Millennium Zero G

by Jack Vantage

  Millennium Zero

  G

  Jack Vantage holds a BA Hons degree from Westminster University, London. He currently lives in Surrey, England with his family, whom he lives for. After writing this story a long time ago, he finally found the courage to polish and print it.

  Jack Vantage

  Millennium Zero G

  To the love of my life

  I love you more each day

  Chapter 1

  Shadows of Society

  That bastard, that cunt. He knew he would double cross him, knew he was up to something, should have known better. Living the criminal life was always going to end this way. It had caught him, and he knew he was dead. The underworld slowed for no one, forgave no one. Forever it lingered as the sick place where no one cared for each other and no one missed anyone.

  Carl Reed’s ankles and feet were tied with wires to a steel chair. He sat in a disused industrial factory floor, which was empty except for the gangster standing over him. The damp environment was shaded in darkness and felt huge to Carl, but the pervasive blackness hid its size. Above him dangled a halogen bulb on a wire from the high industrial ceiling, which sat him in a pool of dim blue light. All he could see was a wet and filthy concrete floor around his feet, and above, the faint shafts of moonlight piercing the beaten dark roof.

  Bam! Another hit to the jaw, the sweet spot, which sent a mouth full of blood to his left. His nose was broken, swollen, and throbbing. A few split wounds graced his face. His eyes were puffed with swelling. The cuts in his mouth were stinging, and a few dislodged teeth moved around inside. For hours he’d endured this barbaric beating, and his assailants were getting nastier by the second.

  “You wanna start talking. Come on, Carl. You know we won’t stop, so do yourself a favour and let us know where and when. Regan might let you go. He can be very generous,” Timmy said. He laughed like a hyena, and his face shifted and pointed like a snarling, wild animal.

  The crazed, hysterical bastard paced in front of Carl with scavenging eyes, knowing the kill was almost in the bag. He just needed a little patience for the order.

  Carl looked up at him, depleted. “Let me go and I might give you what you want. But how do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain?” His eyes were drooping, his time fading.

  Timmy stopped pacing and attentively stood over him. “You know Regan will keep his promise,” he said. “His word is good, and he’s on his way. But you could just tell me right now. It would make life easier for you when he arrives. Let’s say out of professional courtesy.”

  “No way. You’re crazy, just a fucking killer. The second I squawk you’ll pull the trigger.”

  Bam! A punch landed smack on Carl’s broken nose, crunching it further. It splattered Timmy with blood from the nostrils.

  “You sick little rat fuck! Got your disease all over me!” Timmy growled.

  Bam! Another hit to the left temple, which sent a sharp pain through his head like a needle had been injected. Carl hurt all over.

  It was his own fault. He knew when dealing with Regan Owens you were risking a bullet to the head, but the credits involved tempted him to deal with the devil.

  Timmy began pacing again. His big physique was marred by a slight belly, and his face wore coarse stubble. His nose was inflated and dimpled, and his deep-set, crazed eyes could pierce the hardest of men. His shaved head was menacing, and the sleeves of his striped shirt were rolled up to reveal military tattoos that read Lieutenant and What Do You Need Us For If There Are No Wars.

  Carl knew all about Timmy. He knew how he, Regan, and gang of thugs turned their backs on the Quazar army. He had heard the stories about how they used their time with that army to unravel the criminal world and become part of it. Any chance of the Authoritarian guards or military catching these two fucks disappeared years ago as they set up their cartel using the military as their cover, which masked them invisible to the law.

  They were taught how to catch the world’s biggest criminals. Ultimately, they learnt to become the thing that they were supposed to stop. Every big drug producer knew them. The little ones, like Carl, ran from them. Why did I try to sell to them? he thought. Everyone knew about their endeavours, what they did to small-time crooks. They would squash them like a cockroach under their boot, like some insignificant fly that annoyed them.

  Bam! The blow came to his gut this time, which sent the wind out of Carl. He coughed, spluttered, and groaned with pain.

  “I can go on all day,” Timmy said with sadistic intent. “Can you? This is only going to get worse. I know how you feel, Carl. I know the hurt inside, the pain ringing in your head. If you want it to stop, just let me know. It’s what we both want. I know the boss will tell us to let you go for helping us.”

  Timmy leaned towards Carl and grabbed him by the throat. He forced his head upward with a jerk and threatened with sullen aggression. “Tell me where it’s hidden, and the pain will go away. Or you’re looking at a pain that will be permanent.” His face shifted like that of a predator desperate to strike.

  A voice spoke from the darkness with arrogant dismissive talk. “It’s okay, Timmy. Pull me up a chair.” Regan had arrived.

  Timmy let Carl go.

  Regan’s cane tapped an echo, as he stepped from the darkness and moved into the pool of pale blue light that lit Carl. He was dressed in a clean-cut black suit. His shoes were polished, his hair grey, and his eyes and nose like those of a weasel. He had worn from the years, but was still capable of as much evil.

  “Sorry about this Carl,” Regan slyly said. “It’s just that you have something that is not yours. Sure, you made it. But let’s be fair. You couldn’t sell it for shit.”

  “Mister Regan, please, please let me go. I’ll give you credits. I’ll give you contacts, names. If I tell you about tomorrow, they’ll kill me.”

  “If you don’t tell me, I’ll kill you. It’s catch twenty-two you hear what I’m saying.” Regan waved his cane about in front of him as if conducting his emotions. “You’ve fucked up.”

  Timmy returned with a metal chair and slammed it down in front of Carl. The sound echoed about the empty factory floor.

  “Thank you, Timmy,” Regan said as he sat down cross-legged. He stared disgustedly at Carl.

  Supercilious bastard! Carl thought. Malevolent cunt!

  He wished he could turn back the clock and pass up the offer of the drug deal. He’d spent his life producing a respectable amount of Mentha in a small unit he owned. His cover was a jacket business, also run from the unit. It took him a year to rig the small room at the back of his unit to make the drug. It was easy when you knew how. All you needed to know was which plant the key ingredient came from.

  Like Heroin of Earth, Mentha was a natural substance that only needed extraction and liquidating. Easily grown, easily covered, all someone needed was a front to blind the law and credit holders. If he sold a handsome amount of Mentha, a bogus sale with the jackets would explain the appearance of credit in his account.

  “Let me tell you a little about me and my business, Carl.” Regan pulled a coin from his pocket, an ancient American nickel, and rolled it from finger to finger, then back again. “Let me tell you why I do this. This planet is a prison, one big cell that humanity has been placed in. Humans should not be here. Humans are from Earth. Certain members have moved us here against our will and hold us captive.”

  Regan stopped rolling the coin and placed it in his pocket. He retrieved a small plastic pouch, no bigger than the coin, with a short needle protruding, and held it up. It was filled with black liquid Mentha.

  “And this is the release humanity needs to help them by,” he said. “It helps them get over their worries, concerns, and imprisonment. I couldn’t g
ive a fuck if the human is five years old or fifty years old; he deserves a little release from this place. Call me a psycho, but only a psycho would put a race in a place like this.”

  Carl had heard about Regan’s vicious nature, how it cut like a blunt razor. His sadistic violence had stirred the criminal underworld with fear, which demanded a twisted kind of respect. Regan had once murdered a member of his own clan for badmouthing him when he paid nothing for a small job he’d carried out. Nobody wanted to mess with him because of his incorrigible violent past.

  “What’s wrong with this place?” Carl replied.

  “Each to their own, but there are plenty of people out there who need the escape from this mundane prison we call life. You know that. Otherwise, why do you push the drug?”

  Carl’s head sagged. Pain and exhaustion was overpowering. “Credits, all for credits.”

  All Carl was ever interested in was credit. He didn’t particularly care who injected the drug—male, female, adult, child—just that they had the credit.

  Regan pulled the nickel out again and held it up to Carl. “You see this? This is real money. I’d give anything to live in a world where you could hold your money. None of this sneaking around with make-believe money. Real money. Real notes, coins. This world has taken away people’s ability to do what they want. This world, this so-called utopia, is just a façade that was created to control us, to hold us. This is no utopia; this is a fucking prison. How can other people decide what’s best for us, force us into their way of life?”

  Carl sneered through the exhaustion. “You’re fucking crazy. I hope they catch you and put the pin to your head by tossing you into a real fucking prison, so you know how it really feels. There’s a fucking screw loose somewhere with you guys. Oh, and by the way, where’s that perverse fuck Nexus? He’d usually be here with you now, or so I’ve heard, raping some poor hooker in the corner.”

  Regan stared at him, momentarily stunned. Then he smiled and laughed with slyness that cut Carl’s moral. “Good to see you got some fight left in you boy.”

  Carl cringed with hatred and shivered with dread.

  Regan glanced over his shoulder. “Timmy, get the communicator.”

  Timmy pulled out a small black rectangular pocket communicator and handed it to Regan.

  Regan flipped it open, switched it on and extended it towards Carl. “Here. You wanna know where Nexus is, you can ask him yourself. He needs to know the exchange point for the deal anyway, so he can work his magic on the credit readers and chip locators. The guy’s an expert in Quazar technology and the reason we have managed to go undetected by the Authoritarians. Go ahead, ask him yourself.”

  As Regan held the communicator up, the small screen flickered on and displayed a head shot of Nexus in a sultry state of pleasure inside a sky-mobile. His shoulder length black hair clumped in a greasy mess, while his face winced with deranged pleasure.

  Regan said, “Nexus, there’s someone here who wants to speak to you.”

  Nexus’s detumescent eyes looked at his fixed mobile communicator, and he lifted a red-haired hooker up from his lap. Her face was smudged with lipstick as she glanced past the camera.

  “Good damn it, I almost had you there!” the hooker moaned.

  “Shut it, bitch. Yes boss, what is it?” Nexus asked.

  “Tell Mister Carl here what you need for tomorrow. He seems to be at a loss for words.”

  Nexus looked in to the camera and Carl. “Take a beating, can you Carl? You must be quite a man to withstand the persuasive approach of Timmy. Thing is, I need to know who and where the exchange is being made. We must be able to locate all the chips involved so we can read their whereabouts and personal information. We wouldn’t want to walk into someone who is being tagged by the Authoritarians. See, we have the technology to read what the Authoritarians are thinking and doing. In fact, our military training enables us to read anyone on the planet, their whereabouts, history, every little detail, so be a good boy and let Mister Regan know exactly what he asks you. I think you’ll find he’s forgiving.”

  On the screen, the hooker’s arm stroked at Nexus’s cheek distractingly.

  “Quit brown-nosing me, bitch, and wait till I’m finished,” Nexus said. He glanced at the screen again. “Now Carl, I know you’ll pull through this minor incident if you’ll just talk. It’s as easy as that.” Nexus grinned, and his eyes shaped with salacious sleazy. “Boss, I’ll communicate later, after the beehive has been honeyed.” He reached for the camera and turned it off.

  Regan flipped the communicator closed and held it up for Timmy to take, which he did without a word.

  “So, Carl,” Regan said, “what’s it to be? Will you tell me all I need to know right now, or will you endure a gruelling, painstaking, tour de force in torture before you tell me what I need to know?” Timmy paced behind Regan as he spoke. “Now the human mind is a fragile thing. When it begins to experience something that harms it in any way, it usually submits to whatever will stop it. You see neurons, the key electrical force that governs everything we feel, touch and think, in fact everything that consciousness allows us to experience, will carry pain around your head, when we get started, which will beg your mind to stop resisting.”

  Timmy pulled a small implement with a crafted bronze handle from his pocket and held it to Carl’s eyes.

  Regan continued. “The pain inflicted by this device will overcome your rational thinking, because the neurons I’m going to fire will scream in your head to just tell Regan what he wants to know, as they carry your pain around. The mind and body cannot withstand what I am about to throw at you.” Regan smiled.

  “Meet my McGovern. It’s what I call it. My tool of pain,” Timmy said. He pushed a button on the underside of the handle.

  A razor-thin, red laser knife emitted from the handle, six inches in length.

  Regan said, “Carl, you are my gangster number one, my current top threat. When you enter someone’s territory, you must be able to fend for yourself or the local talent, in this case me, will just kill you. Last chance before I set him on you. And believe me, he is extraordinarily good at firing those neurons for me.”

  Timmy waved the knife in front of his eyes. The heat of the laser blade singed Carl’s eyebrows.

  He tried to jerk his head away. “Okay, I’ll tell you!” Carl said. A grin crept onto his face. Gruffly, he said, “The deal is going down up your arse.” He tried to laugh but it hurt too much. What came out was a half-hearted attempt and a cough.

  Regan nodded to Timmy and said, “I will beat this fight from you fool.”

  Timmy walked behind Carl, gripped his wrist, and sliced five fingers from his right hand.

  Carl screamed in pain, and the chair rocked as he tried to wiggle free.

  The laser cauterized the cuts as his fingers dropped to the floor, leaving sickly burnt stumps where they once were attached.

  Timmy picked up the index finger then walked in front of Carl. “Pull your finger out,” he said, as he dropped it into his lap. Timmy leaned close to Carl and quietly said, “Tell us what we want, or something else is going missing.”

  The kill was within sight for Timmy. His patience had paid off.

  Must block out the pain! Carl thought. Must hold strong!

  All his life Carl had been bad, but nothing compared to this dragon, this creature of hate, this poison of society that infected like an incurable instigating seed. Carl hoped the Authoritarians would make Regan’s demise as painful as his own, before extinguishing his lights for good.

  “Now Carl, what do you want to tell us?” Regan asked again, still sitting with his legs crossed.

  “I want to tell you,” Carl said, dripping with sweat and pain, “that tomorrow night the exchange will happen at your mum’s place. She communicated with me earlier.” He winced. “She said your father was a dickless, good for nothing ass who couldn’t hit the spot even when she opened herself up and pointed straight at it.” He slipped in and out of consciousn
ess. His puffed head rolled to one side, his desire to live no more. He barely clung to life, like a man clung to a weed on the edge of mountainous drop.

  Regan stared at him like a statue, then sniggered with an evil that would scare the soul of Lucifer himself. “I can see you are a hard man, Carl. I can see you have a strong breaking point. But I’m almost there.” He nodded to Timmy again.

  Timmy lowered himself to one knee, and with a swift clean strike, sliced Carl’s feet off above the ankles.

  Carl screamed with spasmodic movement in his chair.

  Regan shouted over his screams, “Carl, I can wait for you to wake up, and I will keep you alive until I get what I want. Your choice. I know you can hear me.”

  Timmy picked Carl’s left foot up and shook the wiring from the ankle, then threw it on Carl’s convulsing lap. He sneered. “You’ve put your foot in it now, Carl.”

  Carl dropped his cauterized legs down on the floor. His stumps pressed into the rust and filth, and he jerked them back up, screaming in agony. Water dripped from the smoking amputations.

  Carl never thought it would end like this.

  “Carl, listen to me,” Regan said. “All you’ve got to do is tell me where and who. Easy.”

  Carl writhed with pain and held his legs up off the floor.

  “The next piece I’ll take from you will change you forever. Tell me now, where and when,” Regan said.

  Carl’s head lolled this way and that. His eyes opened and closed as his mind slipped in and out.

  “Carl, an answer is all I want.” Regan moved closer to him. “All I want Carl. Come on, give it to me.”

  Regan gave Timmy another nod, ordering him to take another piece of Carl’s body.

  Timmy lifted Carl’s head and threatened the laser blade at his face. “Carl, this is going between your legs if you don’t tell us what we want to know.”

  He lowered the knife and moved it between Carl’s thighs. His legs smelt of burnt flesh and his face was beaded in bloody sweat. Carl looked down. “Please stop… please.”