Rage & Fury

by Darryl Hadfield

  When he showed up, I didn’t even let him get a word out. “Tonka, whenever you send the next team out for trade, I want you to get a message to that one guard, Chuck. Nothing complicated, just… Have someone tell him – quietly – that ‘James wants to talk.’ If he’s not there, tell the team to do the same thing next time. I don’t want anyone talking about it; I want you to tell Deke (or whoever’s taking the gang that’s doing the trading) directly, so only you, him, and the gang that goes, know about the message. This is critical, and I don’t want any fuckups. I catch anyone talking, and Rage drinks.”

  I hadn’t used Rage much, but everyone knew about that first ambush – it’d become something of a legend, and people would talk about “Rage will drink.” I was waiting for someone to come up with “Fury burps” – because as stupid as that sounds, that’s what it actually sounded like on full auto – a big belch.

  Tonka just nodded and left, and… then I waited.

  I’d done well with this whole setup. People knew their shit, and did it. Those who didn’t, got beat downs by their gangs, until they did – or until they never did anything else again. I expected results, everyone knew it – and, even despite the rough start, people did eventually get the picture that we had to get better at anything we did.

  Surprisingly, I didn’t even have to wait a day. Deke wasn’t the guy taking the current gang to trade; another guy, Harry, was. When he came back, he brought Col Bradburry with him.

  I wasn’t just upset, I was furious. Who the hell did this dipshit think he was, bringing an outsider in? I didn’t ask for that, didn’t even hint at it – he just decided to bring this guy all the way in. There was a REASON I didn’t want outsiders wandering around inside our borders; they see too much, they know too much…

  They walked into my office in the headquarters. I had a couple of chairs over by one wall, asked “Chuck” if he wanted to sit down.

  “Harry… what, exactly, did Tonka tell you I wanted you to do?” I wasn’t smiling.

  “He uhhh… said to make sure this dude knew that umm… ‘James wants to talk’.. so that’s what we told him.” He sounded worried – and for good reason.

  “So he didn’t say, ‘bring him back with you’?”

  “uhh.. no boss.”

  “So why is ‘Chuck’ here now?”

  “He uhh.. said he wanted to talk to you too.”

  “So did you tell him to come with you? Or did he just come along with you?”

  Colonel Bradburry was laughing, hiding it behind his hand, but I could tell he thought this was funny. Fuckhead.

  “No boss, he just came with us.”

  “What’s the standing order for bringing anyone inside?” Doug raised one eyebrow at the mention of ‘standing order’.

  “Uhh.. don’t.”

  “And what are the exceptions to that?”

  “uhh.. I dunno?”

  “Because, maybe, there aren’t any?”

  “Sorry Boss.”

  “Yeah, you sure as fuck are. Get out of here. You just lost your gang, you fucking idiot. Send up whoever you think should run the gang instead of you.”

  Poor kid (who, oddly, was probably older than me) looked like I’d just told him he wasn’t allowed to fuck for a week. “GET OUT.” He turned and bolted.

  “That was amazingly tolerant of you, James.” Doug took on that matter-of-fact tone of voice, like when he was trying to convince me of how I only had two choices.

  “No, it wasn’t. I shoulda fuckin’ killed him for being so stupid, god knows how much he’s fucked up before, or how much more he’ll fuck up.” Just then, another ganger – a woman – walked in. A mousy-looking brunette, hair lopsided from getting cut off with a knife, probably.

  “Harry said you wanted to see me boss?”

  “Yeah. You get his gang now. When you walk out of this room, I expect to hear a gunshot from YOU – not someone else - putting one through Harry’s head.” Doug frowned at me. “If I don’t hear it, then I’m coming down, and you don’t want that.”

  She looked a little scared, but nodded quickly. “Yeah boss, you got it.” She turned and ran downstairs.

  “Okay, maybe you weren’t that tolerant afte-“ Doug’s comment was interrupted by a rifle shot outside.

  “Yeah, but now Harry’s ass is out of the picture, and at the same time, her leadership is definitely clear to everyone else. Odds are good she’ll tell the rest of them why. If she’s smart, she’ll just tell them that I made her the leader, but she won’t say I told her to shoot him.” This was obvious to me, but this Colonel bigshot didn’t get it?

  He nodded. “True, it will, and I agree – but things like that really should go through whoever Harry’s boss was – because now he’ll have had his authority undermined by you making decisions for him.”

  “Bullshit. He won’t have an issue with it, no-one would, because he wasn’t here and he didn’t see the problem, *I* did, and I fixed it. C’mon, you tellin’ me the big badass ARMY makes people do paperwork and shit on that stuff?” I was incredulous.

  “Not generally, no, but I also didn’t consider that you had figured that out yet. You really *are* better at this than most.”

  Yeah, you dumbass, I am, I have been, and I will be when... Shit. Now he even had me thinking like I was going to take him up on that whole army thing.

  “So, big man, what exactly is this deal? What do *I* get out of it, and what’s it gonna cost me?”

  “James, it will cost you everything, but you’ll GET everything out of it, too. It’s never easy – but everyone who makes it through basic always says afterwards that they’d go back. You make friends – or at least,” and he nodded at me, “people that you can trust to guard your back.”

  “Yeah, well, like I said, I got it all now, why should I give it up for just a CHANCE at having… what I already have?”

  “Stop lying to me – and to yourself. You already grasp that I know far more about you than you want me to. I know you don’t take off Rage even when you’re fucking that cute little redhead – or the blonde, now.”

  JESUS CHRIST how the fuck .. That’s impossible. There’s NO WAY he could know that. “Bullshit, you’re just bullshitting me, again.”

  “Two nights ago, her leaning up against the wall, you behind, then you looked like you got bored and you pushed her flat against the wall and choked her – kinky little bastard – while you pounded her. In the ass, no less, while she was squealing ‘yes baby, yes daddy’.”

  I felt my cheeks heat up. “There were no windows, no way for anyone to see inside that room, and I locked the door behind me. You sneaking in and fucking her too? She tell you all this?”

  “James, James…. I told you, I know far, far more than you’re comfortable with me knowing, and I TOLD you that you could have it all. When did you ever think that what you have… is ‘all’?”

  I was getting more and more pissed at this guy.

  He pulled something out of his pocket, a little box-like container… flipped open the lid and something zipped up out of it, hovering in the air, making an almost silent whirring noise. “For example, this is… a drone.”

  He looked at me, not taking his eyes away from mine. “Now, it’s going to land on the desk in front of you. Don’t make any sudden moves, I don’t want you to get hurt – no, kid, I’m not going to hurt you, I just don’t want you trying to swat a ten thousand dollar drone out of the air and slicing your hand to shreds on the rotor blades.” The little drone came closer and closer, hovering not more than 2” from my face. I could see the tiny machine’s skin in much greater detail, at this range.

  “How about some aerobatics?” The drone flipped end-over-end, now ‘upside down’ from its prior orientation. I vaguely recall closing my mouth.

  “How about a movie?” The drone flipped back ‘upright’, and moved a bit further away from my face, and turned slightly… And the wall closest to it – about 6 feet away – lit up with the scene of my bare ass thumping away
at Candi, with my hand on her throat.

  “Oops. Video without sound is kind of boring.” The little machine came alive with sound, loud enough that I suspect everyone in the house heard it. “OH YES BABY! OH YES, DADDY!”

  “SHUT IT OFF!” I was… I’m not sure. Embarassed? Angry? Ashamed? Horny?

  He didn’t move, but the video and audio went away, and the little drone zipped back to the box he still held in his hand. No controls, just a little box.

  “Wait, how the fuck did you..”

  “I have implants, James. Yes, just like Fathead. Yes, I know about him, and I know why he’s here and not in the Arkscraper. As it grew, he was more and more of a risk, which is why he was disconnected. I’m not a risk – or rather, I’m a worthwhile risk, and I’ve proven my loyalty. Lots of stuff you can do with an implant – controlling a decade-old drone is nothing. Hell, you should see the new stuff… and the bleeding-edge technology integrates even better.”

  I didn’t really understand what he meant, but I knew I didn’t like being taken advantage of, spied on, made fun of and embarrassed in front of my people.

  “Get the fuck out.”

  “James, you ne-“

  “GET THE FUCK OUT.” I was on my feet, Fury in hand, muzzle pointed dead center of his chest.

  He sighed. “James, I’d hoped it wasn’t going to come to this, but I think you need a better display of just what kind of power you’re dealing with.”

  I’d had enough, and pulled the trigger… and nothing happened. I pulled again, nothing. I worked the charging handle, a round – an un-spent round – and chambered a new one, pulled the trigger and…. Nothing.

  I threw the rifle at him, and pulled Rage out of it’s sheath. He caught the rifle with one hand like it was nothing, looked disdainfully at me and said in a quiet voice, “Sit down, or I’ll feed that thing to you sideways.”

  I stood there, thinking how I wanted to slice him in half, longways… and then I remembered the last time I tried to pull Rage on him.

  After a few tense moments of staring at him… I sat down.

  “Better. Not your fault, kid, I get why you’re so pissed. Maybe someday, I’ll tell you the details of why – but bottom line, I get it. I also know that that kind of rage and fury is going to get you in trouble, unless it gets refined and focused. That’s what I’m TRYING to do, knowing you’re going to hate me for it at least for a bit, maybe a long time.”

  “You gotta leave this behind. It’s too messy – yes, you’ve done a hell of a job, bringing these people together in a way that they can not only survive, but do better than survive. It’s also a waste of your talents, and you’re never going to get out of it what you put into it. You might think you will, but consider that I have seen BOTH sides of this decision – and you’ve only seen one.”

  That was hard to take, and yeah, he did have a point – I’d only seen my side of it.

  “So what’s ‘your’ side of it like, then? Why do you figure it’s so much better?”

  He told me about basic, and how I’d hate it. He also told me that I’d get a lot more food than I did here (ha, he had no idea how much I ate, and how much more I could get if I wanted to.. or did he?). He told me how the ‘morale’ women made the chicks here look like animals in the dirt. Then he told me something I will never, ever forget – the words come to mind every time I hear the topic either in discussion with someone else, or listening to other people. “Control is not power. You have both control and power, but you do not have ULTIMATE control and power. You’re limited to only what you see and what you can touch – and a part of your training will involve controlling power that you not only can’t see, you can’t hear it, taste it, touch it – you’ll be a god, deciding who lives and who dies.”

  “Yeah right, whatever.” It was hard not to get excited at that thought, though.

  “Yes, very much right. In combat, I can call for artillery that can reach out from over a hundred miles away. Can you even comprehend how far that is? I can call for a precision airstrike to hit something a hundred meters underground, from a specific angle, delivered by an airplane that has comes from not just a hundred, but over a THOUSAND miles away. I can call for a kinetic strike from space that comes so fast you can barely even think ‘oh shit’ before it hits.”

  Is it weird that the idea of having that kind of power at my fingertips made me so fucking horny I felt like my cock was going to rip through my pants?

  “Yeah, that’s probably only the guys at the top, and you gotta be some old dude before you ever get to do shit like that.”

  “No, James. I called in my first artillery strike as a corporal, barely a couple of years after I finished basic training.”

  “Yeah, sure. How long ago was that and what are you now? Still a corporal?”

  “That was nearly 24 years ago – longer than you’ve been alive – and I’m a colonel now. I’ve commanded a full regiment – 1800 men, all trained far better than your guys here ever will, not to mention they had far better equipment. Well, except for that M34, and you’d never have had those if I hadn’t wanted you to have them. By the way, it won’t work when it’s pointed at a superior officer – which is why you can pull the trigger all day long and it will never shoot me. I can also make it – or any other weapon under my command – fire at will, without you holding it, either. Implants… are a hell of a lot of fun.”

  “So, what, I just walk outta here with you and you make me a soldier hunh? That’s pretty sketchy, Dougie.”

  “No, not even remotely close – and yes, if it was that easy, it would yes, be sketchy. I’m convinced at this point that you need to enlist. If you decide – and it has to be your decision – that you want to accept my offer, I’ll work with you to plan out a transition of power. For obvious reasons, we don’t want your people trying to attack the other tenements. Like I said, they’re almost assured to succeed, but the correlation of ground forces being overwhelmingly in your favor means the army will be coming in, likely my old unit – the 69th Infantry Regiment – and the 1800 or so troops will roll over your guys like kicking a baby out of the way.” I had a momentary vision of Pip’s foot coming at my face when I was really young, playing on the stairs in our building.

  “We’d want to make sure that whoever we leave in your place can keep things moving, and that they don’t get into fights they can’t win. Yes, they can win a lot, but like I said, they’ll get too much attention, and then overwhelming force shows up.”

  I hated feeling excited about this, because it meant I had to leave, I wouldn’t get to see how my dreams and plans played out. I would have ruled this part of the country by the time I was Colonel Bradburry’s age – but the lure of more meant… I was going.

  “You’re a real asshole, Colonel, but yeah, I want more. What’s next?”

  Chapter 10: Pre-School

  Colonel Bradburry, as he said I probably should call him (“Trust me, it’s a good habit to get into.”), wasn’t joking. It wasn’t simple, and it also wasn’t fast.

  We spent several months going through scenarios, with him coming during his “time off” as a guard in the Tenement Soldier ranks. I asked him about that, actually… “Why the hell would you bother being a corporal for a tenement gang instead of being a regimental commander?”

  His reply was comical to me, but it made all kinds of sense later on. “You’ll understand when you’re older, and you’ve been both a Corporal and a Colonel. Besides, I’m not really a Corporal – technically, I’m still a Colonel, and I’m a clandestine recruiter.”

  The best option for someone to take my place was a hard person to decide on – for me, anyway. Colonel Bradburry had other ideas.

  “There’s only one person who fits the need, James, and it’s going to take some time before he’s really ready – so you’re going to have to start grooming him now.”

  “Okay, but who? I mean, Ry’s just… not that much of a leader type. Pug’s a good fighter, but again, not much of a leader.
They can lead others, but they just don’t have the oomph to really take over.”

  “Francis.”

  “Who the fuck is Francis?”

  “Francis Albert Timothy Cranum.”

  “You’re losing it in your old age, Colonel.”

  “Francis. Albert. Timothy. Cranum. F.A.T. Cranum. Did you know that ‘cranium’ is another name for ‘head’? FAThead.”

  “You’re out of your… ‘cranium’…. Colonel, if you think he’s gonna be able to run this place after I’m gone. He’s got that implant thing in his head, so he’s not even that smart.”

  “Young man,” he sighed, “How many times have I told you something, you’ve told me I’m crazy, and it turns out I’m right? Has there EVER been a time when I’ve been wrong, even a little?”