by Andy Remic
I was believed dead, and no news was released TVside of the search for me by GOV. But they were looking, oh how they were looking! But they would not find me, not here at the reb Contro HQ. Now with such tech stuff surrounding and protecting me.
‘Tell me about yourself.’
‘What?’
‘Tell me,’ said I, and I stretched back on the wooden pallet with a wince and focused on Marianne. She had hair tied back and wore a simple khaki uniform. Her weapon was well–oiled and clean. She carried spare mags at her belt. She seemed... efficient. Clinical. I liked this.
‘What would you like to hear?’
‘Anything. Where were you born?’
‘In the dregs. My father was a soldier, a pep. My mother – she was killed when I was six years old. Crime is high in the dregs. The fukks took what they wanted and slit her throat – that gave me a reason to fight from a very early age. I hunted the bastards down, hunted them like dogs with hatred burning in my heart – but I never found them. And then the hatred just... went. And it felt good to be free of such a burden.’
‘My mother, also, was killed when I was young,’ I said. ‘V2.0 Battle E SIMs. They were freeing me from umbilication.’ I laughed. ‘They call it purification.’
‘Why?’ asked Marianne.
‘Because I was SIM. Implanted in my mother’s womb after being genetically grown. But once born, a child – albeit a SIM child – well, some SIMs grow emotionally attached to their mothers and hard death is a primary lesson. SIMs are forced into a life of iron from their first years; they are supposed to kill their own mothers, but I could not do this. Therefore, GOV killed her for me. This made my life very difficult, especially years later in combat training where I was mocked and beaten; but it made me steel and it made me lack emotion. But emotion – emotion is a strange creature, Marianne. It finally came back to me. And the older I get, the more it returns... like an old friend.’
‘That’s a very sad story,’ said Marianne, and she yawned and looked at her watch. ‘Three hours to go. I’d better return to my room, get some sleep.’
‘Why don’t you sleep here?’ said I. ‘I assume you now trust me.’
‘I do,’ said Marianne, although I could see no reason why she would trust me. She put her head down and soon her breathing slowed and the sound relaxed me, made me feel whole and in comfort and at peace.
I watched the silent pictures on TV, flashes of violence across my mech eyes as I stroked Marianne’s hair which was so soft, so soft under my tender brutal fingers. This motion relaxed me even more and I found myself wandering idly within the cage of my own mind.
‘It is a time for Hell,’ said a voice, and my eyes flickered open but I was alone, Marianne breathing soft and in rhythm. I blinked. And I remembered the dream. Of the raven. Of being King of it all.
Maybe one day I would rule?
Maybe one day I would topple GOV and become the King...
I smiled.
‘It no–longer matters,’ I whispered, and felt calmness settle over my soul.
I was in a strange place of peace where I realised I no longer had to follow, I no longer had to obey. I was free to do what I wanted, when I wanted.
I was unchained.
*
The communications room.
I leant against the wall, watching the large TV screens, several linked to advance compu equip depicting troops moving in unit formation. HTanks were also in position, along with teams of mech dogs and more infantry units – GOV Contro HQ had been targeted, along with several high profile military outposts capable of putting more than seven thousand men onto the battle field in minutes. The rebs were going to take them out. It was going to be awesome.
The countdown had begun, and I could see Marianne on the other side of the room glancing at her watch. Then she moved, disappeared through a dark steel doorway and I was suddenly reminded of Entropy, and a bad bad feeling prickled hot up my spine and the whine was not sound, but pressure and I knew and I dropped to a crouch and my ankle was screaming at me in hot fire pain and I was moving, diving for heavy cover as a wind rushed in, I felt the breeze and heard the humid whump of detonation and a blast hit me in the face, lifted me up and flung me across the room and against the wall, and I slid under heavy compu equip which screamed and shattered and protected me from further blasts. I had a purple glimpse of rock and a man being ripped apart and scattered in a shower and all was suddenly cold and dark and a falling blackness.
When consciousness returned I was lying on my back and staring at a star–filled ice night sky. I could hear the clatter of SMKKs, and the occasional crack of a sniper’s rifle. Shouts echoed to my right, followed by the heavy whine of TT12s.
‘You should be dead,’ said a low voice, and it took a moment for disorientation to abate. I felt incredibly sick, and my limbs were lead. ‘You really are a tough cunt, Justice D. But I’ll forgive you that, for you led us right to them.’
I turned slowly, looked up at Marianne and coughed on the heavy thick dust all around. ‘I did?’
‘Yes. Your scan was electro tech cerebral high–profile. But then, the rebs could never have known about such advanced compu equip. It is military. It is classified.’
‘But you knew?’
Marianne nodded; she was not looking at me, she was staring out over the fresh rubble of the dregs. Orange flashes sparked in the distance to the background rumble of mortar shells. Stick figures, black stalks, were sent spinning into the air.
‘You are not a reb?’ I said, realisation dawning like the birth of a new star.
‘Ten out of ten for perception, Justice D,’ said Marianne. She turned her non–military weapon towards me and dropped to a crouch. ‘It was so difficult, getting the bastards to open up their Contro HQ. I couldn’t have used any sort of transmission device or they would have sniffed me out. But you – you became the perfect mole. Your entire brain was the transmission device, thanks to Z and the implants. Your moods are controlled, Justice D, your emotions are surged and drained with valve narco administered directly to the brain. That Sullivan,’ she smiled strangely, ‘he’s a clever bastard.’
‘Yes,’ I said, mind a whirl.
Marianne leant back against a hunk of twisted steel, and pulled out a narco choc bar. ‘You want a bite?’
‘No.’
I scanned the one–time reb Contro HQ – it was a desert of stone and smashed concrete. Several corpses littered the ground nearby in broken death poses; obviously Marianne’s work. So – she was Justice E. The same as Snow.
Fukking women.
You just couldn’t trust them!
Three rebs ran past, and Marianne’s weapon snapped up thundering bullets that ripped the rebs apart. They hit concrete with dull slaps and Marianne reloaded her weapon and continued with her choc narco bar.
I could hear her teeth crunching the biscuit.
Her lips gleamed.
‘So what happens now?’ said I, reaching out and grabbing her legs and she hissed in surprise, her weapon swinging round but she was off–balance and hit the ground hard, smashing her head. I rolled atop her, my finger finding the trigger and the barrel touched her throat. She lay perfectly still.
‘Stalemate,’ she said.
‘I don’t think so,’ said I.
‘I do,’ said another voice, and I felt a deep hatred surge swell within me, and it was nothing to do with Sullivan’s implanted emotion–narco for that voice, that bitch bitch whine, it was the voice of Snow.
‘Let her go,’ came Snow’s easy command.
‘This weapon has a hair–trigger,’ I said, smiling softly. ‘You shoot me, and a twitch will put a bullet in Marianne’s skull. You want to take that chance, beautiful Snow?’
‘You are making an assumption, Justice D. You are making the assumption that I give a fukk whether Marianne lives... or dies.’
‘Oh but you do give a fukk,’ said I. ‘Otherwise I would already be dead. Isn’t that right, my dear sweet Marianne?
’ and I jerked the weapon’s barrel hard into her throat. ‘You were waiting for Snow, for her to arrive; to kill me. Weren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘But now you have become my insurance policy.’
Nobody moved for several minutes, and this was an interesting three–way situation but under no happy circumstances like a hard sex game I would have liked.
I was thinking hard fast, though. What part was Marianne playing in all of this? Almost anybody – reb, SIM, pep – all were expendable. So why could Snow not risk losing Marianne? What special qualities did she possess?
Very, very slowly I turned and locked eyes with Snow. Her SMKK was trained on my skull but she would not fire. I knew that she could not fire. Marianne lay perfectly still beneath me; like a captured elk brought down by a tiger.
‘We really should stop meeting like this,’ said I.
‘I should have killed you last time,’ spat Snow.
‘But you didn’t.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘TEK–Q always said you were wild and anarchic and uncontrollable,’ I said, stalling for time and trying to think of a way out of this fukking dreg mess.
‘He was right. Let Marianne go, and I swear I will not kill you.’
‘Dregshit!’ I scoffed, ‘it’ll not work. I may be burnt to fukk with a face scarred by heavy GOV tox, but my mind has not gone – not yet. I suggest that you drop your SMKK, Snow.’
‘No.’
‘Do it!’
‘No.’
‘You were always one stubborn bitch,’ I said.
A mortar shell hissed nearby, the explosion rocking the earth with its concrete scream; but it was enough, and Snow and I fired simultaneously and my bullet took her high in the chest punching her back and over a low mound of rubble and out of sight. Her bullet nicked my cheek leaving a hot trail of blood and ending its flight in Marianne’s soft pretty face. Her mouth dropped open as if wires had been cut, and I felt her urine soaking through armour and cloth.
Slowly, I eased myself off Marianne’s corpse. There was no blood in the dim light, just a black hole ringed with smashed cheekbone. ‘What was so special about you, my dear?’ I asked the meat. ‘Why wouldn’t Snow shoot? Why did she give her own fukking life?’
The corpse did not reply, and so dragging the non–military weapon free and pocketing a few mags, I crawled away over broken concrete keeping my head low and listening and moving towards where Snow had taken my bullet. I was in poor shape, and it took me an eternity to cross the one–time rebs Contro HQ rubble floor... finally, I climbed the mound and saw Snow huddled in a mortar–type shell hole. She was bleeding heavily.
I rolled down the incline scattering loose earth and debris, and came to rest beside Snow with a painful grunt. Her breathing was ragged.
‘Snow?’ said I.
She did not reply. I reached out, touched her shoulder, and she groaned. Her head came up and around, and her eyes met mine, clicking.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
She nodded. ‘Marianne?’
‘Dead.’
‘Fukk. She was Sullivan’s daughter.’
I closed my eyes, then opened them as a light rain began to fall. Still the clatter of machine guns and heavy SMKKs filled the distant night.
‘That feels good on my skin,’ said Snow.
‘Yes,’ I agreed.
‘Kiss me,’ said Snow, and I found her mouth and we kissed a long, gentle kiss and I realised there was real warmth in that kiss, real affection, and love. A need to be loved. For both of us.
I had lost my gun rolling down the hill into the shell hole, but I no–longer needed it. I moved in closer, took Snow in my arms and I held her and she nestled her face against my burnt neck. I could feel her mech eyes pressing hard against my skin. It felt good to hold her.
We stayed there for a long time. Occasionally the darkening night sky was lit by a purple explosion from a HTank’s cannons.
‘I missed you,’ said Snow, her words warm and tickling against my neck. ‘I missed you in the long years of darkness. Will you hold me? Hold me tight. Do you forgive me, Jus? Do you forgive me?’
I held her tight and the rain drenched us heavy and I saw it pooling around our bodies in the hole and I saw the blood then, thick and swirling in the water as darkness fell fast out in the wasted dregs.
Gunfire. Nearby.
Shouts.
I kissed Snow’s damp forehead. ‘I forgive you. For everything. I love you,’ I said, and she murmured and hugged me and we lay still, embraced, warm, sharing, loving in that desolate shell shithole in the midst of a war.
‘Sir!’ came a voice. Battle SIMs, standing on the lip of the crater. They eased forward, weapons held in battle tense fingers. These were SIMs who had seen recent action and were still injecto high on skipping and narcoshit.
‘We are unarmed,’ said I. ‘This is Snow, a Justice E. She has a serious chest wound and she needs a mediscan and fixing right now.’
The SIMs surrounded us and rolled out a stretcher. Before long I heard the whine of motors and smelt the bitter draught from a WarCopter.
I watched Snow, pumped full of narco now, being rolled onto the stretcher and carried away from me. I wanted to be with her, to see that she pulled through, but I had my own problems and the soldiers were staring at me, at my burns, at my scarring.
‘How goes the battle?’ I asked when I was helped up.
‘The rebs are wiped out. There are small pockets of resistance but soon they will be cleared. I feel that I know you. Do I know you, soldier?’
‘I am Justice D who slaughtered all the peps and SIMs you saw on TV. I believe GOV is looking for me. I believe I am a WANTED man.’ I smiled.
The fist caught me under the chin and I was too weak to resist. I hit the ground hard, rolled, and then the SIM was kicking me with heavy boots and I felt my ribs crunch again and the pain was a flare streak of bright red in my mind. The Battle SIM was dragged off, and I was handcuffed and dragged to a nearby Truk where they threw me into the back with other prisoners. These others were reb and destined for the torture rooms of State Prison 7.
I heard the whump of a HTank’s cannons and the teetering remnants of reb Contro HQ was smashed into oblivion.
We had done our jobs well.
Shit.
I had done my job to perfection.
The rebs were gone. Destroyed. Obliterated.
And it was my fault.
The Truk’s engine fired and we bounced across the waste of No Man’s Land... and towards a future I did not wish to contemplate.
*
I awoke in a cold room. I had been drugged, and my tongue felt thick and my head was throbbing that heavy mandrake throb. Slowly, I sat up and looked around at the grey walls. The door opened and a man came in. I did not know the man; he was heavy set and had a thick, black beard. He moved to a table and two chairs at the centre of the room, and sitting down he lit a cigarette... in the gloom I did not realise at first, but something was different about him. Something was very different.
I managed to get to my feet, and I moved towards the table where the man lit a small lamp. And then it hit me like a physical smashing blow.
The man had eyes. He had real fukking eyes!
The man smiled at me, and said, ‘Sullivan is really pissed with you. He begged us to let him beat you to death. He blames you for the loss of his daughter Marianne.’
‘Yes,’ I said, slumping into the chair. The cigarette smoke made me cough, and I ran my hands through my matted hair, wincing at the pain in my ribs and everywhere else as I moved. ‘It was my fault. How is Snow?’
‘She is alive, no thanks to you.’
‘It was a stand–off,’ I grinned. ‘She understands. But will she live?’
‘Yes. Just. But she will have permanent breathing problems.’
I closed my eyes with a tiny click, then focused on the man. He was older than he first appeared, perhaps in his middle fifties bu
t still athletic and erect. His beard was neatly trimmed despite its thickness and the hand that held the cigarette was clean, the nails manicured. His clothes were simple cotton fare, but cut well. This was a man to whom wealth was not a luxury; it was normality.
‘Who are you?’ I asked in a quiet voice.
‘Don’t you know me?’ he smiled, leaning forward into the light so I could take a better look.
‘No.’
‘My voice?’
‘It is familiar, but I cannot place it.’
‘You know me as Z. I am head of operations at GOV Central; I believe you used to get your Leviticus 20 orders from me via electro relay?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But you were different. You were bald. And you had mech eyes.’
Z smoked his cigarette and smiled. ‘The wonders of modern technology,’ he said. ‘Not many have ever seen me face to face; as you are doing now. I would say you are privileged.’
‘Ha. A joke?’
Z finished his cigarette and stamped it under his boot. Then he rubbed his eyes and I watched closely, fascinated by these organic orbs.
‘Can you see colour?’ I asked.
‘Sadly, no,’ said Z. ‘But you can. That is why you are here and not being executed with much GOV grievance. Sullivan ran tests on your brain input and there is peculiar activity.’
‘Why didn’t you just kill me and cut me open?’ I said. ‘That way none of this fukk would need occur. This conversation. Your dreg presence. This fukking false nicety.’
‘We cannot kill you, because we have plans for you, Justice D formerly–to–be–executed SIM. We need to study you. We need to learn how you developed the ability to view in colour once more.’
‘I refuse all cooperation. Kill me and be done,’ said I.
Z sighed. ‘It has all gone wrong, hasn’t it Justice? It is unbelievable. You issue orders and somehow they nearly always get fukked up. I am surrounded by incompetents. I still cannot believe they allowed Sullivan’s daughter to act undercover without proper training. But she was desperate – desperate to be in, to be part of the game. It’s just a sad system, Justice D. A sad game.’
‘And you are the player, I am merely a game piece,’ said I. ‘You manipulate, you command, you place, you play. But we are real, we are physical and GOV fukks with our lives, and fukks with our minds.’