by Steve Feasey
‘I carried on with my mission.’ He looked pointedly at each of the men in turn. ‘You sent me out there to do a job, and despite what you might believe to the contrary, Steeleye Mange is a man you can rely on. Out there in the slums? I made myself a reputation as somebody who gets things done, you know what I mean? You strike a deal with me, I deliver. And deliver I did.’ He motioned with his head towards the door.
‘One. You delivered one,’ corrected Melk. ‘There are five hybrid children. Not to mention my brother, and you were sent out there to –’
‘Four.’
‘What?’
‘There are three of your mutant creations out there now. And you don’t have to worry about your brother either.’ He paused. ‘There was an “incident”. Something went screwy with these “enormously expensive” augmentations you had me fitted with. They malfunctioned. There was an explosion that caused the place that housed your other little creations to come tumbling down around my ears! Your brother Silas? He’s no more. Neither is the speedy little kid with the red hair and freckles.’ He stopped again, shaking his head at the memory.
The president narrowed his eyes at the mutant. Maybe it wasn’t anger he’d sensed after all. Could it be that the cyborg was feeling regret at what had happened?
‘She was an accident,’ Mange went on. ‘Nothing I could do to stop that one.’
‘Where. Are. The. Others?’
Steeleye shot the politician a baleful look. ‘Did you hear what I just said? The little one, she’s dead! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’
‘The “little one” you forced into slavery, you mean? The cute freckle-faced kid you made steal for you or risk your hurting the woman who had raised her? Is that the one we’re talking about, Mange?’ He snorted humourlessly. ‘Excuse my cynicism, Commander, but I’m having a tough time believing you of all people have suddenly acquired a conscience.’
‘Whatever.’ The cyborg shrugged. It wasn’t lost on him how Melk hadn’t even blinked at the news that his own brother was dead. The man was cold. Ice cold. And Steeleye knew just how dangerous such men could be.
‘The others – where are they?’ Melk insisted.
‘The only other one there was the big guy. The one they rescued from under your own nose not so long ago, remember?’
‘You’re on thin ice, Mange. I wouldn’t go stamping your feet if I were you.’
‘After the rockfall, the big guy dragged me out and tied me up with wire. I’d still be there now if Anya hadn’t come along. She doesn’t know about Silas and Flea. If she did, despite the anger she’s feeling towards the others, I don’t think she would’ve helped me escape. We need to keep it like that. Keep her in the dark and find some way to use her.’
‘I agree.’
Melk and Razko exchanged a look. The general looked down at something he was holding in his lap.
‘What’s going on here? You –’ Steeleye didn’t get to finish. Despite the severe damage to most of his systems, it appeared as if the lockdown failsafe they’d installed in him was made of tougher stuff. Razko was able to render him inactive at the touch of a button. Mange froze. The cyborg was unable to do anything more than look about him, trying to work out what was going on. Behind the two men another door slid open. Standing there, smiling back at him, with that mouth he’d imagined on countless occasions smashing his big metal fist through, was Dr Svenson. The woman nodded at the orderlies with her, who hurried in pushing a reinforced steel gurney, on to which they manhandled the paralysed Steeleye.
Although his jaw wouldn’t move, turning the words he was trying to make into garbled gibberish, it was clear to all present that the cyborg was using just about every swear word known to man to tell the surgeon what he would do to her if she laid a hand on him.
Flat on his back, he stared up as Svenson leaned over, her brunette curls framing her heart-shaped face. Her perfume was strong, and he recognised the scent immediately. He should do; it was the smell he always came round to after surgery, when this sadist had hacked him up and put him back together again. She smiled, reddened lips parting to reveal perfect teeth. ‘Let’s go and get you fixed up again, shall we?’
Melk
The president got the message from the scientists about an hour after the meeting with Steeleye and Anya. Thanking the woman before waving his hand across the holo-image to disconnect, he rose quickly to his feet.
He smiled to himself, recognising the emotion he was feeling as what it was – excitement. It had been a long time since he felt that particular sensation, and he took a moment to pull himself together before setting out for the Bio-Gen suite.
Anya was pale-skinned and dark-haired. Still growing into her young body, she looked a little gangly and awkward, but it was clear she would develop into a beautiful young woman. She should do – the embryo she’d been created from had been from some of the best stock in his company’s Liqi-Freez storage facility. All five of the hybrid children came from the same stock, even if something had gone wrong with the earliest experiments, and the boys Brick and Jax had suffered … setbacks. Anya, on the other hand, could pass as a Pure. Having said that, there was something a little ‘off’ about her. She looked … harsh, as if the things she had seen and experienced had shaped her looks as much as her original genetic make-up.
Melk held out a hand to her, happy to touch her now she was no longer trapped in that hideous chimeric form.
The girl tentatively stepped forward and slipped her fingers between his.
‘Let’s give you the full no-holds-barred tour of this place, shall we?’
Tia
She was surprised to have got back into the city quite as easily as she did. The guard gave her a cursory glance and waved her through, already moving on to process the person behind her.
As she emerged from the fissure in the wall she understood why. Four members of the CSP, the city police force, were waiting for her.
‘Citizen Cowper,’ said one of the officers, ‘perhaps you’d be so kind as to come with us? We have some questions we’d like to ask you.’
‘Am I under arrest?’
‘That could be arranged,’ the man at the front said, although it was only because of his voice that she knew it was a man at all. All of them had opted to keep their front visors down, masking their faces from her. ‘For now let’s just say that we’d like you to help us with some enquiries. Follow me, please.’
Trying to look as nonchalant as possible, she gave a shrug. The leader turned his back on her, as the other three officers flanked her on all sides, penning her in.
You knew this could happen, she told herself. Nevertheless she couldn’t control the sudden quickening of her pulse as they set off in the direction of the walkway leading to the CSP headquarters. She’d gone no more than thirty or forty paces when the palm of her right hand pulsed with a purple light. At the same time a small voice inside her right ear told her that an unknown caller was trying to get in touch. She’d only been outside the city for a few months, but during that time her palm-com hadn’t functioned at all. Initially she’d thought it broken, and after a while she’d forgotten about it all together. Lifting her palm to the side of her head, she pressed the tip of her forefinger to her ear to take the call.
‘It’s me,’ said a voice she knew she recognised but couldn’t identify.
‘Who?’
‘Juneau.’
‘Wha–’
‘Stop talking, Tia. If we had more time I’d be happy to bore you senseless by telling you how I remotely reactivated your palm-com, and the cunning and clever methods I had to employ to hack into the C4 comms system, but we don’t, so be quiet and listen to what I have to say. You remember that thing I spoke to you about before you left? The thing I thought might be the answer to our problem.’
‘Yes.’
‘I think I might have discovered where one is. Now listen carefully.’
She’d been sitting in the same seat for what felt like hours now,
and although she’d been allowed to leave the room twice for ‘comfort breaks’, she’d been immediately returned to her stark little cell. Tia glanced at the door again. Her escort, a small stocky woman who looked as if she might have represented C4 as a power lifter in the InterCity Games at some point, stood on the other side of it.
Boredom had replaced fear. There was nothing to see in the interview room No windows, and as far as she could tell, no cameras were set into the walls or ceiling. It was just a blank place. The coffee-flavoured drink they had left her had gone cold so that a thin, congealed skin now floated on the surface. It was strange how her brain had filtered out some of the things that had initially set her on edge when she’d been brought here. Like the smell in the room that made her nose wrinkle when she’d walked in: a nasty, slightly sweet stink reminiscent of overripe fruit; the repetitive banging noise that came from somewhere down the corridor was less noticeable too. She wondered if her father’s cell was like this, although she doubted he had the luxury of a chair, even one bolted to the floor like hers. The only thing of any interest came via the light hanging directly above the table. The bulb, housed in a wire cage, presumably to stop anybody smashing the glass had attracted a visitor. Every few seconds there was a little dull plink! as a moth attacked the source of the light, slamming itself into the immovable object over and over again, releasing tiny dust motes each time. She had no idea what the little insect hoped to achieve by its actions, but she admired its determination.
The noise of the door opening made Tia sit up. She wasn’t entirely surprised when it was President Melk himself who entered.
She watched as he closed the door behind him before turning and slowly walking over to take the seat across from her. Trying to shuffle the chair forward, he frowned when he realised that his, like hers, was secured to the concrete floor. He sat, saying nothing for a moment or two. Just staring across the table at her.
The plink-plinks! continued overhead, but he appeared not to notice them.
‘So,’ he eventually said.
She knew this game. She’d used it herself when interviewing reluctant sources. He wanted her to blink first. Before she’d left the city all those months ago and seen the things she had, she wouldn’t have just blinked first, she’d have crumbled before this man-of-power’s unwavering stare.
Instead she gave him a blank look in return. ‘So, what?’
A hint of something flashed across his eyes. Anger, maybe. But it was gone as soon as it had appeared. Pleased with this tiny victory, she allowed herself to look more closely at him and was immediately surprised at how he’d changed in the short time she’d been outside the walls. He appeared to have aged considerably; dark crescents underlined his eyes, and his face had a pinched, gaunt aspect to it. He made a small sighing sound and gave her a condescending smile. ‘Miss Cowper. Tia, isn’t it?’
‘I prefer Miss Cowper. Only my friends call me Tia.’
‘As you wish.’
‘Is it normal for the most powerful man in the Six Cities to come into police interrogation rooms like this?’
‘Is that what this place is? An interrogation room? Put like that, it seems rather unpleasant, doesn’t it? I thought it was merely a room in which we might have a little chat. And to answer your question, no, it’s not a place I’m used to frequenting.’
‘I suppose you have plenty of goons to terrorise young girls for you. I’m flattered.’ Her tone made it quite clear she was anything but.
‘I had hoped to find you a little more amenable, considering the predicament you find yourself in.’
‘And what predicament is that, I wonder?’
‘You’ve been dodging us for some time.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘After your father’s arrest, we wanted to have a little talk with you. We knew you were staying with your father’s friend Eleanor, but every time we showed up at her apartment, you seemed to have just … disappeared. The only person there to greet our officers was the former police chief herself, with her pet monkey. Eleanor was, of course, extremely apologetic about it all, but it did become a thorn in my side for a while. That was before I moved on to other, more pressing matters.’ He angled his head to one side as if he expected her to say something, giving a little sigh when she didn’t. ‘And now it seems you have been consorting with the dead.’ Melk threw the line out almost casually.
‘Granted you don’t look too good, Mr President, but I think “dead” might be pushing it a bit far. Of course, I doubt I’m alone in thinking that the Six Cities will be a better place once that unfortunate event eventually befalls you.’
‘You have your father’s gift for sardonic wit, Miss Cowper.’ Tia hated the offhand way in which the politician referred to her father when it was he who was responsible for him being locked up in a prison cell. ‘Let’s get back to the dead, shall we? It seems you left the city with a walking corpse only yesterday. Our records show that your CivisChip and that of a corpse exited, but only one of you returned. When the officer manning the gate was questioned he could only recall seeing a girl roughly matching your description and a … monkey. Now that information, coupled with our recent difficulties in tracking you down, might lead a more suspicious man to conclude that our former police chief’s little simian friend isn’t all he appears.’
‘She.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Buffy. It’s a she, not a he. And as for the other stuff, I really have no idea what you are on about, President Melk.’
‘There it is again. You really are your father’s daughter, aren’t you?’
The president began to speak again, but the repeated mentions of her father had angered Tia to such a degree that she was only vaguely listening now, his words drifting over her until she forced herself to focus again.
‘… people might be a little suspicious. Particularly in light of the fact that you have hardly left Eleanor’s apartment in the last few months. Now I’m beginning to wonder if –’
‘I wonder what the people of C4 would think if they knew their president was a criminal?’ she said. ‘I mean, the Principia is full of men and women who bend the rules for their own benefit, we all know that, but you, sir, are in an altogether different league from the usual thieves and liars who govern us, aren’t you? My father is in a cell right now for “treason”. Treason? And yet –’ she raised a finger in the air – ‘he never created a secret laboratory to create super-Mute–Pure hybrids, did he?’ She looked across. The politician was doing an incredible job of hiding his emotions. If Melk was in the slightest bit worried, he didn’t show it. When Tia was twelve her father had taught her to play poker, schooling her not just in the value of the cards and how to play your chips, but also in maintaining a neutral facial expression to hide what you might, or might not, have in your hand. Melk would make a great poker player. Tia went on. ‘Nor did my father, upon discovering that his little creations were still alive, set out to destroy them, sending ARM units out to the regions where the cities have no jurisdiction.’
Still nothing.
‘And then there’s the matter of human cloning. Granted, it pales in comparison to taking Pure embryos and crossing them with mutant DNA, but cloning yourself and putting that person in the Principia in the form of your “son”? That would surely raise a few eyebrows, wouldn’t it? I’d imagine that must go against the principles of what tiny sliver of democracy we still pretend exists here. I say “pretend”, because in a democracy the people don’t sit idly by while megalomaniacs lock innocent people up for daring to criticise them.’
She’d spotted a reaction this time. The only surprise was that it had not come at her name-calling. No, a slight tick had set up residence beneath Melk’s right eye at the mention of the clone he’d created. Not just that, but on Melk’s previously smooth brow a faint sheen of sweat had appeared.
‘Those are very interesting theories,’ he said. His eyes briefly left hers and shot across to the corner of the
room behind her.
‘Oh, you and I know they’re more than theories, don’t we?’
‘You’ve been busy, Citizen Cowper. One wonders how you’ve managed to be quite so industrious when, if what you claim is true, you appear not to have left the city walls in all this time.’
That shift of the eyes again, as if he was looking at somebody behind her. If it was a ploy to unnerve her, it was working. Scolding herself for being silly, Tia craned her head around and afforded herself a look. There was nothing there.
‘What do you keep looking at?’ she asked.
‘Pardon?’
He’s playing with you, Tia, she told herself. Trying to fluster you.
Melk shook his head and mumbled something under his breath.
What the hell?
The man took a deep breath, and when he looked at her again he seemed back in control of himself; none of the creepy mania he had been displaying seconds before.
‘You’ve been a bad girl.’
It was a weird thing to say to a young woman who had just accused you of terrible and heinous crimes. Strangely, it chilled her more than anything else so far.
‘Let me guess, you’re going to declare me an enemy of the state too? Like my father?’
‘Or I could just have you killed.’
Her blood ran cold. She had known this could happen. While drawing up her plans to return to the city as herself she’d weighed everything up, thinking through the various scenarios and not dodging even the most terrible outcomes like torture or murder. Even so, having the man opposite her threaten her in the flesh sent an icy shiver through her. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’
‘Oh? Why not?’
‘Because my disappearance would trigger a series of events that would eventually expose you for the monster you really are. Call it my insurance policy.’
Melk sucked his teeth as he sat back in his chair, appraising his opponent.
‘You’re bluffing,’ he said. ‘If you had that kind of power, you would have used it against me already.’