by Poppet
“Two insurgents,” whispers quietly.
I can hardly believe that when Alpha said ‘unleash Cerberus’ that he meant two people must come and collect him. Cerberus is a three headed monster tasked with guarding hell. I’m expecting a second wave, a covert attack; we’re missing something crucial.
“Stay sharp,” I hiss, my rifle aimed at the kill zone on the stairs, waiting for the insurgents.
There can’t just be two of them. It’s not possible.
An old man comes into view, clear as day in my goggles.
I have the perfect shot with an itch to scratch, but I let them move through the kill zone unscathed. He’s decrepit. With him is a young gun who’s all muscle. Even then, Alpha is one massive roided mofo that even Hulkboy won’t be able to lift out on his own. This is a joke. Alpha is 6 ft 7, and heavier than a Mac truck.
This is the cavalry?
Alpha has passed the silt at the bottom of the barrel and is now scraping through splinters. How the mighty have fallen.
“Grant, this way,” orders the old man.
He points a geriatric finger toward where Alpha lies awaiting miraculous intervention. This dude must be familiar with this hellhole to know exactly where to find Alpha given the short evac directives he was given.
Grant boy goes sloping after the old man, whose cussing up a storm about why the hell is this place so dark.
’Cos god likes it dark, twattle. It’s in the bible, in case you ever bothered to bloody read the thing. The LORD hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. 2 Chronicles 6:1
“He’s out cold,” grumbles to us beyond the door to Alpha’s final bastion.
Grunting ensues. “We need to go get the pilot, I can’t carry him on my own,” grumbles Grant.
“This place isn’t safe, Grant. What if they come back for him?”
I hit the light on my rifle, pinning them in exposure and a sultry crimson dot. “Stand down. You can take him. I’ll get men to assist you. But I’m warning you, you bring a war to me and you’ll die last, slowly.”
“Jesus!” jumps the old man. Now I can get a good look at him. He’s spry for an old guy, sharp eyes, too intelligent.
“Three from unit Grey assist in the extraction of Alpha, three more from Violet to guard their exit all the way to the chopper.” Men step out of shadows, hitting their lights, revealing themselves.
I take the old guy. “You, you walk behind them with me. If anything happens to one of my men I will scalp you, skin your eyelashes, and stick pins in your eyes before systematically deboning your entire body with your heart still beating. Got it?”
He jerks, hands up like a spaghetti western, nodding like one of those godawful dogs in the back of a car. I give an affirmative nod to my men, letting them help Grant extract Alpha. They make Grant do the heavy lifting, keeping him busy, his focus elsewhere.
“What’s your name?” I ask the codger.
“Steve Rizzo.”
I make him walk just ahead of me, my service Glock trained on his side, the rifle slung in place over my shoulder, my grip on his arm. One false move and he’ll have a bullet through one lung and directly into his heart. I don’t pack the pussy Black Talons Victor uses, nope, I favour the armour piercing slugs.
“What’s your connection to Chris?” I demand, walking him up the steps. Calling Alpha, the Father, God, the Watcher by his given name, is blasphemy on my tongue. My indoctrination runs deeper than I thought.
He focusses on the steps, not looking at me. “I knew him when he was just a kid.”
“Why’d he call you?” I interrogate, grinding my teeth at how slow this guy goes up steps. It would be easier to carry him, but then he’d try something daft like go for a grenade or my rifle.
“When his own kid turns his back on him who else has he got to call?” he says, stopping to give me a look of challenge.
This old fuck is sizing me up like he wants to deck me. It’s laughable. There’s a saying I love so much; a young asshole becomes an old asshole. Age doesn’t make a prick a nice guy, that’s just superb propaganda.
I let him size me up, stepping into his personal space. “You knew him when he was a kid? Then where the fuck were you when his kids needed an intervention from him? Yeah old fucker, there’s blood on your hands for standing by idly while a psychopath extracted blood for discipline.”
Jude snaps in my comms, “Shut the fuck up. Get him out of here and secure the fortress like you’re supposed to.”
I say in my comms, “All units watch this old man, if he tries anything dodgy you shoot him, it doesn’t matter if you cap me in the process.” And with that I hoist him over my shoulder and start punching my legs over steps like it’s the fucking olympics.
Jude wants them gone so he can have his blood. Priorities, he’s got them.
The bird is pretty, sleek black with four blades. I’ve always had a boner for the Apache. The pilot is armed, but surrounded. Argent has his Stinger MPAD aimed at it, lest someone decide to get trigger happy. I’ve always loved anti-air rocket launchers. I was made for this, despite the dirty angel angle forced on us so young.
I love these guys, their hearts beat my kinda blood.
Putting the codger on his feet, I nudge my Glock muzzle for him to get on in. He does, looking at me the whole time, eye to eye, like he’s got a retina scanner contact lens mapping me. Fuck, I wouldn’t be surprised. Jude needs to update our security asap.
Steve Rizzo says just as the rotor starts to whine. “Cerberus is coming.”
I smile, giving him the handjob pump, like ‘good luck with that’ ‘n all.
Shouting at him to be heard, I bellow, “I like dogs! Is Cerberus a little bitch then?”
My men laugh with me, blustered with the downforce of the blades chopping the air, leaving them to exit, the MPAD aimed until they are out of sight.
With us in the clear for now I get on the radio. “Understudy fall back. Prima is still on stage.” I scan the horizon all around us, seeing nothing. My god but our units are good. They could teach guerrillas a thing or two about combat. “Now what?” I ask Jude, motioning my men back indoors. Places as remote as this get stargazers coming out at night, and the chopper woulda caused interest to be focussed our way.
“Now you get me a fucking drink, and one for Vic. And another roll of titanium for the medi-printer.”
“You didn’t say please,” I pout, laughing as I secure the scuffed metal door to the roof. “You gotta speak pretty to me or you’ll get the silent treatment baby.”
“Yeah, come up here and I’ll give you a big kiss you fucking girl’s blouse.”
Laughing, I give the order to put the lights back on, moving to the office, setting the program running to track Alpha, then hit the bar fridge for the water bottles. Everywhere I look in this place I see drugs and weapons. Why’d he call it a Sinnergog?
“What were they praying to in here?” I ask aloud.
Jude answers, “No praying. This is where they sacrificed to god. He likes his sacrifices, see. He always did.”
Just saying it brings our joviality at a successful mission back down to bleak.
There is no hope in this place. None.
“Can we start setting charges?” I ask my comms wistfully.
“That’s an affirmative,” grunts Jude, clearly preoccupied with something messy.
“Still want that water?” I ask, standing outside their door, not sure if now is the time to go in.
“Nope, I had a lapse of logic, you aren’t sterilised and there’s no fucking way any of you can come in here now.”
“Who’s singing?” I ask Jude. We can all hear it through Jude’s comms.
“Victor.”
I sit outside the door, giggling. The rapture must’ve happened. I’ve known him forever and never heard him sing. He’s a changeling.
Opening my water I slug it down in three gulps, then stand, looking down the long stairwell. “You heard him boys. Let’s start getting this
place ready to light up for Candlemas.”
Baby’s gonna go boom.
~ Chapter 20 ~
Parents will eat their children,
and children will eat their parents
~ Ezekiel 5:10
Steve Rizzo:
Christopher is mutilated. My heart breaks to look at him with his shattered hand and feet, even his knee, with severe burns all over his body. I sure hope he knows what he’s doing with the Cerberus protocol. That little shit, if I was twenty years younger I’d have mangled his smug face with two punches. Victor has no clue what his father lived through to become the powerful man that he is.
Ungrateful dipshit.
Angus lowers the chopper, and I’m so grateful to be setting down on the helipad of my home. I’m back home in Idaho, thank the lord. Chris has taken good care of me and Marie all these years. I understand some of that was for his own selfish reasons, but still I’m grateful. He never forgot those of us who gave him a leg up when the entire world turned their backs on him.
Tears fill my eyes to look at him on the stretcher. We have a live-in doctor and nurse for Marie, which Chris has been paying for all these years. He trained them himself, and I hope to god that they know how to stabilise him for transport. My instructions for the Cerberus Protocol are ironclad, and I promised to never deviate from them. This might be the last time I see my boy alive.
Marsha comes running, an IV drip on a pole already in her hand, Bruce right behind her with the gurney.
I stand out and stretch my wobbly legs. I’ve never been in a war and being surrounded with soldiers scared the bejezus out of me. Christopher has made formidable enemies. I just can’t understand how his own son could see how his father warranted any of this. He started that facility in Idaho to help the mentally deranged with state of the art medical procedures, and yet that little upstart thinks his dad is some vagabond with a killer complex.
Knowing this, seeing it firsthand, I can now understand why Chris made the decision he did way back in the day. He was just a kid himself then but I guess a father always knows the truth about his own child, babe or not. When Evelyn got pregnant I feared the worst, thinking he’d drop out of med-school to support them, yet somehow he provided the means to see them through that dark time. He was a good boy, saving the money he won from competitions. It saved his bacon when he needed it most.
Evelyn came to live with me and Marie, she became family, until Chris built her a shrine of luxury to live in. After that she never came back to visit. Broke our hearts that did.
Kids today have no respect.
Dr Bruce has Chris on the gurney, wheeling him away, and I snap out of my rheumy reflections. I have a phone call to make to England.
Making my way into the palace of glass and gilt I pad to the study, opening the book next to the phone, and dialling the foreign number. I hoped I’d never have to use this, I thought Chris was exaggerating the threat to his life. I was so very wrong. It’s a sad day for this world when a son turns on his loving father.
It rings in my ear.
I sit, hands shaking, heart palpitating, wishing I still drank. I need a sedative, a soporific, sumthin, cos I doubt I’m ever going to sleep through a night again after what I’ve witnessed in the past few hours.
“Ridley residence.”
It’s so proper and clipped, posh, that I feel like a bumbling old fool. Clearing my throat, gripping the old fashioned receiver until the shakes in my hand stop, I say, “Unleash Cerberus.”
“I beg your pardon, Sir, I do believe you are seeking the Lord. You are addressing the butler, Alan. Please hold.”
The line goes dead and I blow out a broken breath. My nerves are shot. I’m too old for this John Wayne nonsense.
“Steve?” speaks in my ear.
“Son,” I smile at his voice. I didn’t know he was there.
“What’s the matter?” he says, concern embellishing his tone.
“Chris is … he’s coming to England. Those were the instructions. He needs help. He told me to call and say unleash Cerberus.”
Yes he told me, he told me when Victor turned eighteen. For chrissake the boy is forty-three now. I never thought this day would come. I prayed it never would.
“Thanks Steve, I understand. Don’t worry, you and Marie will be protected at all times.”
“What does this mean?” I whisper, fear dulling my vocal cords.
“It means that we reap what we sow. Victor is living on borrowed time. Hang up, rest up, and there’ll be a medical airlift there within the hour. I’ve got it from here. I’ll look after Alpha, don’t you worry. The staff are the best in their fields, we’ll nurse him back to health.”
“Son, be careful,” I murmur, the grief engulfing me strangling my energy. I have tears in my eyes because I’m not too proud to cry. I love these men, and the thought of them being in peril desecrates me. It still rattles my bones that they call him Alpha. All of them. From his maid to his chauffeur, they all call him Alpha. He’ll always be Chris to me.
“No doubt of that. Thank you. Godspeed.”
The line goes dead and I sag, leaving the handset off the cradle, succumbing to wracking sobs for my son.
Christopher is the son I never had, he is mine as surely as if we’d brought him into this world.
I hope the Ridley family can make this right. If Victor could mutilate his own father he doesn’t deserve the air he breathes.
•
Stephen:
Victor walks out of the medical suite looking decidedly grey. They’ve been in there for thirteen hours straight, without food, water, or a break. I have a new respect for our leader. He did this multiple times for Shauna, breaking her and then operating on her to reconstruct the damage he’d done, yet not once did I consider the work toil, or taking a toll. Now I witness it first-hand. He suffers for his craft, he suffered for his calling. Even the angel of Vengeance pays for the privilege of his title.
Vic makes eye contact, eyebrows raised. “Status?”
“Ready to blow this place sky high my liege,” I grin, giving him a spoofy salute.
His exhaustion vanishes in an instant, his dark eyes sharpening and focusing, scowling at me, “What? No. Who the fuck gave that order? We need this place as evidence for Interpol to hunt Alpha.”
Jude exits the medical suite, rubbing his palm over his short hair. “I did.”
Victor turns to Jude. “What the fuck for?”
“We have enough proof to bury your father. This place needs to become dust. The suffering in here will scar the land for aeons. Blow it up, Vic, for the future’s sake. Let no one else find this place and use it like your father did,” says Jude.
I frown at them. “I thought we were taking care of Alpha. Why report him when there is no empire left to fell? This mission should be covert right to the bitter end.”
Jude points at me, ordering, “Get your comms out. Private meeting in the Darkroom. Now buddy!”
Victor looks between us, his countenance surprised. “Lover’s spat?”
“Not telling,” snaps Jude, literally forcing me with shoves into the room with all the screens with live feed to the cells.
He slams the door shut and turns on me, his fury evident.
He yanks the comms from his ear, then mine, opens the door, chucks them out, and slams it shut again. “What the fuck, Stephen! You gave every one of our legion the intel on Vic’s childhood with your splabber mouth! I should cut out your fucking tongue because your pie-hole has verbal diarrhoea!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I object, glowering at Jude, folding my powerful arms so I don’t lash out.
“Your little téte-a- téte with Steve Rizzo?” He arches his eyebrows expectantly. “Where the fuck were you when his kids needed an intervention shit? Bleeding for discipline? Ring any bells you fucktard? You said it all with your fucking comms live!”
I throw my hands up in exasperation. “It’s no secret, Jude! We all bled for Alpha!”
“No, we didn’t. Ninety percent of these men are new recruits! Disclosing the private hell of the past is not your place! These men need to respect Victor, not have you undermine him with your diatribe of shit!”
“They will respect him! They do! They’ve trained with him, they’ve all witnessed what he did tonight. He can heal or destroy, just like the angels did. He got his title fair and square! He earned it! They know it, I know it, you know it! For fuck’s sake, Jude, get a tampon and quit bleeding your babe juice on my parade!”
He cracks a smile at that, sagging.
“Aw, is big bad Jude cranky from surgery?” I tease. “Does big bad Jude need a cuddle and some chocolate?”
“Fuck you, Stephen.”
“You wish big boy, join the waiting list until you make the VIP lounge.”
We laugh, and then I drop the joviality. “Listen, that Rizzo dude, he eyeballed me something fierce. I dunno if he had a retina scanner in his eyes or sumthin, but you need to update our security codes in case. Take me off the system if you need to.”
“Jesus,” groans Jude. “Will this day never end?”
He moves to the computer he brought in, focussing on the monitor for Alpha. “He’s airborne, where’s he going?”
“More like who the fuck is Steve Rizzo when he’s not out and about on rescue missions,” I counter. Jude doesn’t even remove his scrubs, he zones out, the computer monitor running code that makes me feel like an inept wannabe. He’s a goner until our evac. Instead I go out to find Vic. He gets the detonation button, he earned this more than any of us ever did. I almost crush the comms. Picking them up I go back into the room to Jude, handing him his, then put my own in. “Vic, where you at brother?”
“Helipad. You coming or are you still making out with the resident geek?”
“What? Is the premises evacuated? You sure?”
“Yes I’m sure. The copters are circling, the Hercules is overhead already fully packed, and we need to get to my pad in Cambridgeshire if we wanna avoid the blowback from this mayhem.”
“Hang on, I gotta get Jude. Meet you in two.” I go back into the Darkroom office. “Jude we gotta evac, NOW!”