Sim

by Andy Remic

  ‘Yes,’ said Z. ‘It is so. So you refuse to cooperate?’

  ‘Go and fukk yourself,’ said I.

  ‘Very well,’ said Z. ‘When I am gone, switch on TV.’ He got up, lit another cigarette and banged on the steel door; it was opened and he left. If I had had more strength I would have killed him, but somehow I got the feeling that he was a lot stronger, and a lot more deadly, than he looked.

  I presumed that I only had hours to live, so I switched on TV with a grunt of pain, and lay back on my hard bed and focused. Crap. Lots of crap – flashing grey images depicting game shows and media hype and adverts for useless crap. A sad reflection of society, but I smiled. At least I had done the world a happy jolly service by killing Jolly Joker the Jolly Jokeman. And joke grievances against SIMs were noticeably less on TV, now.

  I wondered where Snow was, and if I would get to see her before my execution. And then the TV report came and it left me cold and filled with a strange, tranquil fear:

  ... over to Kate Jess at State Prison 7 for the latest update – thank you Jonny – well as you can see, behind me squats the brooding structure of State Prison 7, and an official statement has just been issued by GOV officials with regard the recently executed Justice D SIM who was tried and executed for his crimes against State. The statement announces a GOV secret mission that has just come into fruition, and led by none–other than Justice D SIM himself! It would appear that his execution was just a front to entice top reb leaders interested in his false information, and working in co–operation with GOV SIMs and Battle Es the reb Contro HQ was finally tracked down and several thousand top reb troops put to death... HTanks were seized in various armed raids and the fighting was fierce and brutal. The statement also states that thanks to Justice D’s involvement, a serious threat to State has been avoided and his sentence under Termination Clause 64G revoked as from this morning. Now, he faces life imprisonment rather than the death penalty. Something I’m sure he will appreciate...

  I switched off TV. This was bad. They thought I was a fukking hero but it was all wrong, all wrong and bad and lies and if only I had more strength. If only I had more strength.

  *

  I sat for a day, in the darkness, thinking. I knew several things that were fact: I was alive. I was weak. I was hideously scarred and seriously damaged from the tox intake, and this would leave me pitiful for the rest of my days. Emmy was dead. GOV was the victor. My life had no more meaning.

  Once had been a time for war: that time had come, and together with the rebs, I had failed. Victory had never really seemed a reality, but the alternative, also, had never crossed my mind.

  And now they were going to keep me alive in this hole, keep me alive like a monkey in a cage, alive for study and experiment and slowly a plan began to form and it stemmed from the old days when I used to drop in on Sullivan after Leviticus 20 tours...

  Gradually, I eased myself to my feet and limped across the chamber. I stood there at the door, wheezing, and banged hard on the steel with my fist.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Get me Sullivan.’

  Sullivan came after an hour, and I was sat on the edge of my bed trying to look as pain–free as possible. The door opened, his shadowy frame entered, and the door boomed shut behind him. His knee was still strapped tight where my bullet had torn through his tendons and he limped forward and leant on the table at the centre of the room.

  ‘Welcome,’ I said.

  ‘I wanted to kill you myself,’ hissed Sullivan in a low voice, his face nasty and full of hate. ‘I wanted to rip out your fukking liver and eat it.’

  I laughed out loud. ‘You? You’re only a fukking mechanic. You work on armour. You can do medi scans and minor physical repairs.’ I laughed again, mocking, and growled, ‘You haven’t got what it takes. You haven’t got the fukking guts, that’s why you sent your daughter out into the dregs and that’s why she died. It might have been me with a gun at her throat, but it was your fukking fault, dreg pep.’

  Sullivan was white with fury, and so angry he couldn’t get the words past his spitting lips. Finally, he simply spun on his heel and hammered on the door, then stumbled out into the corridor weeping and I watched him go with cold heart and clenched fists, and knew that my plan was put into action and the pain would soon end.

  I lay back on my bunk, and slept.

  *

  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. I was the King once more but this time I was not alone, for on my left stood Snow with an SMKK in her hands and on my right was Mission D with an SMKK in his hands, and we were Power, we were Might, we were Influence – all was beneath me and under me and the thought occurred that this was all part of my insanity, but it did not matter, did not matter to me for this time the ice would never melt and tip me from my throne, I would always be atop my throne and never subject to the whims of others. I was strong. And then the raven came and tried to alight on the back of my throne, but Mission D smashed it with the butt of his SMKK and the bird veered, flapping its great black wings and swept around to peer into my eyes and its voice said, ‘You think to challenge me?’ and I answered, ‘Yes’ and the raven hissed, ‘You failed, it was a time for war and you failed!’ and the raven’s voice was a sneer.

  ‘Shall I take it out?’ asked Mission D, calmly.

  ‘Take it out?’ snarled the raven, ‘I am God, you petty insect, I am God and I am eternal and immortal and you are alive simply on my whim...’

  ‘Kill it,’ I said, and Mission D put a bullet through the raven’s head and it dropped like a stone, its wings flapping no–longer as it plummeted into the distance and became nothing but a black speck finally falling into an infinite landscape.

  ‘I do not believe in God,’ said I.

  ‘Nor me,’ said Mission D.

  I sat there for a while, contemplating the Earth below, the Great Mother, knowing she was the real Mistress, she was the Power – and I was fully aware that shackles had been lifted and thrown away from my wrists and ankles. My crimes were as nothing. My guilt was as nothing. I was free, and calm, and at one with the Earth.

  ‘What now?’ asked Mission D.

  ‘I have a plan.’

  ‘A plan, WarBruv?’

  ‘Oh Yes,’ said I.

  *

  I awoke with the TV making buzzing sounds; I switched on and found it was a comm link and Snow was on the other end and I yawned, scratched my matted hair, and said, ‘I’m glad you’re alive, Snow.’

  ‘So am I,’ she said.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Hospital. Z gave permission for me to patch this through to you. How do you feel?’

  ‘Good,’ I said, smiling. ‘I have killed God, or the One who called himself God and was a cancer within my mind. I am free. Free of all burden.’

  The corner of Snow’s mouth twitched, and I realised she had news but did not want to tell me. I sighed, and said, ‘Tell me, Snow. You never could hide those things from me.’

  ‘The medi scan,’ she said. ‘Your medi scan.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You have Canker,’ she said, and her face was grave. ‘You have the mutated strain. You must have developed it after coming into contact with Emmy for such long periods of time.’

  I nodded. ‘Thank you for telling me. But it no–longer matters, Snow. It is all a game, and once I was a piece but I am rising – I am rising up, I will become a player and my moves will shake the Earth.’

  Snow tilted her head. ‘Will I see you again?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I lied, and the lie hurt me more than any of my physical wounds.

  ‘I’ll see you soon, then,’ she said, smiling, and the TV went blank. I lay back on my bunk and waited and the wait did
not take long. I heard them outside the steel door and I was ready; ready for more pain.

  ‘Quiet.’

  Compu keys rattling.

  The door opened slowly, and I feigned sleep snores. Five figures crept into the chamber and the club smashed into my face but I did not lose consciousness for my pain tolerance had grown over the past weeks. Bearing my weight, they dragged me from the cold blank–walled chamber and along the corridor; behind me the SIM guard closed the door and stared ahead, stone-faced. Bastard, I thought, but theirs was a clan to which I no–longer belonged and I was carried down a series of corridors and my nose had broken with the blow from the club, and that was good. Blood leaked down my face and it made me seem unconscious and wounded and all adding to my performance, as good as any of Jolly Joker’s comedy dance routines. They carried me down yet more corridors but I knew my destination: the stores. Sullivan had told me often enough, back during the Bad Days. He told me how prisoners were given a ‘Silver Fist’, an aptly named beating to within an inch of their lives. State Prison 7 authorities ignored these goings on, allowing SIMs to vent frustration and fury on certain types of Cat A prisoners.

  They threw me to the floor, and spread out around me in a circle; a bucket of water splashed into my face, and I groaned but did not ‘come awake’.

  ‘Get another,’ snapped a voice. It was Sullivan. The poor, poor fool, I thought. He really believed I was responsible for his daughter’s death. But grief did that sometimes; grief opened dark misguided pathways of pain, a need for release, and I did not blame him. He had been a good friend, but chosen his path and he would walk it well, for now there was no turning back. Now, there was no end. No stopping. No backing down.

  The man returned with the water, and as he bent to splash it into my face I moved fukking fast on reflexes born of hunting out in the dregs. I scissored the man’s legs and rolled hard, and his knees buckled and he fell back smashing his head against the tiles. The others charged in with clubs but I continued rolling, onto the guard I’d brought down and his TL50 slipped into my hand firm and sweet and I smashed a .38 bullet through one man’s throat, and he screamed scrabbling at the wound which spewed blood onto the tiles in a fountain. For an instant there was a pause, the gunshot echoing around the vast stores, and the other three went for their weapons at belts and I emptied three bullets in quick succession and two men went down fast and stone dead hitting the ground in their own blood and piss, but Sullivan spun around, not dead, and fell on his face, groaning, drooling, his weapon forgotten.

  I still held one guard in a scissor–grip and leaning forward I touched the TL50 to his breast and poured four bullets into his heart.

  The battle had taken less than five seconds.

  Slowly, I eased myself out of the sticky, expanding pool of blood and stood for a moment, swaying. Mandrake or MM would have been welcome now, perfect just to keep me on my feet, but I had much work to do and so I moved to the four dead guards and emptied more bullets into their skulls to ensure death and no fukk-ups.

  ‘Bastard,’ drooled Sullivan.

  Ignoring him, I moved to the store plan on the wall and my mech eyes clicked softly. Like all military stores it held weapons, but not just guns and ammo, but HTank shells and heavy mortars used sometimes out in the dregs when the rebs got too friendly.

  ‘Come and fight,’ hissed Sullivan, and slid around to face me on a platter of his own blood. His eyes were gleaming in the darkness but his gun was out of reach and I’d shot him in the right forearm, smashing his ulna and making his gun hand inoperable.

  My eyes scanned the plan. I smiled.

  Moving past Sullivan, ignoring his grappling fingers and picking up his TL50, I stopped and stared down for a while. He kicked out at me, but I backed away.

  ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Why Marianne?’

  ‘I didn’t kill her,’ I said. ‘It was an accident. Snow’s bullet was meant for me. But the explosion – it was all a mistake. Don’t hate me, Sullivan. Don’t hate me.’

  ‘But I do,’ he said.

  I moved to the doorway and using compu keys, locked the portal. Locked us in. Then I worked my way deep into the stores and finding a mecho–trolley, operated the levers and kicked the engine into life. The tyres squealed on tiles as I cruised down corridors lined with weapons and ammunition; the wide section of HTank shells were stored in crates, and I began to lever them up on the mecho–trolley’s forks and drive them back to the door. The forks hissed, descended, I reversed, and Sullivan was watching me. His lips moved soundlessly. And then – realisation struck, and his eyes widened. He scrabbled around on the floor and managed to lever himself into a sitting position as the mecho–trolley hummed and buzzed and I put a .38 bullet whining into his leg. He screamed, fell back away from the PANIC switch, and I returned down the corridor and loaded up the forks with four more crates of HTank shells. I worked for fifteen minutes until the tiled area filled with blood was now full of crates. Then I abandoned the mecho–trolley and stood in front of the nearest crate, hands on hips.

  Forty crates, each containing six HTank shells and each shell filled with ten pounds of XPLO–B. I did a quick calculation. A pound of XPLO–B was equivalent to four tons of TNT – that meant this small gathering of shells had the explosive force of over 9000 tons of TNT, or equivalent to that of a small nuclear bomb like the one exploded over Kyushu, Nagasaki in the late Twentieth Century. It was a trick Mission D had taught me during Entropy. He’d called it daisy chaining and we’d used it against enemy HTanks in the field.

  Opening the nearest crate, I reached in with my ribs grinding and managed to stand the first shell on its nose, so that the flat bulk of the primer–detonator was exposed. On the shell’s side was the electronic ignition connected to the arming assembly and the boosters set within the XPLO–B explosive. With a click, I activated the ignition then turned my attention to the primer–detonator. Taking Sullivan’s compu keys, I flicked open the screwdriver attachment on his small knife and opened the box. Inside were thick grey wires, all numbered. I connected several of the wires together, by–passing the timed ignition, then standing up the next shell I did the same until all six shells stood with primer–detonators exposed. Then, taking a coil of gold wire from the stores I linked all six bombs together and smiled down at Sullivan who was in a world of pain, but whose eyes were watching me in a feverish way; gleaming.

  ‘You can’t,’ he croaked.

  ‘I can,’ said I.

  ‘You’ll kill us,’ he hissed, face twisting like a lunatic’s.

  ‘I hope so,’ said I.

  I linked all six shells to the ignition on the first shell, then wound the gold coil around a manual detonator and set it on the ground away from Sullivan. One click, one surge of power from the detonator’s battery and all six bombs would explode. The explosion would be powerful enough to hammer the explosive boosters in all the rest of the bombs, creating, believe me, one fukking huge BANG!

  Carefully, I armed all six bombs.

  ‘You are crazy,’ said Sullivan. ‘You’ll never get away with this!’

  ‘I think I might,’ I said, smugly.

  Then, I was ready. Taking Sullivan’s personal comm, I signalled the PANIC call and heard the voice of Sullivan’s Commander.

  I explained the situation.

  He cursed me.

  I shot Sullivan again, over the comm, to show that I was serious and his screams brought quite a pleasant response. The Commander said he would meet my demands, and the comm went dead.

  ‘Now we wait,’ said I.

  ‘Why do you want him?’

  ‘Cantrell?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sullivan was clutching a pad against his newest wound, to try and stem the flow of blood. He looked ashen. Like he might puke.

  ‘I need to talk with him.’

  ‘And then you will disarm your – weapon?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said.

  We sat in silence, and I had the detonator on my knee and I rested my head back a
gainst the crates. I could hear soldiers assembling in the corridors outside, but they would attempt nothing whilst they knew I had Sullivan hostage. Amusingly, they did not know about the shells – and the daisy chaining – or else the Prison would be evacuated and to Hell with my requests and that would just defeat the whole purpose of my little game.

  Pain bit deep inside me, and I coughed and some kind of tox shit splattered across the floor. And then I heard her voice – the bastards! They had sent Snow to bargain with me. I began to laugh, and standing and dragging Sullivan to his feet, I activated the store doorway and peeped from behind my human shield.

  ‘Are you unarmed?’

  ‘I am,’ came Snow’s voice.

  ‘Come in, then.’

  She walked slowly forward and she was beautiful. Her chest and shoulder were heavily bandaged where my bullet had taken her, and her face was a mask of small scratches I had previously missed whilst cuddled in the shell–hole.

  The doorway hissed shut, and I threw Sullivan to one side where he stumbled and fell, cursing. Snow moved in to me and kissed me, then tenderly touched my nose. ‘Broken?’

  ‘Yes. That cunt with a club.’

  Snow did not turn back to Sullivan, but instead surveyed the large gathering of crates and my handiwork with the six bombs.

  ‘HTank shells?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She whistled softly. ‘That’s a lot of XPLO–B.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You want to die?’ Her eyes clicked – focus – and taking my hand in hers, she squeezed softly.

  ‘Yes. It is time.’

  ‘Then I will wait with you,’ she said.

  ‘No. Snow, I trust you. When I heard your voice outside I knew the bastards had sent you to bargain and talk and chatter, and I should have sent you away. But I needed to see you one more time. The lie hurts. I want you to understand.’

  Snow laughed softly. ‘They sent me to disarm you, and to free Sullivan. I am trained well for all terrorist and hostage situations.’ She pulled out a TL50 and for a moment I was staring down the barrel. I could not read her face, for she had always been a capricious and dirty bitch, and this turn of events would have not surprised me. But after a pause she re–holstered the weapon and sat down on a crate of HTank bombs.