The president blinked several times, then snapped his gaze past Cal’s shoulder. “Legate Jjin?”
The officer with all the medals took six marched paces over to join the president, then crisply about-turned. “It’s him, Mr President. My men collected him from his cell personally.”
“Well, newsflash, they got the wrong guy,” Cal said. “I’m not the Butcher. He was the other guy. You know that big angry guy who was getting ready to butcher me? That was him.”
He shook his wrists in his shackles. “So, if someone could get a key or something, you can drop me off back on Earth and we’ll say no more about… whatever all this is. It’ll be our little secret.”
Sinclair’s eyes went from Cal’s face to the wrist-restraints. His smile broadened again. “Aaah, yes. Very clever. You almost had me for a moment.”
Cal frowned. “Hmm?”
“Your trickery and deception are well documented, Butcher. It’s how you managed to evade capture for so long,” the president said. He wagged a finger, reproachfully. “Lucky for you that I caught on. Had I believed your story – had it turned out that we had, in fact, got the wrong man - I would have had no choice but to have Legate Jjin disintegrate you and scatter your remains in deep space.” He smiled warmly. “We can’t be too careful, after all.”
Cal glanced from the president to the officer beside him and back again, considering his next few words carefully. “Ha-ha. Yeah, you got me,” he said. “Me and my well documented trickery and deception. But… you got me.”
“Aha! See? That’s the Butcher I’ve heard about,” Sinclair laughed.
“Yep. Definitely,” Cal replied. “That’s me. Eugene Adwell.”
“Adwin,” said Jjin, his eyes narrowing.
“Yep. Eugene Adwell Adwin, to give me my full title,” said Cal, quickly. “Although, I wouldn’t bother checking that, because I’ve never told anyone my middle name before. Or written it down anywhere.”
“Eugene ‘the Butcher’ Adwin,” President Sinclair began. “Aged twenty-two, ate both his parents.”
“Wow. That’s pretty hardcore,” said Mizette, almost admiringly. “Did you kill them first?”
Cal shifted his gaze to Sinclair. “Uh, I forget.” The president shook his head. Cal cleared his throat and smiled weakly. “No. No, apparently I did not.”
Mizette looked Cal up and down, her eyes drinking him in. “That is totally awesome.”
“The most prolific serial killer cannibal in the history of the planet Earth. Well, in the history of anywhere, really,” said the president. “With a history of violent homicides stretching back thirty-three Terran years.”
“Thirty-three years?” said Mech. He looked Cal up and down. “How old were you when you started?”
Cal’s lips moved as he did the calculation in his head. “Four,” he concluded.
“Four?!”
“I was an early developer,” Cal said. “What can I say? Even as a kid, I just loved me some killing and eating folks! Though, you know… not necessarily in that order.”
“You’re a dangerous man, Mr Adwin,” said Sinclair. He gestured to the soldiers standing in the corner. “But I don’t think you’re going to try anything, are you?”
“No. Definitely not going to try anything,” Cal said. “Scout’s honor.”
He hissed as the restraints tightened a fraction on his wrists then released their grip. He rubbed the red marks on his skin and stepped free of the frame. “Thanks,” he said.
Sinclair waved a hand. “We are all friends here. Or will be, I hope.”
“What’s with that thing?” asked Mech, gesturing to the tub of green goo. Everyone turned to look at it, and Cal would have sworn the thing’s floating eyeballs almost looked embarrassed by the sudden attention.
“Ah, that. To be honest, we don’t really know,” said the president. “It was found by an asteroid mining crew out by the Qadras rings. Its origin is a mystery, but it possesses some quite remarkable shape-altering properties.”
“So, like, it’s a shapeshifter?” said Mizette.
“Exactly, Mizette! It can alter its shape, size and consistency apparently at will,” said Sinclair.
“A shapeshifter? An alien shapeshifter?” said Cal. “You’ve got to be fonking kidding me.”
His eyes widened in surprise.
“Fonking,” he said. “Fonk. Fonking. Why am I saying fonking?”
“Ah yes,” said Sinclair. “I forget how new this must all be to you. My apologies. Earlier, you were implanted with a piece of technology developed right here at the Zertex Corporation. It’s a… translation chip, let’s call it. It takes alien languages – any alien languages – and deciphers them, before feeding the processed data back to your aural receptors. This is what is currently allowing you to understand what is being said. As the rest of us are all equipped with the chips, we can understand you in return. In reality, we are all talking in vastly different languages.”
“So it’s like a Babel Fish?” said Cal.
The President frowned and glanced at Legate Jjin, who shrugged. “A Babel Fish? I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with that term.”
“Forget it, doesn’t matter,” said Cal. “None of this explains why I’m saying ‘fonk’ instead of fonk.” He pointed to his mouth. “See? I just did it again.”
“The chip’s translation system filters out certain words and substitutes them with something less likely to cause offense,” said Sinclair.
“Which ones?” Cal asked. He held up a hand and began listing on his fingers. “Fonk, shizz, pimsy, bamston, cump, twazz… Shizzing motherfonking jotztrumpet. Arrgh!”
“You get the idea…” Sinclair began, but Cal wasn’t finished yet.
“Amshoop. Amswod. Amsclod? Bedge, donchenod, dirty fonking slodgebiscuits.” Cal threw his arms in the air. “Argh! Damn it!”
He gasped. “Damn it! Damn. Damn, I can say ‘damn!’”
Sinclair smiled, but there was impatience clamped between his teeth. “Is that a curse word?”
“You’re damn right it is!” cheered Cal, triumphantly. “Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, dandge.”
His face fell. “Dandge. Dandge. Oh… fonk it.”
Cal glanced around at the others occupants of the room, who were all staring at him, their mouths hanging slightly open.
He smoothed down his prison jumpsuit and nodded. “Impressive. Works well,” he said. “Now, you were saying?”
“Legate Jjin, a demonstration, if you would?” said Sinclair, stepping back to let the officer sweep imposingly past.
“Gunso Loren, release the organism,” Jjin barked.
“Yes, sir. Right away,” said the female officer. She bent and fiddled with a catch on the lid of the container. “I think… I’m not sure how it…”
The catch released with a snap that made Loren whip her hand back in fright. She blushed. “Got it, just a bit stiff,” she said, flipping the lid open and tipping the container upside down.
The ball of green goo rolled out and hit the floor with a soggy splurt. Its eyes rotated in opposite directions until they faced front again, then tilted upwards as Jjin’s shadow fell over it.
“It’s literally just a load of slime with eyes in it,” said Cal, pointing out the obvious.
“Please, go, take a closer look, please,” Sinclair encouraged. Cal, Mech and Mizette approached slowly. One of the slime-thing’s eyes swiveled to watch them. The other remained fixed on Jjin. It was a little disconcerting, if Cal were completely honest.
They all gathered around the gloop and peered down. Mizette stepped closer to Cal, so her hairy arm was brushing against his. “Ew. It’s disgusting.”
“And yet somehow completely adorable,” Cal added. He turned to the werewolf-woman. “I’d probably stand back, if I were you. I don’t think you want this guy getting your fur all sticky.”
“Not that guy, maybe,” said Mizette, staring at Cal with a
worrying level of intensity. Cal smiled and quickly went back to looking at the goo-thing.
“So, how does it do its changing shizz?” asked Mech.
“Gunso Loren, get me that chair,” barked Jjin. The younger officer nodded one too many times, then bustled over to grab one of the high-backed swivel chairs. Cal’s gaze followed her across the room.
He didn’t consider himself a career criminal, despite his multiple jail terms served in a number of countries across the globe, but he’d been around enough career criminals to know that they were mostly a paranoid, neurotic bunch.
But of all the paranoid, neurotic people Cal had spent time with in the past, he could already tell that the junior officer currently struggling to lift a chair that had wheels on the bottom was among the most paranoid and neurotic of them all. It was there in her every facial expression and movement. She was either terrified to be in that room, or terrified to be alive in general.
Cal couldn’t wait to find out which.
“Uh… wheels,” he said, pointing to the castors on the base of the chair.
Loren glanced down, then her face reddened again. “I know,” she said. “I just… wanted to do it this way.”
“Hurry up, gunso!” Jjin snapped.
Startled, Gunso Loren dropped the chair. She hurriedly lifted it back upright, then avoided Cal’s smirking gaze as she wheeled it across the room and positioned it next to the slimy thing.
“Now… observe,” said Jjin.
They all watched.
Nothing happened.
“That is awesome!” said Cal.
Legate Jjin’s shot him an angry look, then turned his attention back to the ball of goo. Its eyeballs swiveled as it looked across the faces of the people watching on.
“Wait for it,” said Jjin.
They waited.
Mech tutted. “See? I knew that thing weren’t no shapeshifter. There ain’t no such thing as--”
There was a loud bzzzt as Jjin prodded the slime with a short metal pole. Despite having no mouth, the goo somehow managed to emit a high-pitched scream as it rose up in a whirl of green.
And then, where there had been a chair, there were now two. It happened in the blink of an eye – one moment the goo-thing was erupting in a whirlwind of slime, the next it was a chair.
And not just a chair. It was the same chair, right down to the slight scuffing on the back support, and the indent on the seat.
“Sometimes it just needs the proper motivation,” Jjin said, collapsing the shock-rod and attaching it to a hook at the side of his belt. He rocked on his heels and smirked. “Of course, the same could be said for anyone.”
“Sit on it, if you like,” urged President Sinclair. “It’s quite safe.”
“Yeah… no,” said Cal. “I won’t be doing that. Can he change into other stuff? Or does he only do space chairs?”
“What do you mean, space chairs?” asked Mech. “What’s a space chair?”
“It’s a chair in space,” said Cal. “Clue’s in the name.”
“It’s just a chair, man,” said Mech. “Just a chair.”
“It’s a chair… in space. Therefore, a space chair,” Cal said.
Mech’s neck whirred as he shook his head. “Whatever.”
“I think space chair sounds great,” said Mizette. She ran a finger down Cal’s arm. Even through his prison jumpsuit, he could feel her nail scraping his skin. “Well done. You’re, like, really clever.”
“Uh… thanks!” said Cal. He let her touch linger as long as he comfortably could, then turned to face Sinclair.
“So, Mr Space President,” he said, pausing to savor the tut from Mech. “Does he change into other stuff?”
“Of course,” said Sinclair, his already broad smile broadening even further. “A shapeshifting organism that can only do office chairs isn’t really much use to anyone, is it?”
“I can think of three or four uses,” said Cal. He thought for a moment. “Five, maybe, depending on how much weight he can carry.”
“It can do pretty much anything. Objects, people – even quite complex machinery, it seems,” Sinclair explained. “Our testing has been… thorough.”
Cal glanced at the shock-rod hooked onto Jjin’s belt. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll bet.”
The chair collapsed, becoming once more just a pulsating ball of green slime. The eyeballs rolled around, trying to get their bearings, then settled warily on Jjin.
“How long can it stay changed for?” Mizette asked.
Sinclair shrugged. “Honestly? We don’t know. Sometimes it last for hours, other times barely a few seconds. It’s all a bit of a mystery, really.”
“Look, man, this is all fascinating and all, but can we just cut to the chase here?” snapped Mech. He gestured around at the group. “You’ve brought three of the galaxy’s most-wanted bad-asses and a… a… whatever that slime thing is here for a reason. Why don’t you just get to the point and tell us what’s going on, or let me go back to jail?”
“Silly Putty!”
Everyone turned to look at Cal. He grinned at them. “That’s what he’s like. Silly Putty! Did you guys have that here?” He pointed to what he guessed was a computer terminal over on the president’s desk. “Google it. Go to space Google and put in ‘Silly Putty’. I bet it brings up a picture of this guy.”
“What the fonk is ‘space Google’?” Mech demanded.
“Jesus, he even smells like Silly Putty!” Cal announced, bending to sniff the gelatinous green blob. Its eyes fixed impassively on him as he inhaled deeply. “Get over here and smell this. You know what that’s the smell of?”
“Silly Putty?” Loren guessed.
“Nostalgia. Pure nostalgia. Do you guys have that up here?” he asked, looking very deliberately at Mech. “Space nostalgia?”
“OK, that’s it, I swear,” Mech snapped, raising a metal fist and lunging at Cal.
A serious-looking handgun jammed against Mech’s fleshy cheek, stopping him in his tracks. “Don’t,” warned Loren, her bundle-of-neurosis twitchiness replaced by a steely calm. She glared up at the much taller cyborg and pressed the gun more firmly against his face. “Back off. Now.”
Mech didn’t move.
“You heard me,” Loren said. “Back down. Final warning.”
Slowly, one of the cyborg’s metal hands crept towards the dial on his chest. “Get that gun out of my face, lady,” Mech warned.
“Not happening,” said Loren.
“Do what she says, Disselpoof,” barked Legate Jjin, flicking his wrist to extend his shock-rod. “Back down or I’ll put you down.”
President Sinclair rubbed his hands together. “Wow. This is exciting, isn’t it?”
Cal raised his hands and stepped between Jjin and the cyborg. “Hey, easy, easy, wait. This is my fault. I deliberately wound him up – not like, you know, in a clockwork way, I’m not suggesting you’re a tin man or anything. I was trying to be funny, that’s all. What can I say? I joke when I’m nervous, and my jokes are rarely good. Bad habit.”
He offered a hand to the cyborg. “What do you say? Put it behind us?”
Mech’s eyes went from Loren to Jjin to Cal. His hand hesitated at his chest dial. “Fine. Whatever, man,” he said. He took Cal’s hand, and Cal grimaced as the grip tightened around his fingers like a clamp.
“Ooh, ow, too tight. Bit too tight,” Cal said. Mech released his grip and stepped back from Loren’s gun, which was still aimed squarely at his face. Cal tucked his hand under the opposite armpit. “That is a very firm grip,” he said. “Too firm, if anything.”
President Sinclair placed a hand on the barrel of Loren’s gun and gently pushed it down. As her arm lowered, her neurosis levels raised. She smiled three different smiles at the president in under a second, then holstered her weapon and shuffled backwards to stand beside Legate Jjin.
“Thank you for stepping in,” Cal told her. “Much appreciated. Nic
e space gun you got there, by the way.”
Mech’s head whipped round, but before he could say anything, President Sinclair clapped his hands together and flashed a smile so intense it could’ve shattered concrete at twenty paces.
“So then,” he said, casting his eye across the group, “what’s say we get down to business?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Four days before Cal Carver went into space, in a far-off sector of the galaxy, in a dirty alleyway behind something a bit like an Indian restaurant – a space Indian restaurant, if you will – something that had just a moment ago been dead, now wasn’t.
The thing that sat up, however, wasn’t the same thing that had fallen down. It looked the same, aside from the gaping hole where its hearts had been, and the flickering green dots that swam behind the pupils of its three bulbous eyes.
It had, until very recently, been Tolores S’an, a long-serving and much-loved member of the restaurant’s waiting staff. Now, though, despite outward appearances, it wasn’t. Anyone who was even passingly familiar with Tolores would have been able to notice the subtle differences.
She held herself differently, her shoulders straight where they had once been stooped by years of servitude, and by the demands of her four children and two hundred and seventeen identical husbands.
The hands of her two short front arms were curled into claws. Her longer back arms, which were usually a whirlwind of activity, dangled and flapped limply behind her.
She was also floating several inches above the ground and glowing faintly in the dark – neither of which, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, she had ever done before.
The only witness to Tolores’s death and return was the person who had pulled the trigger on the weapon that had both killed her and brought her back. He clung to a wall high in the shadows, his saucer-sized eyes making short work of the alley’s oppressive darkness.
He watched, unblinking, as the thing that had been Tolores S’an floated around in three complete rotations, before finally aiming herself towards the restaurant’s rear door. The air around her crackled with millions of tiny green sparks, each one no bigger than the head of a pin, and a particularly small pin, at that.
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