by Andy Remic
She attacked. I blocked several punches, returned three blows which she parried; then I leapt, my k legs scissoring her waist and bringing her down with a thud – but she was up up and moving and my blows missed, and her boot smashed my face, sent me spinning backwards against the machine which shielded Emmy.
‘Come with me,’ I said again, blood on my teeth.
‘No.’
‘I love you,’ I said.
‘No,’ she said.
Snow’s eyes clicked, and she attacked once more. I let her deliver several blows, and feigning weakness staggered towards my SMKK diving into a roll and coming up fast – bullets roared and Snow was –
I blinked.
She was gone.
The blow from behind shook my whole frame, and the SMKK was kicked once more from my hand. Another blow hammered the back of my head, and I fell onto my face, coughed, spat, then pushed myself back up to my knees.
Snow moved before me, and she held a length of heavy lead pipe. I put up my hand to ward off the blow, but it caught me across the side of the skull, and sent me spinning back to the floor.
She kicked me. Then hit me across the face with the pipe. The pain red was full in my eyes.
‘You are a fool,’ she hissed, then knelt by my side. I was almost paralysed with pain, and shivering. It was very cold. She turned away and I heard her voice. ‘Get the cat,’ she said, and then she was back in my vision, which shimmered, and moved and danced gold.
– And then I could see in colour.
Snow’s hair was blond, cropped short. Her skin was a pretty, rouged pink, more subtle than any harsh false mandrake colour. The alloy of her mech eyes was a brown/grey.
I blinked several times.
‘I can see again,’ I murmured through a mouthful of blood.
‘You are a sweet fool,’ she said, and sighed heavily. Then she leant across me, kissed me long and lingering and I could taste blood and her and the salt of sweat.
Her fingers stroked my face.
‘Here, Mistress.’
Snow glanced up, back, and I could see the dangling body of Emmy beyond. My beautiful cat, with her green green radiant eyes, was being held by the scruff – and a sudden insane anger surged through me and I tried to rise, tried to rise and crush and maim everybody and everything around me crush them all down into fukk –
Snow restrained me. She was too strong.
I closed my eyes. Coughed.
The pain was great.
Emmy was passed, miaowing, to Snow, who cradled the cat before me. ‘She is a lovely cat,’ said Snow. ‘But you know, Jus, the chances are she has Canker. Why did you do it, Justice D? Why did you throw away everything?’
I had no answer for her, and I watched in silence as they packed Emmy into a wire–mesh cage that cut her delicate paws. She was miaowing in panic now, struggling feebly, claws out and eyes narrowed, and again I tried to surge up, to beat those who would abuse this one beautiful animal that had earned my love and respect and protection...
Snow kissed me, but I smashed my fist into her face and heard her nose crunch. She fell back, and the Battle Es moved in with heavy boots kicking and stomping, and I curled into a ball and with every blow felt good leave me, felt justice leave me, felt LAW leave me, and my name became a very fukking mockery of my life, my existence, and I became a non–person with no hope and no will and no future. And I wanted to cry. I could feel it, deep inside my head. I needed to cry. But I had no eyes. Only fukking metal mech eyes. And it was cold. So terribly cold. If I had been able to cry then my tears would have frozen on my face; on my cold cold skin. But I could not cry, and I sank softly into the depths of a black velvet that swallowed me whole with the promise of eternity dreams.
*
in the deep cold darkness I had a dream
i dreamt of my mother, beautiful and pure, with long flowing brown hair and bright green eyes – real eyes! Then I dreamt of them torturing my mother, dark masks silent, empty of emotion, devoid of feeling, I dreamt of them killing my mother, pumping her twitching flesh body full of bullets as she screamed and drooled and her child – her beautiful only child – screamed and screamed and screamed, to save her*help her, rescue, her and the blood was all over the floor in a deep pool that ruined my fine boots, and she was stretching out for me, blood speckling her hands and her pleading whimpering face full of pain and wailing a high wail of mercy and the bastards called it purification and no SIM could stay umbilicated forever and one day the freedom had to come, and I had to break free or be forcibly broken free. And so they slaughtered my mother, and there was nothing I could do
white flash
the dream changed, altered
i dreamt of the past, a dream within a dream where I had lived with Snow, loved Snow, we had been as one and together and in love and happy. We sat in the living room, I on a settee with sunlight pooling through the window and warm on my skin and I was filled with a sad joy. Snow was across from me, reading a thick novel transcribed onto a cube; and then I told her, the words blurting out, I told her about them killing my mother, about my forceful ejection from pained umbilication –
my voice was cold, and her mech eyes watched me speak.
and then I finished...
she smiled softly. Her face had shown understanding. We had loved, back then – within the realms of my dream I relived that moment, relived that joy of heart and soul and union. I relived that purest and most simple happiness.
‘i understand,’ she whispered.
it was I who smiled then, feeling the bitterness washing away from me, feeling the bitterness against GOV and SIMs and the ethics and morals of umbilication. They had murdered my mother, but now she was free. Now she was truly free.
the scene changed. It was later. Much later, Snow was sleeping, warm against my side and we had enjoyed much hard sex and fun. I had whispered in her ear, my words tickling her:
‘what happened? With you?’
she murmured in her sleep. ‘Jus?’
‘your umbilication? Your freedom? How did you achieve it?’
snow’s eyes opened then, and she had rolled away from me. ‘Go back to sleep, Jus. It’s not for now. It’s for another time. Leave it...’
‘i want to know. I need to know.’
she sat up, drank from a tall moulded glass. ‘I killed her, Justice.’ Her voice was cold now. Very cold – colder than ice and snow. ‘I killed her, I murdered her. It is LAW. We are SIMs, and we obey LAW.’
white flash
crumbling... I had not spoken, the scenes flash white in my mind... with pain and pain and cold cold darkness and it had gone, disintegrated, crumbled and the purity was crushed and the joy was quelled and the innocence wiped black from the slate face of life and love... words: I cannot understand, Snow, I can never understand... words: I killed her quick, painless, it was over and done true and fast... words: I do not believe in purification... words: but purification is truth, purification is life – don’t hate me Jus, don’t hate me – this is breaking down, this is done, this is gone... a long dark tunnel, a birth canal, pushing, heaving, screaming, birth, birth and life and wish for abortion and death and a longing in the realms of pain for it to be over; all over and gone...
betrayal
betrayal
she had betrayed me
‘If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you...’
betrayal
death, purification, abortion...
snow sat there with her gun and soft glowing cigarette in calm fingers and her beauty tearing my heart in two and her words had been ice pure and cold and soft with malice and her eyes metal and mech and non–human. ‘Not if I kill you first.’ And I watched her walk away and leave and I let her go and it was finally done – her betrayal, that of purification and the severing of umbilicate ate my soul and I could not forgive; could never forgive. My mother’s face was in my mind, beautiful, truthful, loving and filled with love for me – and the V2.0 Battle Es wiped it from existence.
They severed that thread of Fate to which we all cling, like spiders on a webstrand in a storm.
*
I awoke.
I was cold and in darkness. I could feel a deep throbbing that made me want to puke. A resonant hum filled my head and I was very weak. A light, the purest bright white and painful, filled my head.
‘He’s awake.’
‘Put him out.’
A muzzle, cold against my throat. I heard the lock and load and then the click of trigger and I floated away and I expected pain but there was no pain, and it all crumbled down and nothing mattered, I realised, in that final moment. Nothing ever really mattered.
CHAPTER SIX
GOV JUSTICE
AN ETERNITY OF darkness. A swirl of stars, glittering blue against sable black. And then movement, and I could see her below me, Earth, the Mother of Mankind, easing through the darkness of the Eternity Stars. And then came a brilliant shining of fiery orange, sparkling beams of orange and white breaking over the horizon as the sun swung violently, majestically, into being.
Below, the Earth was moving and the vision eased close. I could feel the cold, the great cold of ice and hydrogen in the vastness of space; of universe, the dark empty vacuum of nothing, no oxygen, no life, only black spinning rock and gas.
And I moved towards the Mother, the Great Mother, and her beauty astonished me, filled me with a Great Wonder and I realised in that moment that I’d lost my real mother, but this ultimate Mother would protect me with her cloak; protect me from the horrors in the dark...
And then I could see, could see the sprawling, insect mass covering the face of her once green lands, could see the insects building hives, breeding, fukking and spewing out a never-ending stream of yet more insects to reap and rape and destroy, and I cried out, felt suddenly weak, ‘No!’ I screamed, ‘No!’ but the mass seethed and moved and blended, a trillion insects flowing over my Mother and smothering her, drilling her, smashing her, and I could hear her voice, could hear her gentle sobbing as she headed towards Death and Destruction and a need to be free of this virus burning her skin, scratching her flesh, these insects raping her beauty and knowledge and defecating on her face and her perfect figure of beauty and an anger filled me then, an anger so hard to describe in mere words.
Faces flashed in my mind, human faces of a million different people I did not know, and I smashed at them, thrashed and tore them into a fukking purple pulp of unrecognisable organic mass and the Hate ran strong, ran blue and deep red through my veins and it was narco, a colour narco, a Hate narco, I felt it pumping but stronger than any drug, this Hate, stronger than any virus and it filled my heart and lungs and kidneys and liver and I was become, I was whole, I was Hate and I would Hate with Violence and words filled my mind, flowing smooth from a dark spot of infinite blackness flecked with silver and overflowing into my mouth and eyes: for every thing there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven, A time to be born, and a time to die, A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted, A time to kill and a time to heal, A time to break down, and a time to build up, A time to weep, and a time to laugh, A time to mourn, and a time to dance, A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together, A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing, A time to seek, and a time to lose, A time to keep, and a time to cast away, A time to rend, and a time to sew, A time to keep silence, and a time to speak, A time to love, and a time to hate, A time for war, and a time for peace – and I knew, could feel the words although they were not words, they were essence and they did not ask, they gave command, a fukking instruction, and the time for love had gone, the time for hate was nigh, the time for peace was gone, the time for war was in my soul and burning with Heaven’s brightness and the voice was Holy and I understood, understood this need and Hate and I closed my eyes and turned my back on Mother Earth and her seething bleeding form.
And I moved into the darkness, and it was pleasant.
*
I awoke in a cell. I knew immediately it was a cell because to my left perched a high window with bars. For a little while I felt pleasant, empty of thought, of emotion. But then the fukking pain came flooding back and I groaned, and needed a deep narco injecto.
I scanned myself, thinking only of the pain and its emanation. My previous bullet wounds were throbbing. My shoulder, which was broken, had not been set and speared through my neck and chest with ribbons of pain. I had a broken finger, and three or four broken ribs which made tiny clicking sounds every time I moved. And my left ankle felt like there was a bullet inside the very bone joint.
I breathed deep.
“A time to hate,” said I.
Slowly, I eased myself into a sitting position, checking for my SMKK which I knew would not be there; no cunt would leave a SIM with a weapon in a cell ready for the kill.
Madness. All madness.
The walls were dull grey, concrete. Thick, no doubt. I laughed, and heard something at the heavy iron door with its heavy iron rivets. Something slid back. Eyes in the gloom. Then a slam grating of un–oiled iron on iron.
Reaching down, I eased off my boot and almost passed out with the pain. My ankle was heavily bruised and swollen, and movements burned deep in the bone. It was broken, I think, because I am no med but a SIM with New Hate in his heart and my last waking visions came suddenly flooding back.
Snow. Emmy. Battle Es.
But what of Emmy? What happened to Emmy? They would have her locked in a cage, I knew, or there was a possibility they had already killed her; burnt her carcass, burnt those brilliant green eyes. Emerald. Poor Emerald!
I deactivated my Niobium pack, and tore a strip from my thin black cotton shirt beneath exo–s. Using my teeth and my free hand, I bound my broken finger and this was not good for it was my SMKK hand and would give me problems in combat...
I laughed again, bitterly, without humour.
Hell. I would be executed for what I had done, that was sure. I would never hold an SMKK ever again.
I sank back on the hardwood bench, closed my eyes, listened. The pain throbbed, and settled into a dull pounding ache. Everything had happened so fast, so fast without time for real thought. And the past few days was just a blur of grey smudged memory; the murder of the Battle Es back at my apartment, the Truk chase through wasteland and into the dregs; the fight with mech dogs and my final capture and beating at the hands of Snow, my one–time lover; my sweetheart. But why? Why?
A name drifted into my mind.
Cantrell.
Gerry Cantrell, and his fukking HRG virus revelations. It was all his damn fault! He had condemned Emmy. He had condemned the animals of State, condemned them all to death – fukking scientists, I despise them and their white coats and their base stupidity and messing and fukking with things you should never fukk with because these were building blocks and life and Nature was Nature. What will be, will be. But oh no, they have to try and change what is inevitable. Have to play... God.
There was a sudden clang, and I opened my eyes. Four Battle E SIMs entered the cell. One said, ‘You will come with us, former–Justice D SIM, and you will have a medi scan. Should you resist arrest or cause any minor grievance then we are instructed to terminate your physical existence.’
Two of them grabbed me roughly and heaved me up; I wanted to scream, needed to scream as my shoulder and ribs and ankle all defied my commands, but instead I gritted my teeth and scowled and frowned and limped with the heavy–set Battle SIMs who kept careful watch on my movements but I was in no state to fight – despite the Hate within. But the Hate burned low. A glowing ember in the coals of my heart.
Down long strip–lit corridors we walked; or, I hobbled. They were without adornment, just concrete and iron. The floor was fashioned from tiles, thick black slabs polished shining bright. I recognised this place: this was State Prison 7 and it was a grim place indeed.
We passed warders, who saluted the Battle SIMs and looked at me with hate and loathing and disgust. Down cor
ridors we moved. Through heavy iron doors unlocked by plump guards with large bunches of compu keys and donut sugar crusting their fat triple chins.
‘Halt.’
I stopped, leaning my weight on my good ankle and hearing a rib click out of place. The bastard. The door hummed open, I was pushed inside and I stopped. Sullivan stood behind a medi–bench and his expression was unreadable.
‘Sullivan! My friend!’ I said but he said nothing, merely turned to a small table at his side and arranged his tools. The Battle Es jabbed me forward, and I limped towards the medi–bench and was helped up onto the cold flat clinical surface.
I glanced down, saw the heavy bandages strapping Sullivan’s knee where I had shot him. But didn’t he understand? Didn’t he realise that of all the SIMs and peps I had killed, he was the only one, the only fukking one, whom I allowed to live?
The Battle Es retreated, stood to attention by the door but with weapons locked and eyes watching me and clicking softly.
Sullivan activated genero–scan and swung the machine down over my body. Still he did not speak, and the equipment hummed on auto and began the x–ray of bones and I lay back, closed my eyes, breathed deeply.
‘How could you, former–Justice D?’ he finally said.
I opened my eyes, turned, looked at Sullivan. There was pain in his face. He did not look happy.
‘I let you live,’ said I. ‘You were the only one, buddy. You were – are – my friend. I disabled you to prevent chase and notification.’
‘But how could you do it? How could you turn against your own kind?’
The genero–scan buzzed and hummed and clicked.
I said, ‘I do not have to justify my actions to you. That is the problem now, Sullivan – all questions. Why. How. What made you do it, Justice D? It is all dreg and fukking scum and you listen to me, because we have friendship and I did not take your life and for that you should be thankful.’
Sullivan laughed, a cold brittle sound. ‘You don’t understand, do you former–Justice D SIM? We are no–longer friends. You forfeited that when you put a bullet through my knee. I will never walk properly again. It smashed a tendon in two; they had to tie a fukking knot in it. I will never run again, former–Justice D SIM. I will never play Kneck in the Arena. I will never ride a bicycle or play tennis or climb a mountain. We are no–longer friends. You are no better than reb.’