan said, as he hefted Charlie Deacon’s limp form up to the floor of the van.

  Li nodded to Deacon. “Is he still breathing?”

  Tullisa hovered a hand over Deacon’s mouth, cursing as some of his blood spilt onto her trousers. “He’s breathing,” she said, waving her hand in disgust. “Fuck, how’s this guy still alive? There’s blood everywhere.”

  Li stepped into the van, helped them get the stricken cop into the makeshift gurney, then turned and struck Tullisa across the jaw with the back of her hand. “There’s gonna be a shitload more than this before this is over, so get used to it.”

  Tullisa looked at Li as though she were about to protest, but thought better of it - presumably knowing Li’s reputation. Morgan was quite happy to concentrate his attention on Deacon; pulling a stained blanket over him and placing a rolled-up coat behind his head.

  “We good?” Li asked.

  “Good,” Morgan said, Tullisa muttered her acquiescence and stomped round to the front of the van and climbed in.

  Li returned to her bike, the sound of the van growing fainter as they sped off to the safe-house. She crouched down to the large box, fixed to the underside of her vehicle. She removed a long tube, along with its trigger, scope, and round from its foam housing. She quickly assembled it - having done it so many times before.

  From the panel she’d rested Charlie Deacon’s head on, she removed an EMP grenade and slid it into the chamber. She rested the launcher over the seat of her bike and peered down the scope, aiming the crosshairs over the power cell boxes. The distance across the screen read one hundred and twenty-seven feet.

  She was ready. Now, all she required was the green light. She clicked the call button on her earpiece, patching her through to Brooks’ line. He answered after a few seconds.

  “Li, the recon team have confirmed they’ve got Deacon on-route to the safe-house. They should arrive shortly. Tullisa had a few choice words to say about your conduct,” Brooks said, sounding slightly amused.

  “If the bitch has a problem, she knows where to find me. Are you ready with the spook’s scribe?” she asked, not surprised at Tullisa’s little complaint. The cause didn’t have time for little assholes like her. She was convinced she’d lose her shit at the first sign of trouble – when the real fight began.

  “I should be in fifteen minutes. Hang tight. I’ll send you a message when you’re good to go.”

  “Affirmative,” she said, cutting the call.

  ~

  Her eyes snapped open, her body jolting from the adrenaline that had been pushed into her veins by the pen. She barely had time to compose herself before a fist struck her hard across the face.

  “Wakey, wakey, you little cunt,” the Proxy said, before hitting her once more. “You have no idea how much this delights me,” he said, striking her once more.

  She was in a familiar place. It was the same dark room she’d inhabited not so long ago. She looked down; thankful she still had her suit on. The Proxy caught her gaze and laughed.

  “Don’t you worry, my dear. We’ll get you out of those soon enough. You’re gonna be fucked so hard, you’ll think a cruiser has ripped through you,” he said, grabbing a hank of her hair. His cologne was absolutely disgusting.

  She took in her surroundings. The room comprised of the Proxy, two bleeders - with their tray of medical equipment. Two guards, and the spook, Marr. Her hands were tied with coarse rope - not really a problem, given what she still carried.

  In spite of the apparent severity of her predicament, she was exactly where she wanted to be. She chuckled. “You know, Proxy, I’m going to leave you until last,” she said as though she were choosing which order of chocolates she was going to eat from the box. “Think I’ll fuck you with your own little dick, once I’ve ripped it off.”

  They all laughed. Even the bleeders chuckled as much as their lack of human emotion allowed them to... all except Marr, who took a step back towards the door. He knew first-hand what she was capable of. She was fortunate they’d left the suit on her, though she would’ve figured something out if she hadn’t. All she needed was the Proxy to come a little closer...

  ...then the bloodbath would begin.

  ~

  Brooks smiled as his monitor told him the spook’s encryption codes - stolen from his scribe’s software - had been accepted. He was - digitally - staring at NewHaven’s main firewall. The firewall that had been their biggest stumbling block – the revolution would begin here, he thought.

  He picked up his scribe and sent Li the green light.

  ~

  Green blared in her peripheral vision. It was all Li needed. She steadied her aim and fired. “Game on, fuckers.”

  ~

  The lights went out in the crowded room, descending it in darkness. For a few tense seconds, silence reigned supreme. Then a set of fierce red stripes lit up all over the woman’s suit, casting the room in a red, almost neon hue – it was the most frightening thing he’d ever seen.

  Marr edged towards the door as the woman began to laugh. It was a terrible, maniacal cackle which froze his blood. The sound of metal scraping from its sheath resounded, followed by the snap of her bounds being cut. Marr looked at her in horror as two wicked-looking blades had appeared from a hidden part at her wrists.

  The moment the woman had been woken by the adrenaline pen and calmly told the room what she planned to do; Marr realised he’d been played. Her words chilled him. Gone were the wisecracks and defiance. In its place were the chilling words of a complete and utter psychopath.

  Thinking back to the Proxy’s words outside – knowing Faulks would drop him without a second thought – spurred Marr into action. He needed time to escape, and from where he now stood - furthest from this spectre of death - he saw an opportunity.

  He turned and swiped his card on the reader which unlocked the door. He slipped through and closed it. The others barely noticed; too busy taking in the neon striped psycho in front of them. Once the door clicked, to signify it had automatically locked, he shot the electronic reader on the other side, rendering it permanently out of action. The Proxy, his two guards, and the bleeders were trapped inside with Moretti.

  He glanced through the window and caught the Proxy’s fear-stricken gaze. He mouthed a silent ‘fuck you’, before disappearing down the hall, leaving cries and screams behind him.

  ~

  Lex was finally getting what she had strived for these last months: locked in a room with the man responsible for Julian’s death.

  She had drawn her blades and sliced through her bonds with ease. She watched the spook leave the room and sabotage the locking mechanism. It was an interesting development, but it hardly mattered. The Proxy wasn’t going to get a chance to pay the spook back for his insubordination. She sighed out a deep breath, allowing the dark essence, that had been her constant companion since she’d lost her blue-eyed boy, consume her.

  There was no holding back now.

  The Proxy pushed past the two bleeders – who themselves drew razor-sharp scalpels. The first one whipped the small blade, aiming it for her neck. She pivoted to the side letting the blade pass her; missing by inches. She grabbed the bleeders’ wrist and rammed her elbow up, snapping the joint. The bleeder barely made a grunt of complaint before she cut his throat, slicing so deep she felt her blade scrape against his spine. Blood drenched her as the bleeder dropped to the ground, clutching his neck and gurgling his last.

  The second bleeder had swapped her scalpel for a syringe – obviously wanting to subdue her with hypodermics rather than take her chances with one-to-one combat. In the end, Lex’s focused rage rendered the choice moot. She dodged a flurry of jabs until the bleeder ironically slipped in her partner’s blood. It gave Lex the opening she was looking for. She broke her arm in two places. The severed bone of the bleeder’s forearm ripped through the material of her medical overalls, staining the white material crimson. Lex took a hold of the bleeder’s fist, still holding the syringe.
Unlike her partner, she was wailing like a banshee. Lex twisted her wrist and drove the needle’s point into the bleeder’s eyeball. The soft tissue made an audible squelch, the bleeder’s screams becoming more and more high-pitched until the syringe pierced into her brain. The wailing stopped as though a switch had been flipped and she dropped to the ground.