by Andy Remic
We sat in silence for a while, then. TEK said nothing but his CPPU was on and humming power narco. I closed my eyes and allowed fresh nausea to fill my belly with a need to puke. Leaning over the bed I heaved, but nothing would come. I was very thirsty.
Eventually, there was a deep hum, and a click. My eyes opened, I focused on the screen. The TV flickered into life and showed a woman I recognised as Kate Jess talking into a microphone: and then it showed a photograph of me, years ago after my Entropy commendation, and with my face fresh and full of hope. But I can remember, remember that distant time well: my face had showed hope, but my soul had been black and crawling with maggots due to the violence and dark death cold grey grave horrors of bastard Entropy.
There was no sound on TV but I watched, forgetting my nausea for a moment, my attention captured. The view dissolved – showed a concrete room and at the far end was a heavy black door, iron rivets rusting, and it looked strange, familiar. It looked very old.
A man entered the scene. He had dark hair, slicked back and a long white overall. He carried a cage and my stomach churned and went cold, and a sweat was on my brow now, on my hands, beneath my thin clothes. Emmy was in that cage, I could see her green eyes. She was miaowing against the pitiful silence. The man walked to the heavy iron door and using a long steel rod, opened that door and suddenly realisation struck me and my eyes were fixed, rigid. Hot white flames glowed beyond the portal.
It was an oven.
A furnace!
Placing the cage on the floor, the man faced the camera and lifted the cage on the end of the long steel rod – ‘No!’ I screamed, ‘No no no!’ but the TV was silent and my words echoed around the cell and the man lifted Emmy’s cage and thrust it into the furnace and there was an explosion of white flames which burned bright and the beautiful gorgeous green emerald eyes went out and died and were black gone and dead.
I was cold fury and mad like nothing I had ever experienced.
Damn GOV and peps. Damn them all!
The TV flicked back to Kate Jess and her mouth moved and the TV flickered off but I saw the words on her lips and I knew, and I understood. The man in the scene had been Gerry Cantrell, and I would find him one day and put that fukker down and out and gone forever.
TEK–Q’s voice came back. ‘It is a sad day, buddy budd,’ he said. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Fukk you.’
‘Seriously, Justice D. For the purposes of my diagnosis I need a response to your perception of Emmy’s permanent terminal destruction.’
‘Fukk you.’
‘You are certifiably insane,’ said TEK.
‘Fukk you.’
He was silent then, and I sat on the bunk and burned inside with a new flame, a new furnace like the furnace into which Emmy had been cast.
She was dead. Destroyed, put–down, retired live on TV for the benefit of paranoid fear–filled pep audiences and to make a point, to give bad justification to my previous actions of violent grievance and my heart was fire, burning, my heart was red–hot and hurting my chest and I forced myself to my feet and moved to TV and TEK–Q’s voice floated to me, nice and soft.
‘It had to be done, Justice D. Gerry Cantrell tested Emmy himself and she was riddled with the HRG virus; he fears you have contracted deviations of that virus, which have made you go mad and he wishes you to be destroyed as soon as possible. GOV have agreed to this request, and...’
I punched the TV screen and my fist smashed thick glass and into the innards. Sparks screamed and my eyes were closed to the bright actinic flash and I felt power surge up my arm and into my burning heart and I fell to my knees and I breathed deeply, accepting the energy without pain.
TEK–Q had gone, now. All power fled the TV, and I knelt there in the darkness.
Slowly, I eased smooth shards of glass from under the skin of my right hand, and I could feel blood run down my skin and drip to the floor. I stood. Faced the TV. I reached out to take a long shard of glass...
Light eased back into the scene, and I could once more see my surroundings. I heard boots echoing distant in corridors and I moved to the cell doorway and it opened and a Justice E appeared and I slammed the shard of TV screen into his throat and grabbed his head, pulling him into a gurgling, blood–drenched bear–hug and he was trying to scream but spewing blood over my face and chest and his companions drew their SMKKs and I charged forward using the Justice E as a still–breathing wriggling shield. I cannoned into another other three, and several bullets whined and embedded in the concrete ceiling and walls. We all went down in a tangle and I kicked and punched and felt my broken finger snap and I took a blow to the head but found cold metal in my hand and I yanked the trigger and bullets screamed and a Justice E skidded along the black tiles on his own blood–smear. I rolled, came to my feet and paused. The scene was frozen, perfectly still, and nobody moved. Two Justice Es were dead and bent, and the SIM with the shard in his throat had ceased his death struggles. His fingers were sliced where he’d tried, unsuccessfully, to extract the sharpened razor-glass. I faced a Justice E, his weapon out of his hands and swinging softly on its strap at his groin. And another Justice E was on the ground, SMKK some two feet away and with his hand poised, stretched towards it, his eyes locked on me, frozen. I could only kill one. I only had time to kill one but this was good, this was non–SIM thought for neither of the Justice Es wanted to die. Thoughts had intruded. Thoughts, instead of actions.
Softly, so as not to break the moment, I said, ‘I do not wish to kill you. You both know I am to die, therefore I have nothing left to lose. We all know I can take one of you with me – however, if you both move into the cell then I will lock the door to prevent pursuit. You will both live. It is your choice.’ My eyes clicked softly and my heart was burning hot and fired now with adrenalin, and they could see I was true to my words and had nothing to lose by the embrace of death and one Justice E licked his lips and slowly raised his hands.
‘Into the cell,’ I hissed.
‘You won’t get away with this.’
‘So be it,’ said I.
Leaving their weapons, the two Justice Es moved into the dimly lit cell and I looked at them, my newly acquired SMKK blood-slippery in my hands. Without a word I pulled the trigger and bullets smashed out and cut down the two Justice SIMs and spat sparks from the iron rim of the hardwood bench. Blood crept towards me over the tiles, and I stepped back so it wouldn’t stain my boots.
I closed the door, picked up two more SMKKs, and dragged the stained belt from a Justice E SIM. I buckled it tight, slotted in mags and hung the SMKKs around my neck by their straps. I searched in the Justice E’s pouches, found a narco choc bar and devoured it. I was starving. I also drank from his canteen and his water was cool and good in my throat.
After finding a heavy bunch of compu keys I moved down the corridor, unsure of where I was going and uncaring. Death was my objective. Death was my goal. They wanted to fukk with me and I would fukk with them, they would wish for pre–birth abortion after I had filled them with hot fukking steel.
Emmy was dead, Emmy was gone.
And it was all my fault.
I walked.
I shook my head.
No. Not all my fault. It had not been I who had diagnosed HRG. Canker was not my invention; not my fairy-tale. I had not decreed that all animals be destroyed. I had not come after Emmy with intent to kill. It had not been I who fed her into the furnace; fed her into the jaws of hot Hell itself.
All were against me. Maybe TEK–Q was right. Maybe I had gone mad. Maybe I had gone insano. Maybe Entropy had fukked with my mind all those years ago. Or, maybe I was the only sane person alive. Maybe the whole bunch of dreg scum rebs and SIMs and peps and GOV personnel were the ones who were insane. With my trusty SMKKs to hand I hoped I could make it a terminal insanity.
I came to a door, used the keys and it slid open; I moved on, wary, SMKK locked and loaded and ready for fire and death and I came to a corner. Suddenly an alarm screame
d in the air like a wounded creature and they had found the slaughtered Justice Es obviously, so I started to run, limping, my calm gone and a panic thumping in my heart and I knew I would go out in a hail of bullets and take as many souls on the Dark Road as I could.
I rounded a corner, saw three SIMs huddling behind a heavy mounted SMKK which roared a deep roar filled with bullets and smoke and I slipped, dived backwards with bullets spitting concrete behind me and I landed, rolled, felt my ribs grinding and I screamed, lay shocked for a moment in absolute pain, and the SIMs pounded around the corner after me and I rolled to my back and cut them in half with hot metal bullets and they dropped without a sound. All was suddenly quiet. I heaved myself to my feet, staggered because I had once more hurt my bastard ankle, and it burned and this pain was good, this pain kept me going, this pain kept me alive, and using the wall for support I limped along the corridor, past the heavy SMKK with its golden trail of snake–like bullets and on towards a freedom now calling me, now singing to me with promises and truths and beauty. More SIMs appeared up ahead and I fired a shower of bullets and they dived for cover screaming orders to others; I heard boots behind me, and turning fired more bullets and I was getting surrounded and this was not good, I ducked down a narrow side corridor and limped along, then turned down another narrow corridor and I noticed rails on the floor – a track? Why was there a need for track? Bullets smashed behind me sending showers of sparks and I dived forward and the metal track hammered my ribs and I screamed again, white pain flashing behind my mech eyes. And then I was crawling and saw the opening, the orifice: a fukking tox chute with large yellow warning symbols around a heavy steel toothed flap. More bullets roared behind and I returned fire, sending bullet after bullet down the corridor.
Quickly I changed mags, stopped, listened. I could hear voices, a quiet hissing, and boots hammering the tiled ground. I accessed the tox chute with my compu keys and the steel flap unfolded and a stink from sulphurous Hell hit me in the face like a brick. I gagged, staggered back and my nose was streaming and I heard more boots, whirled, fired bullets down the narrow corridor and a Battle SIM smashed backwards against the wall and slumped to the ground, bent and broken and dead. I could hear more boots now, the bastards had surrounded me and this was not good and they had me cornered and were out for the kill now and this was fine but this tox chute had to lead out from State Prison 7 and they were closing fast and I had to think fast:
What to do, what to do?
More SIMs came around the corner and I fired blindly; sparks spat but they had fukking protecto–shields which my bullets could not pierce and my decision was made real fast as their SMKKs started to roar that metal animal roar and I dived forward, head first and the tox chute welcomed me forward and inwards and took me deep down into its belly with laughter in its mind...
Bullets smashed, whining down the chute after me, but I was moving fukk fast and the chute twisted and turned and stank heavy tox stink and that saved me and residue on the slippery surface splashed up in my face and started to burn my skin and panic welled inside me for this was not a good sign and I was plummeting down down into deep darkness and my SMKK was gone and it suddenly ended.
I fell in darkness and hit liquid, a thick tox mush which sucked me under and screaming I went down and the tox went into my mouth and down my throat burning acid hot and I choked and puked and puked and struggled, struggled through the slush with my mech eyes clicking and my clothes stinking hot and I reached the wall but there was nothing, no ledge, no landing, and so with this tox dreg burning me and burning my lungs and throat and skin.
I struggled through and along the wall and I needed to be outside, not to die in this hell hole stinking dreg and the panic was deep burning and the pain was incredible and I felt the tug of the current. It pulled and I swam through the thick goo with the pull and felt a breeze wash my burning face and skin and light was up ahead; a single grey eye in the blackness. But then consciousness left me and the pain –
the pain –
*
– churned under mud
churned under boot
churned under death
churned under rot
churned under taste of
darkened fear
as lights go out
and lights go out
the rain falls down
the rain falls down –
*
I awoke by a canal bank and the pain came washing back in a hot fire sheet of white.
I was coughing, and I levered myself into a sitting position and vomited on the ground to my side and the vomit was a heavy green with swirls of black and that did not look good. I breathed. I vomited again, heaving and heaving until I thought I would die from lack of oxygen and my lungs all puked up. Then I convulsed and shivered, and lay back on the ground, and was still.
Heavy clouds were above me.
I was outside. But where?
I had to move, had to run for they would come looking for me, would gun me down where I lay. I managed to sit up and my legs were moving gently on the sloping bank of the tox sewage canal, half in and half out of the heavy shit slime. So, I was in the dregs then. I laughed, but this brought on another bought of vomiting and I was disabled for a good few minutes like a bastard.
Breathing slowly, and with care, I crawled away from the tox and lay on my belly, my face pushed into the wiry thick grass that grew yellow and stiff like iron bristles at the edges of the canal. My face was burning and it hurt.
With great struggle I managed to roll to my back and sit up.
I looked around, but all was gloomy and darkness was not far away. I checked for my SMKKs but they were gone, along with the belt I had taken from the dead Justice E.
‘I will not give up,’ I said, and my voice was a weak croak of shit, the hoarse whisper of the dying.
The wind blew and grass rustled.
I was calm.
I tried to get to my feet, but was too weak. My whole body was on fire and I started to crawl across the grass, to the dark curve of horizon beyond. But after a minute I collapsed on my face and lay there panting. Breathing was very painful, and very difficult. There was fukk dreg in my lungs, scarring my lungs, and it was not good.
Again, I lost consciousness and this, at least, led me away from pain by the hand and I followed like a sad lost puppy: eager, eager for peace, eager for the end; eager and ready for a final eternal darkness.
*
Later: I had a dream. I was sitting in a chair, a throne made from heavy dark wood and crusted with jewels and golden ornamentation. The throne was atop a mountain, balanced precariously on a pinnacle of narrow flat ice and my feet hung down over an infinity of sloping ice rock that led away to the distant, green flatlands of the world. And I could see, could see for a thousand miles and this vision filled me with worth, gave my life worth and I was King and I was Ruler and all were below me, all beneath me. But I had a problem. Soon, I would fall. I knew I would fall, for the ice would melt and the throne would tip sideways and cast me screaming into oblivion five klicks below. And so I had to relinquish my throne. I had to give up my pinnacle of truth and purity. But I did not want to do so. I liked being the Master. I liked being the Ruler. I did not see why I should give up everything to descend to the ground, to the level of commoners and peps. If I did give up, then what would I do down there? I was Ruler, a King – those below were just trivial insects fighting their petty wars and doing their petty actions.
I did not want to relinquish my omniscience.
And then a bird came, a great black raven that perched silently on the back of my throne and steadied itself with outspread wings.
‘What are you?’ asked the raven.
‘I am a SIM,’ I replied.
‘What are you?’ repeated the raven.
‘I am a man,’ I replied.
‘Yes. And you like being up here? On top of the world?’
‘I do,’ I replied.
‘For every thing there
is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven,’ said the raven, its yellow eyes watching me without blinking.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘You remember?’
‘No,’ said I.
‘You dreamt my words, before they captured you. 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. Do you remember now?’
‘Vaguely,’ I said, frowning. ‘What matter? I am here, I am King and you are a raven – it is impossible for you to fly so high, so be gone!’
The raven laughed, its eyes sparkling in sunlight like cold yellow ice. ‘This is my domain,’ said the raven. ‘You are the intruder – and the time for war has come.’
‘I remember now,’ said I. ‘Then I am not really sat atop this mountain?’
‘No.’
‘So what must I do?’
‘You must descend, to the lowlands. You must meet your army on its own terms. This is a time of great change, and you are instrumental. You are the first. Others will follow you, others will rebel. I can read your thoughts. Once you thought: the time for war was in my soul and burning with Heaven’s brightness and the voice was Holy and I understood. Those were your thoughts... do you still understand?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know God?’
‘I have heard the name. A Christian deity?’
‘No. God is God. God is the One God.’
‘Then I do not know him,’ I said.
‘He knows you,’ said the raven. ‘Now come, let me help you descend to the lowlands, to join your brethren. Now is not the time to die. Now is not the time for heaven.’
‘What is it a time for?’ I asked.