“Now up here,” Dan said, catching Artur’s dress between finger and thumb and depositing him near the head of the bed. “Feel there.”
“Fine. But I don’t really see what the point of…”
Artur blinked in surprise as his hands pressed on the bed. “Warm. This end’s warmer.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Dan. “Someone was on the bed. Very recently. Like, I don’t know, within the last two minutes.”
From somewhere not too far away came the sound of a car door closing, and the electric hum of a mag-lev engine powering on.
“Is that them, d’ye think?” asked Artur. “I thought the car park was empty?”
“Must be another one out back,” Dan realized. His eyes became saucers. “That’s where they are. She’s right out there!”
“See? That’s what I’m talking about,” crowed Artur. “Ye are a detective!”
Dan shook his head. “Not a detective,” he said, reaching into his coat and pulling out Mindy. “Just a scary guy with a big fonking gun.”
He aimed towards the back of the room. “Mindy. Explosive rounds,” he barked.
“Oh… shoite!” yelped Artur, hurling himself into Dan’s pocket just as the back wall erupted in a flaming cloud of rubble.
A delivery truck was parked just beyond the hole. It hesitated for a moment, then lurched away from the curb.
Leaping through the collapsing wall, Dan launched himself at the back of the truck. His woman’s hand found the welded metal ladder attached to one of the vehicle’s back doors. Dan’s one working nail-polished finger hooked onto a rung, and his legs flew out behind him as the truck sped out of the car park on a cushion of magnetized air.
It swerved as it careened out onto the road. Dan swung wildly, clattered against the truck’s back doors, and felt his one-fingered grip begin to slip.
“Shizz,” he spat, shoving Mindy back into her holster. His other hand took up the strain on the ladder, and he pulled his feet up onto the bottom rung.
The truck weaved sharply left and right, which meant either the driver was drunk, or he knew Dan was there. A vehicle coming in the opposite direction blasted its horn and dodged. Dan saw the driver’s face go from furious to gobsmacked as she passed and saw him heaving himself up towards the truck’s flat roof.
The wind whipped at him as he stuck his head up above the roof. Narrowing his eyes against it, he searched for a handhold on the smooth plastic, but found only a thin ridge where two panels had been sealed together.
“Shizz,” he said again, but the wind tore the word from his mouth this time, and tossed it somewhere far behind him.
Reaching out, he gripped the ridge with his final functioning woman’s finger, brought his feet up to the highest rung he could find, and threw himself forwards. The wind whistled around him, catching his coat and dragging him back. He thudded hard against the roof, scrabbled to find a grip with his other hand, then slid sideways as the van took a bend at high speed.
“Fonk, fonk, fonk!” Dan grimaced, kicking his feet against the plastic as he fought to stop himself slipping over the edge.
“Holy shoite, Deadman, what are we doing up here?” Artur yelped, peeking out of Dan’s pocket. “Couldn’t ye have just held onto the feckin’ ladder until he stopped?”
Dan’s boot squealed as the sole friction-gripped him to the truck’s roof. Shizz. Why hadn’t he thought of that?
“Uh, yeah. I could have, but… Uh…”
“But ye’re a big mad bastard?” said Artur.
Dan smiled grimly. “Something like that.”
He reached for the next handhold, and pressed his fingertips against the thin line of raised plastic. Kicking and pulling, he inched along the roof, sliding himself closer and closer to the cab at the front. Quite what he was going to do when he got there, he wasn’t sure. He’d figure it out.
The next handhold was easier. The plastic seal had broken off, leaving a gap between two panels he could wedge his woman’s finger into. He pulled himself along until his eyes were level with the gap, and peered inside.
Most of the truck’s interior was in darkness, but a thin line of light from the crack picked out part of another hospital-type bed. Someone was lying in it, and as the truck lurched again, the glow picked out a flash of blonde hair and a glimpse of a child’s arm.
“It’s her,” Dan said, as much to himself as anyone else. “It’s her. She’s here. Artur, can you—?”
“Already on it,” said Artur, pulling himself up onto Dan’s shoulder. “What, ye think ye’re the only mad bastard around here?”
Dan prized the gap further apart. “Be careful,” he urged.
“What are ye, me mother?” said Artur. “Just go kill that fecker.”
And with that, he jumped through the gap, shouted, “Oh bollocks!” at the top of his voice, and plummeted all the way to the floor.
“I’m alright,” he called, a few moments later. “Although this dress is totally feckin’ peeled.”
Dan pushed on, dragging himself against the whistling wind. The edge of the truck’s cargo box was almost in reach, the cab just beyond it.
The cab itself would be smooth and domed, with nothing to grip onto. He couldn’t just shoot the driver, or the truck would crash, and the girl would be left in an even worse state than she already was. He had to get inside the cab, which meant going through the door.
Unfortunately, that meant hanging off the side. If he fell, he wouldn’t just lose the girl, he’d lose Artur, too, and he’d already lost too many friends today.
So he wouldn’t fall. Decision made.
Gripping the edge of the cargo box with his favorite of his two hands, Dan whispered a series of heavily-censored curse words, gritted this teeth, then swung down. His already mangled woman’s arm became even more so as he drove it through the cab’s side window, making a grab for the driver.
He stopped when he saw the figure behind the wheel. Dan was well aware that his own face was nightmarish, but this guy’s beat it, hands down.
His head was a shriveled knot of burned and blackened flesh, with melted nubs where his ears should have been. Most of his face was covered by what Dan at first thought was a flap of yellowing skin, but which he realized was some sort of medical dressing.
The man’s neck was a trunk of charred muscle fibers, and while most of him was hidden beneath a set of blood-stained surgeon’s scrubs, an exposed area of forearm between where the sleeves ended and his rubber gloves began revealed the burns extended over the rest of his body.
Dan was so transfixed by the horror of it, that he didn’t hear the blaster humming until it was too late. The door exploded outwards on its hinges, the metal immediately buckling under Dan’s weight.
The wind tore at Dan again. He scrabbled desperately for a handhold, but his woman’s hand was dead now. As the lifeless fingers thudded uselessly against the side of the cab, Dan found himself briefly weightless, then he fell, cursing, towards the road.
* * *
“Hey. Hey, princess. Ye alright?”
Nona opened her eyes to find a doll-sized figure in a badly-torn cocktail dress standing on her chest. She said nothing for a while, trying to figure out if this was a dream.
“Molly Anne?” she eventually muttered, her voice a dry, painful croak. The place was dark, and her eyes were blurry, and she couldn’t make out a lot of detail. “Is that you?”
Artur leaned in closer, revealing his beard and boggle-eyed squint. “Not exactly. But I’m an old friend of hers. She asked me to come and rescue you.”
Nona blinked slowly. “How? She’s just a dolly.”
“Ah, ye’re a sharp one, alright,” Artur told her, grinning. “No pulling the wool over ye’re eyes, is there? But I am here to rescue you, that’s a promise, OK?”
Nona’s eyes closed for a long time. Artur was about to try to waken her again when she opened them. “OK.”
“OK, good girl. Now, tell me, are ye hurt?”
Nona’s bottom lip trembled as she nodded. Artur felt a flicker of rage flaring up inside him, but pushed it down. “Oh, well, I’m very sorry to hear that, princess, but no one’s going to be hurting ye from here on in. My name’s Artur, by the way. Everything’s going to be OK now, ye hear?”
From somewhere up front there came the sound of breaking glass. “That’s a friend of mine. He’s here to help ye, too, and sure, he’s even more set on it than I am. Yer mammy’s dead worried about ye, so she is. I bet she can’t wait to see ye.”
“My mommy’s here?” Nona sniffed, a tear trickling down the side of her face.
“No, she’s at home waiting for us to bring ye back,” said Artur. “Now, tell yer Uncle Artur, where does it hurt?”
Nona’s lips became thin and more tears began to fall. “I don’t want to talk about,” she whispered.
“Alright. Ye’re alright, princess.”
The sound of blaster fire and tearing metal filled the darkened box. Artur hesitated, not quite sure what to make of it, but then he broadened his smile and turned around on the spot.
“Well, let’s see now. Ye’ve got all yer arms and legs, so that’s a good start. Head’s where it should be. Face, gorgeous as ever. Sure, ye’re not doing too badly,” he said.
“My back hurts,” the girl whimpered. “H-he hurt my back.”
Artur’s beard bristled. There it was again, that rage. That urge to punch a hole into the cab and rip that bastard’s tongue out through his arse.
“Did he now? Well, he’s going to pay for doing that to ye, mark my words,” Artur assured her. “But for now, I want ye to try and relax, OK? I’m here with ye now. Nothing’s gonna happen to ye, not on my watch.”
He squatted down and rested a tiny hand on her shoulder. “Yer safe now, Nona. That’s a promise.”
Nona shook her head. “N-no,” she croaked. “Not safe.”
“Sure ye are. I might be small, but I’m surprisingly handy in a fight. Anyone tries to get in here, and I’ll have a thing or two to say about it.”
“It’s already in here,” Nona whispered. “You’re too late.”
Artur frowned. “Say what now?” he said.
And then he heard it. A movement from the far end of the cargo box, over by the back door. Something was breathing. Something big. Something animal-like.
“Well now,” Artur muttered, standing up and gazing into the darkness. “Just what do we have here?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Dan’s legs hit the ground. He braced himself for the rest of his body to follow, and was surprised when it didn’t.
His woman’s arm clanged against the underside of the mag-lev truck, the metal rod drawn to the hovering vehicle’s magnetic charge. The sudden jerk ripped at the stitches, but the arm held, and Dan bounced around under the truck, his legs alternating between smashing against the chassis and dragging along the ground.
“Ned, you’re a fonking genius,” Dan muttered.
With his free hand, he got a grip on the chassis, then managed to find places for his feet to go. He could hold on until the truck stopped, then climb out and beat the shizz out of that ugly melted fonk in the cabin.
He wasn’t quite sure yet how he’d detach his arm from the magnet, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. Right now, he could catch his breath – figuratively speaking – and wait to catch the shizznod by surprise.
“DEAAAADMAAAAAN!” hollered a voice from somewhere above. Artur. “We’ve got us a big feckin’ problem in here, Deadman! Get us out!”
“Aw, shizz,” Dan grunted. “What now?”
Twisting his head, he studied the underside of the mag-lev. He knew he wouldn’t find a handy access hatch or emergency stop button, but it didn’t stop him looking. As expected, he saw neither of those things. What he did find was a coil of thick, heavily-insulated cable clipped into a recess in the chassis.
Dan gazed at it for a while.
He gazed at the ground whizzing past below him.
“DEAAAADMAAAAAN!” Artur cried. “Ye might want to get a move on!”
“Ah, fonk it,” Dan muttered. He grabbed the cable with his good hand and pulled.
There was a spark and a bang and the front of the truck dipped suddenly. The woman’s arm was immediately demagnetized, and flopped loose. Leaving Dan holding onto a single strand of broken cable with his other hand.
His feet jerked free from where he’d been pressing them. The mag-lev roared across the ground, sending a shower of sparks into Dan’s face. Above him, the rest of the truck began to wobble, then dip. Dan released his grip and fell, just as the rear magnets gave out and the truck crashed fully onto the tarmac, trapping Dan’s new arm beneath it and dragging him along.
Unable to turn, the truck punched through a wire mesh fence and stopped abruptly as the cab slammed into a low wall just beyond it. The rear of the mag-lev bucked upwards, and Dan rolled free before it clattered back down again.
He was halfway to his feet before he noticed he was missing a hand. Not just a hand, in fact, but everything from the elbow down. His coat sleeve hung limp and lonely from the stump. The arm itself was nowhere to be seen, but was presumably mangled beneath the unmoving mag-lev.
On the one hand, he was disappointed to lose part of a limb – even this one – at such a crucial stage in proceedings. On the other hand…
Well, he didn’t have another hand, so he just left it at that.
“Deadman!” hollered Artur from inside the cargo box. “What the feck are ye doing out there?”
“Alright, alright, I’m coming!” said Dan.
A noise from behind him made him turn.
“No. No, you aren’t,” slurred the burned man. The synthetic dressing on his face made reading his expression difficult, but Dan could tell he was angry. The blaster pistol he was currently pointing directly at Dan’s head was a big enough clue for even Dan to pick up on. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Tribunal?”
“You should be so lucky. Janto, isn’t it? I’m the guy who killed your two biker friends,” said Dan. “Well, technically one of them got eaten by a big fish…”
“What the Hell is wrong with your face?” Janto asked, butting in.
“Long story. And that question is pretty rich, considering.” He waved an arm, gesturing at all of Janto in general. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
“Like you say,” Janto spat. “Long story.”
Dan raised onto the balls of his feet, but it didn’t go unnoticed.
“Don’t move!” Janto screeched, the gun shaking in his gloved hand. “Don’t you fonking move!”
Something went thud inside the back of the truck. Dan’s eyes darted towards it, but he raised his one-remaining hand above his head. “I just want Nona,” Dan said. “Let me take her, and you can go do whatever weird shizz you want. I just want the girl.”
“She’s my girl!” Janto said. “Mine. She stays with me.”
Dan shook his head. “See, I can’t let that happen, Janto.”
“You don’t get a say in what happens!” Janto barked. “I need her. She has secrets. My secrets. She can make me better. Make me whole again, instead of… Instead of… this thing.”
His tone changed from confrontational to soothing. “Both of us. She can fix both of us. I just need more time.”
Dan flicked his tongue across his dry, peeling lips. “Some things are too broken to be fixed.”
“No, I can. With what she has inside her, I can fix you!” Janto insisted.
“Wasn’t talking about me,” said Dan. “You killed those girls.”
“I had to. It wasn’t my fault,” Janto said. “She changed their last name. Hers and Nona’s. I didn’t know where to find them.”
“You had to?” Dan growled.
“Trial and error,” Janto insisted. “It’s a scientific method. Trial and error. Eliminate the wrong answers until you find the right one. Trial and error. It’s just… It’s science! That’s all. Necessary scie
nce.”
“What the Hell’s necessary about it?”
“Look at me!” Janto bellowed, tearing the dressing away to reveal the hollows of his nose and his lipless mouth that showed all his teeth at once. “Look at it! What I was working on… I can fix this. I can fix it, I just need more time to perfect it. I just need more time.”
“Yeah, well time’s up, you psychotic piece of shizz,” Dan told him.
The thudding came again, rocking the truck.
“What is that?” Dan asked.
“It’s nothing. It’s… It didn’t work properly. One of the samples I stored inside her, it got corrupted, somehow. That’s all. But I can fix it,” Janto babbled, his lidless eyes bulging in their sockets. “He knew the risks. He knew what could happen. But I can fix it.”
“Who knew what could happen?” Dan asked, lowering his hand.
Janto was trembling from shriveled head to gnarled toe. The blaster swayed in an erratic figure of eight, moving from Dan’s face to his chest and back again. Janto’s lipless mouth was moving, but very little sound was coming out.
The truck rocked again. There was a clank and a dent appeared in the mag-lev’s back doors.
“Janto!” Dan barked, snapping the other man to attention. “Who the fonk is that? Your daughter is in there!”
“He’s restrained. He… he can’t get free,” Janto said, his voice no more than a scratchy whisper. “He knew the risks. He knew.”
Dan scowled and made for the truck. “Artur? Artur, hold on, I’m coming.”
“Stay where you are!” Janto roared, gripping his blaster in both hands.
Mindy slid free of her holster in one smooth movement. Unlike Janto, Dan’s hand was rock-steady as he aimed the weapon squarely at the other man’s head. A movement from somewhere overhead briefly broke Dan’s concentration. He flicked his eyes up and spotted a Paparazzoid adjusting its flight path to check out what was happening below. Great. Just what he needed.
He tried to ignore it, and gave Janto his undivided attention again.
Dial D for Deadman: A Space Team Universe Novel (Dan Deadman Space Detective Book 1) Page 20