Cronix

by James Hider

  He lay in the darkness, mind racing. Instinctively, he waited for the old tic under his eye. No spasm. But for some reason, he did not feel concerned. In fact, he realized he felt calm, yet oddly excited at the same time.

  There was a crash nearby of something being overturned. Wherever he was, whatever he was, he wasn't alone. He scrambled to collect the details of the previous hours, years or minutes. Earth. Reanimation center. London. He ticked the details off like a skydiver counting the seconds to open his chute. Then he blinked and sat up.

  The laboratory was dusty, haunted by a memory of piss and feces. Once shiny surfaces dulled by age, stained by now-extinct visitors. Smeared across the wall was a spatter of what appeared to be dried blood. He was sitting on the reanimation tray that had brought his inert body from cold storage and inserted his consciousness.

  His first thought: I think, therefore I am not a Cronix. I know who I am. He looked around the room and relief gave way instantly to alarm: across the wrecked room, a beautiful, muscular youth was peering directly at him.

  They stared at each other. Oriente remained frozen, waiting for the creature to pounce. But the Cronix made no move. He recalled Tilloch's words: whatever short lifespan this mortal self might enjoy, it could never return topside. He was here on borrowed time, a sack of mortal flesh and bone. On the other hand, he was unlikely to miss the coming moments of pain and gore if they were lost forever.

  It quickly dawned on him, however, that something unexpected was going on. His mind, a haunted stow-away in this new body, was scrabbling to summon the terror reflex that such close proximity to a Cronix should induce. Yet his body resisted, simply refused to yield to fear. Instead, it was sending its own contrary message, overriding his mind's instincts with its own. It was as though his body was glad to see the enemy so close to hand. The muscles of Oriente's new body tensed, not in terror, but in gleeful anticipation.

  The seconds slipped by. Still the silent Cronix made no move. In the hiatus where paralyzing fear should have been, horror yielded to curiosity. Oriente dared, just for a moment, to look away from the predator and glance down at his own body. It was far different to anything he had ever seen from such a personal standpoint: slabbed leg muscles like tree trunks, a narrow girth and runner’s hips. In the corners of his peripheral vision, he caught sight of his own broad shoulders and bulging triceps. What was more, he could feel what might only be described as sheer vitality pulsing through his arteries. His muscles twitched with the thrill of life, an ache to run, leap, to rip apart, as though he were awash with pure testosterone.

  Nimbly, he swung his legs to the floor. It was covered in debris, and vegetation was growing where the wind had blown seeds in to this once pristine environment. He dug his toes into dandelions and dirt, relished the cool floor on the soles of his feet.

  Alive, was all he could tell himself. So alive, like never before. The pulse was irrepressible, a sense beyond joy. A kind of ecstasy. Without pausing to question why, he leapt across the room. The Cronix shrunk away, and it was only now that he realized Tilloch's plan had worked even better than the Tamagochiite could have dreamed.

  Because Oriente was inhabiting the body of a Ranger.

  The Cronix was afraid of him, because he was a giant, capable of snapping the creature’s neck.

  The Cronix edged backwards, clambering across an up-ended gurney, its eyes never leaving him. The urge to kill surged through Oriente, a bare knuckle fighter’s wild anticipation of wrist-biting, metacarpal-snapping combat. Before he could quite register what he was doing, he was on top of the creature, ripping and tearing and pummeling, howling with the joy of the kill. When he had finished, he was covered in blood, panting, holding the Cronix’s severed forearm between his teeth. The creature's head lolled forward, neck vertebrae crushed.

  Oriente tried to summon some remorse. Was he really himself, or had he become some kind of a scold, a half-downloaded personality? But no, he was thinking rationally: he was simply overwhelmed, intoxicated by the pure physicality of his new body. He knew he should be reprimanding himself for this psychotic behavior, but he could not and did not care. All he could feel was the strength coursing through him, like a hero from one of the mythic legends of the humans, those invincible warriors who had songs written about them for butchering their foes a hundred at a time. Achilles and Gilgamesh and Ajax, the deadly spurt of life incarnate. For some reason, the pathetic figure of Glenn Rose leapt momentarily to mind, an overweight shlub standing with a half-raised dumbbell in front of a mirror in London, wondering if a man with a sagging chest could really have a destiny.

  The blood-spattered killer growled with pleasure and gave the dead Cronix another kick. Part of him hoped he could learn to control the instinct. The other part just grinned, spat out of the fleshy limb and emitted a growl of animal pleasure.

  Oriente bounded out the door, lithe as a leopard. In seconds, he was clear of the building and running for the woods.

  He ran for hours, never tiring, exalting in the movement. He felt no breathlessness, thirst or hunger, just the throb of muscle like an itch that could only be scratched through relentless exercise. He paused occasionally in clearings where he could read the stars and adjust his course. Then he bolted again into the trees, cackling like a madman. He ran through daybreak and on towards noon, when he came across a slow-moving stream among the chestnuts and beeches. He stopped and drank deeply, alert as a wolf. He knew he must be close.

  There was smoke on the breeze, mixed with the scent of unwashed humans and decaying flesh. He lifted his head from the stream, water dripping from his chin, then pushed through ferns that curled like fingers, beckoning him to the fray.

  The trees thinned out into open fields. Naked figures brushed through the tall grass, some in groups, some alone, looking off into the distance. Some carried crude clubs, others rocks with sharpened surfaces: here and there, the sharp glint of blades caught the sun.

  At the tree line, a group of Cronix were ripping apart a carcass with their hands and teeth, squabbling and hissing like vultures. Even scarred, covered in gore and worn by the elements, they were beautiful. But scolds and Cronix, Oriente knew, were solitary creatures, hunting in groups of two or three at the most. In this one section of grassland alone, there were at least fifty of them.

  Oriente walked out of the trees, past the snarling, snapping pack dismembering the body. As he passed, he saw it was a human cadaver. Probably one of their own: the creatures were pared down by hunger, the muscles of their emaciated stomachs clearly visible through the skin. They must have stripped the woods of game long ago.

  They all kept a wary eye on him as he passed. Out in the open country, Oriente spotted what the rest of them were staring at so fixedly: on a short, steep rise, soared the mighty stone walls of Arundel Castle. The chapel was smoldering, drifts of smoke tumbling down the hill and across the thick grass to where the Cronix loitered. Oriente could make out tiny figures on the ramparts brandishing spears and bows, loosing off an occasional arrow if one of the naked figures ventured too close. The Cronix seemed to have accurately gauged the range of the arrows: a small group of them stood in the high grass just beyond their reach, staring intently, their own crude weapons held loosely in strong hands. Every now and then, one of them would duck into the tall grass, as though teasing the guardians. The men on the walls peered down but did not fire. It was a stand-off that Tilloch said had been going on for a year at least.

  The group of cannibals was still hunched over the bloody carcass. They looked up as he drew close again, suspicion in their eyes. The woman closest to him, squatting over whatever remained of the corpse’s buttocks, stopped gnawing and bared her teeth. Without even thinking, he grabbed her by the throat and tossed her into the grass. His blood up, and he had to fight back the sudden urge to leap on top of her, to rape and kill. The psychotic power of the instinct caught him short for a second, but he managed to master the shocking impulse. The other creatures leapt to their feet and
backed off, hissing, mouths curved in fear and hatred. They left him to take what he wanted. He ate his fill, with no hint of squeamishness at this act of cannibalism. He was hungry, and he ate. Satisfied with both his meal and the effect he had on these creatures, he walked out in the open towards the Cronix standing closest to the ramparts.

  They were leaning on their clubs, a menacing presence that would not allow the defenders to relax their vigil for a single minute. Oriente could see that the grass closest to the walls had been burned so the defenders could see anyone approaching.

  There were two Cronix standing together just where the burned grass began, watching the ramparts. They glanced round as he swished through the grass: one growled, a wary, guttural noise that could have been greeting or warning. He stopped beside them, and they resumed their impassive vigil.

  The one on the right, a woman, had a serrated hunting knife in her right hand. Perfect, Oriente thought. He snatched her wrist with his own right hand, and in one seamless motion snapped it across his knee. The woman let out a howl of pain and the knife fell to the ground. Oriente swept it up and stabbed the male Cronix square in the chest, then pulled the blade out with the wet sucking sound of a pierced lung. Without pausing, he span the creature around, jerked it on to its knees, and with a few strong, sawing motions cut its head off. Once again, he knew he should have been disturbed by the satisfaction the brutal act gave him, but could at best only summon an abstract understanding of the need for remorse.

  The female was crouching in the grass, clutching her horribly broken arm and hissing in pain. Oriente dropped the severed head and grabbed her by the hair. He snapped her head back and repeated the decapitation. He was drenched in blood now and sweating slightly. Behind him he could hear the inarticulate, bestial squeals of the Cronix pack near the trees. He turned to see a large group of the beasts were bounding through the grass, straight for him.

  He held the two severed heads aloft as he ran, knowing the defenders on the ramparts would have seen the whole grisly episode. He jogged at first, giving his pursuers a chance to catch up a little. On the wall, he was relieved to see several more bowmen had come out, summoned by their comrades to witness this strange fight among the subspecies. It was a risky plan: they might fire on him as he approached, or one of more of the creatures lurking in the grass might pounce on him. But he doubted the defenders’ arrows would pierce his thick Ranger’s skin, and was sure he could take out any lurking Cronix.

  With the mob closing in, he opened his stride and sprinted for the castle gate. He saw the blur of a crossbow bolt zing past, then felt what seemed to be a hammer blow to his face. Almost simultaneously, he heard the report of a rifle shot and realized he had just taken a head shot. He thanked whatever deity was looking out for him that he had come back as a Ranger with titanium-strength bones.

  “Don’t shoot me, you fools” he yelled. “Shoot them,” and he pointed back, tossing the woman’s bloodied head at his pursuers. “I’m one of you, open the gate!”

  He could not hear what the response might have been, but knew he had convinced the guardians when the next flight of arrows sliced through the air over his head. A crescendo of screams rose from behind him, echoed by a frenzied yelling on the ramparts as he sprinted across the stone bridge.

  To his immense relief, a heavy wooden door set into the huge gate swung open. He bounded through it and was almost impaled on a porcupine of spears that surrounded him as soon as he was inside. At least two huge sniper rifles were pointed straight at his head. His vision went briefly red as a laser dot focused on his eye, the only truly vulnerable spot for Ranger. Behind him, someone nimbly closed the gate and bolted it. From the walls above, there were ragged cheers: evidently the Cronix had fled, or been killed. The crossbowmen were pointing their bows down now, straight at him.

  Oriente froze, his chest heaving. “I’m a friend,” he said, holding up his hands, one of which still held a severed Cronix head. His ears were ringing from the head shot, and he felt suddenly nauseous, but knew that the simple fact of speaking should be enough to convince his audience. Nonetheless, he knew what a terrifying spectacle he must present, a huge naked Ranger caked in blood. A ring of faces, drawn by hunger and animated by fear, peered at him, eyes wide in hollow sockets, mouths open to reveal graying teeth.

  “Here,” he threw the severed head to the ground. “That one’s for you, on the house.”

  Still they did not lower their spears, and he wondered if they intended to kill him anyway. “My name is Oriente, and I have come from the Orbiters. I reanimated last night, just outside London.”

  The defenders gawped, disbelief pierced now by some dim hope, a faint glimmer of salvation.

  “That’s not possible,” grunted one man, his long hair matted with dirt. He was wearing a buckskin shirt and a breech clout which revealed a huge, gnarled scar on his withered thigh: he leaned on a walking stick whose upper half, Oriente realized, was fashioned from a human-thigh bone, the ball joint providing the hand-grip. The others were similarly ragged, like shipwrecked sailors washed on some barren shore with no hope of rescue.

  “No one’s come down in more than a decade,” the man with the walking stick said.

  Oriente shook his head. “I know it sounds crazy. But it’s true. There are still a few reanimation centers working. We’ve been trying for years to send someone down. This time, for some reason, it worked. Think about it. I’m here talking to you, in a Ranger’s body. What else could I be?”

  “He could be one of the Halflings!” shouted a scrawny old man, his toothless mouth a black hole in a nebula of white beard. He brandished his spear closer to Oriente’s chest, though it was clear from his eyes that he was too terrified to make an actual jab. Oriente resisted the urge to snap the spear and ram it down the man’s throat. Time to control that psychotic urge.

  “I don’t know what Halflings are,” he said. “But whatever they are, I’m not one of them. Now, you can listen to me, and have some hope of getting out of here, or you can try to stab me and all die here soon enough. I don’t care, I’ll wake up safe and sound on the Orbiter and lose two days of memories from this miserable dirtball that I’d be quite happy to erase anyway. Maybe that will happen to some of you too. But most of you don't have an avatar waiting up there, airside. Your kids certainly don't. Do you want them to die at the hands of those monsters out there?”

  He was starting to get through to them, but still they stood with weapons raised, frozen by fear and indecision. The awkward silence was broken when the lame man with the thigh-bone walking stick stepped forward.

  “Did you say your name was Oriente?” He was staring up at the gruesome Ranger. Oriente nodded.

  The man’s face was half obscured by a thick beard. He appeared at a loss for words, then shook his head.

  “The Missing Link,” he said. “Stumbling out of the woods again.”

  Oriente stared at his face, trying to picture it fuller, without the woodsman’s beard. The piercing blue eyes were the only thing that stood out among features almost erased by hardship and weather.

  “Hencock?”

  The former DPP inspector nodded and warily extended a hand. “Seems I can’t get shot of you, Mr Oriente.” He tried to laugh, but it came out as a strangled noise.

  “My god. Hencock.” The words were out before Oriente had a chance to think about them. But Hencock barely seemed to register the shock on the giant’s face. Perhaps he knew just how he looked, a scarecrow among the skeletal, starving survivors of a lost civilization. Oriente tried to cover up with a joke.

  “You going to arrest me again, commissioner?” Hencock gave that same strangled noise again. He was still clinging like a child to the giant's hand.

  “It was inspector,” he said. “You always got my rank wrong.” Oriente wrapped him in his arms and a ragged cheer rose from the crowd, a cry of relief and joy that here, finally, was good news, that there was still someone human out there, aside from the glass-eyed monsters who
se only desire was to butcher and eat them.

  Hencock pulled himself free and ordered the guards to return to the ramparts.

  “Come with me,” he told Oriente. Leaning heavily on his macabre cane, he led him into the castle.

  It was a pathetic community. Peasants teased wilted vegetables out of the parched earth. There was no livestock to be seen, except a small wicker cage which contained several birds. As they passed, Oriente saw they were crows.

  “It's hard life here,” Hencock said, following Oriente's gaze to the ramparts adorned with trophies of this war of attrition – severed human heads, some still with skin and hair, others picked clean of flesh.

  They entered a shady hall whose roof had partially caved in. A cook was preparing a stew made of wizened root vegetables that looked more mud than food. Haggard wretches were propped against the walls, the more animated among them scraping hides or sewing crude clothing.

  Cries of horror went up as Oriente entered the hall. Shrunken figures scurried for the nearest exit, but Hencock hobbled forward to reassure them that the enemy had not breached the walls. The scarecrows nervously returned, gathering around to observe this miracle for themselves. Bony hands reached out to touch his skin.

  Hencock offered Oriente a bowl of the thin broth: out of politeness he took a few sips, though he was not hungry after feasting on the dead Cronix. It tasted like mildew. A gaunt boy crept up and dared to touch his arm, and Oriente offered him the foul broth. The boy devoured it as though it were lobster bisque, and the crowd seemed to sense, at last, that this really was no monster sitting before them.