A soft croaking exhale slipped from his parted lips, his vitality ebbing before her very eyes, all hint of regret or pity gouged from her heart by the life these villains had forced her to lead.
Savouring her victory to help bury her obstinately haunting conscience, Kirsten dwelt on how this crime had started her on a very lethal road, that by acting in her own defence she was now opened to the maelstrom of perpetual existence as a hunted fugitive.
If the option had existed, she would have denied this vicissitude and continued her life of hiding, for she had prepared that lifestyle with sterling precision when Kessler’s rise to power had begun. Having left little to chance and with the electronic skills to defend herself she had proved herself more fortunate than others of her kind by managing to remain lost from the eyes of the authorities, and now she was loathe to forsake what she had so perfectly sculpted.
Grabbing the cadaver she unceremoniously dumped it into the smothering arms of a bush, straightening the branches about the crooked form to conceal it prior to shouldering his deserted rifle. She could have spent the time to take some of his clothes, but soldiers did not travel alone, others were nearby and she didn’t have time to waste.
Shovelling extra leaves onto the site of his meagre grave to hide the proof of her revenge as best she could, Kirsten listened intently for signs of his fellows.
The era of her peaceful existence had now been terminated after years spent in solitary isolation, locked away in her basement, etching her living as a computer programmer through the unbiased medium of the Internet. Ordering in her food, running her accounts from afar, protected by scramblers and muffling earth, she had never needed to leave her abode and open herself to the scrutiny of the Scanner teams.
When house-to-house enquiries threatened her sanctuary she risked hacking into the mainframe network to insert a negative response to their tests. Deeming her already cleared by their own flawless records, the teams had always moved on and she had remained safe from their persecution.
But she knew she was gradually starting to go crazy from such fortified segregation. The computer access was her only window to correspondence and conversation, the chat rooms and sites her only means to travel. They were corrupting influences, the powerful undercurrent of debauchery, the constant fetish images that pounded her eyes day in day out, all helped to further arouse her, deviating her with every voyage she made through the dark realms of her screen. But it was a phoney world, one with more walls than were apparent and it became a suffocating realm that seemed to fence her in on all sides, a prison of public profiles, conjured facades and incorporeal lies.
The need to go out into the sun, to walk the streets and mingle with other people had become too pressing to deny. She hadn’t been able to take any more—she felt that she was losing her mind, drowning in a world of perversity and decadent appetites.
Television taunted her endlessly, especially round the holidays, for Christmas and other festivals offered blissful happiness to be spent with others, yet she was trapped and alone, afraid to leave lest she be detected and end up in the Sanctuary camps.
She knew they existed as almost everyone did, but it was easy to delude oneself that it was not so. The media had been placed under rigid control and now only voiced the anti-mutant propaganda required of it while routinely obliterating all mention of the excesses perpetrated by the government and their pernicious stormtroopers.
The rising tide of genetic abnormalities amongst the population had been building for decades now. The source was unclear—a relic of nuclear testing, genetic treatments, pollution, ozone depletion, fast food, a whole host of assorted rationales could be listed but none were sure, making the threat all the more unnerving because it could rear anywhere and in anyone.
Physical warping and mental abnormality of an unprecedented degree contributed to bringing out a new range of human abilities, withering some, bolstering others, sometimes refining and bringing to full fruition what was previously considered aspects of paranormal ability. Although most of those with such rare gifts used their new powers and abilities benignly or hid them, others of a less stable or civic minded mentality were often not inclined to be so reserved, and it was they who had ignited the powder keg of oppression.
Finding her victim satisfactorily hidden, Kirsten started to regulate her speeding breath and check her surroundings, its beauty lost to her terror-saturated stare.
The halcyon scene buzzed with the soft hum of insects and the chirp of birds. Golden sunlight poured from an unblemished vault and streamed through the interlocked canopy of foliage, the bright beams spotlighting various areas of the woods. A slight breeze trickled through the winding maze of trunks and caressed the wild grasses, sending undulating waves across the carpet as the trees and fallen leaves rustled seductively.
The smoggy haze of pollution that brooded over the city like some ethereal spectre marked its direction and showed her the route she had to take to continue fleeing it.
Trotting off through the vegetation and away from the sprawling metropolis, she reached up in mid dash and took firm hold of an overhead branch. With a hiss of exertion she strained and hauled herself up, dragging her swinging body into the upper reaches for a better vantage point.
The sounds of the patrol had slackened off considerably, suggesting that they had moved on, hopefully following a false trail, or even better would be their having giving up on finding her.
What would she do now? She could not risk going home. The need for human contact, for comfort, caresses, a hint of pleasure in her misery had forced her into calling on prostitutes to stop her going mad. She had not dared risk male companionship because even the most minuscule chance of pregnancy or infection would be devastating to her because she had no way to safely leave her abode and treat the problem. The decadence that the net cultivated in her during the years of her hiding helped ease her reluctance and she soon started to become more and more enamoured with her own gender through her fleeting engagements. There were darker desires too, her travels through the electronic domains attuning her endlessly towards images of fetishism and bondage, for whenever she found images of lesbian love to relieve herself to, rubber, leather, and restraint almost always crept in at some point. It was an inevitable reworking of her psyche, one that she was powerless to resist. But the budding bloom was kept, starved, and stunted. She couldn’t afford to give into such impulses—they were far too dangerous—so she kept them in the realm of her most depraved fantasies, brushing them off only when her sexual frustration was at its most keen peak.
With nothing but work to occupy her time she had more than adequate funds to pay for her professional partners. After all, what else could she spend her money on? Vacations, cars, restaurants, movies, family, friends, jewellery, and clothes, all of life’s luxuries were denied her. She had to temper her indulgence though—the risks were great, so she used the escorts only when her needs were at their most pressing.
Now her life was over because of her weakness for female flesh. The undercover KGP operative had snared her somehow, found out her secret, infiltrated her lair, and exposed her.
With Scanner teams abroad it would only be a matter of time before they tracked her down and she had nothing with her to be of any assistance. Dressed in the snared and ripped stockings, thong and opera gloves, she was vulnerable to exposure and woefully ill prepared for sudden relocation to the wilds.
When she had fled the house she knew that KGP Stalker units were still walking the streets with portable sensors, and was well aware that such patrols would step up considerably when they knew there was legitimate prey on the loose. Such devices had feeble ranges, but they were a hazard none the less. By avoiding such brazenly distinctive units when she saw them she had managed to detour long before she entered their effective range of detection. Clinging to the shadows and alleys she had made her way through the suburbs towards the tenuous illusion of safety that the wilderness offered.
Fortunately,
her adversaries had no idea of her direction and the patrols had been sparse and spread thin to try and unearth her location. She had almost made it to her goal when disaster had struck.
Turning a corner and coming face to face with a patrol had been terrible luck rather than incompetence on her part and as the sensor lit up at her affirmed corrupted genetic strands she was exposed and had to instantly flee. Risking departure from the depths of the dawn entry into the milling morning crowds her near nude state had aided her flight. Gawkers and aghast onlookers choked the Stalkers as they fought to break through and capture her, allowing Kirsten to throw them off and once more steal into the unpopulated shadows.
The dogged chase had driven her out of the city and into the surrounding woodland, the vengeful foe calling in more and more of their forces to apprehend her. The ferocity with which they were seeking her revealed just how effective the campaign of elimination had been. To martial such resources against one person meant that there was little else occupying them, therefore the city had to be virtually devoid of all mutants. Hounded all the way, only her enhanced physique had given her the stamina to run all night and all day, to keep one step ahead of her pursuers.
The rhythmic chatter of a helicopter threatened to draw close, making her clamp herself to the branch and swing beneath it, using the stout tree limb to hide her heat pattern from any thermal imaging.
The minutes continued to trail slowly by, her arms and legs gathering a prickling heat as they fought to hold her to the perch. Small beads of perspiration began to well across her features as she held tight, waiting for the sound to vanish, the salty dew conjured by fear as much as toil.
Gradually the eerie disruption of the quiet dwindled to leave only the silence. Perhaps it would be wise to move deeper into the wilds, beyond the scope of the paramilitary zealots to scan or randomly venture. Rumour accorded the depths of the woodlands with mutant bands, resistance cells and refugees, hiding together for mutual protection, using their powers and stealth devices to scramble the genetic sensors of their foes and keep themselves hidden.
Perhaps she could try and locate one such fabled band. She knew nothing of surviving in the wilderness. Her life had revolved solely around that of a city dweller. Her career, her existence, all of it was based in civilised society. What would she do in the forests? She had never even gone camping, preferring locations in the city’s heart and foreign hotels to the vapid delights of the world’s nature spots.
Dropping from her lofty bastion she fell into a tensed crouch, her eyes scrutinising the lush greenery for trace of her enemy. Finding the scene safe, she removed the rifle from her back and looked it over. It was a monster of a weapon, developed for NATO and issued as standard KGP equipment after their rise to power. She had seen them on the news, watched reports on the new armament and its value to the troops in suppressing mutant sedition and terrorism but never had she ever thought she’d be holding one.
The objective individual combat weapon had proven itself the bane of urban conflict, its effectiveness displayed in countless city skirmishes when the fighting had begun in the early days. Although it looked like some sort of science fiction weapon, there was nothing fictional about its ability. It had two barrels, the lower one firing standard kinetic ammunition from the thirty-shot banana clip directly before the grip and sprouting a cruel bayonet, while the detachable upper barrel fired explosive fragmentation rounds from the clip in the butt. The 20mm air bursting shells were controlled by the large scope atop the weapon that was a combination of video camera, six-x scope and laser rangefinder. This complex device allowed the wielder to detonate the explosive rounds on impact or at a fire-controlled range such as over enemy positions or after passing through a wall or sheet metal, effectively eradicating all hope of cover from its attack and turning every soldier into a pernicious sharp shooter and one-man weapons platform. Despite its stocky size it weighed only about fourteen pounds in her grip. Unfamiliar with firearms, she barely knew enough to fire a pistol, let alone this technological beast. Yet she felt considerably safer facing a KGP patrol with her haphazard and rudimentary skill and an assault rifle than just her capital unarmed abilities. Such martial training had been the result of a hobby that had risen to an obsessive devotion once the attacks on her kind had first started to escalate, and then safe in her cellar she had continued in order to stay fit, all the time hoping to never need them for real.
After cocking the weapon she cradled it in her grasp and began to jog away from the city. Kirsten was superb at causing mayhem, but even so, a bullet was still better.
It seemed so unfair that she was being condemned to the same fate as most mutantkind. Those with a warped gene pool were often twisted aberrations, their contorted flesh grotesque and to be reviled, and it was this trait of physical monstrosity that had made them such easy scapegoats. The mistake of all previous tyrants had been the genocide of peoples, faiths, and creeds that the populace could sympathise with. They had targeted people who looked just like everyone else, who could have been their neighbours and friends, leaving only the most fanatic to tolerate their utter eradication whereas everyone else could only stomach singling them out for segregation or imprisonment. Wholesale slaughter of any people offended to the point of rebellion.
But mutants disturbed the eye with their deformities, and if there was one thing humans found it easy to find abhorrent it was deformity or difference. Thus Mary Kessler had managed to sweep into parliament and power upon a prejudiced tidal wave of anti-mutant policies. Her charisma and heartfelt rallies against letting corrupted genes continue to infect the purity of the British people, and with the exaggerating of any act of mutant uprising or crime, she gathered more and more support.
The population were initially hesitant to fall in behind a patriotic figurehead that promoted racism, but it was easier on the palette when the targets were so alien. Regarding them as non-humans became readily more acceptable, and it was this viewpoint that seemed to condone the removal and ill treatment of this slice of society.
With a true and highly visible group to blame for all of life’s troubles, everything from unemployment, to crime, to the lateness of the train to work, all of it was readily heaped upon the defenceless shoulders of mutantkind. But Kirsten was like many of her breed, her outward appearance untouched—slender, shapely, she was considered attractive, yet the application of the word mutant turned her salacious form into that of a hideous monstrosity to be found utterly repellent.
Continuing the stroll through the fertile sea of tranquil vegetation, Kirsten stopped as she thought she heard movement.The crack and rustle of a carefree march was faint and issuing from her left. Normal ears would not have heard it but her senses were considerably sharper—one of the meagre compensations of her mutant power.
The minutiae of the sounds suggested that there was an individual moving well ahead of a larger group, the massed drum roll of booted feet undoubtedly those of a patrol. But the lead form was moving adeptly, nearly silently, with a caution never seen in the brash and defiant soldiers. Was it some sort of scout or tracker, perhaps a crafty game hunter loaning his services to the KGP?
Turning from her path she lowered into the arms of a large bush, lifted the rifle to her shoulder, drew rough aim and waited to see who the rambler was. She was intrigued as to who it might be, but her primary goal was still to injure or kill them, to stop them from continuing their allegiance and leading the patrol to her.
From the depths of the tree line emerged a surreal form. It had the contours and attributes of a man but his entire body was encased in a layer of opaque black that lacked wrinkle, seam, or visible zip. It incorporated gloves, boots and a hood with no apertures save acute eyeslits. Sections of armour touched his body, affixed to the all-encompassing sheath. Small guards held his shoulders, while vambrace and greave covered shin and forearm with sculpted black, each with an articulated piece to cover and shield the joint. Bands encircled each palm, fully coating the back of his ha
nd and each fingertip was adorned with a hooked black claw, the curved metal ascending to a wicked point. A thick collar wound around his neck, the dark steel viciously studded. Similar dark spikes ran along the midnight skin, flowing along arm and leg, up the side of his torso, down the centre of his hood with a triangle impressed upon his groin to throw lines up and around his waist.
Kirsten paused in bafflement because about this mysterious form could be seen the flowing energy field of a mutant. Kirsten’s eyes were able to pierce the normal spectrum and thus examine the variety of electrical auras a living being produced. Although it was a fairly useless quirk, it had one great advantage in that the signatures of a mutant were always corrupted by the wild variants within them, their altered cells releasing distorted frequencies and amounts, betraying their origin, just like the individual she now bore witness to.
Could this be another renegade, pursued by a patrol just like she was? The presence of another mutant helped justify the massive deployment of forces. His outlandish attire was clearly some mode of covert dress, indicating a possible resistance terrorist. If this man had been engaged in acts of violence upon the hateful powers it more than explained the vast influx of KGP because it meant that they were seeking him, her own hounding being secondary to the subjugation of this guerrilla fighter.
The restricted gaze of the stranger whirled and locked on her position before he unexpectedly stormed forward towards it, moving with incredible speed. As she was wondering how he had so easily discerned her presence he burst through her cover.
One hand snatched the lower barrel of the rifle, the other opened hot trenches along her right bicep with a swipe of the artificial nails, the capricious flick making Kirsten’s hand desert the grip and trigger before he clenched the attacking hand and returned it as a backhanded punch.
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