05 - Changeling

by Chris Kubasik - (ebook by Undead)

  * * *

  Peter screamed.

  He shouted.

  He staggered and danced down the street.

  When he was thirty meters from the Crusader headquarters, he laughed and yelled, “Bear! I wish I could find me some soft-fleshed faggots, three or four of ’em to make it fair, to give me a good fight! I can’t stand the soft folk anymore. All mushy and wet when you cut ’em!”

  A thick wall of brick topped with wire surrounded the complex. At the center of the compound was a smooth, sterile-looking building three stories high. It reminded him of people, smooth people, pure humans, needing everything clean and featureless and as boring as death. He noticed several narrow slits for gunners built into a stone facade on the roof of the building.

  He laughed again.

  A spotlight snapped on from a tower at the corner of the compound. The spot quickly found him, washing over him and creating a glowing disk three meters in diameter.

  Peter stopped and stared down at the ground, as if confused by the light. Then he knelt and touched the ground, carefully, like a drunken scientist suddenly fascinated by a flower.

  “Hey, drekhead!” someone from the tower shouted. “Slot it!”

  Peter looked up and around, looking for angels that surrounded him. He staggered toward the tower from which the light shone. The spotlight followed him, making Peter stop in his tracks to look down again. He took two steps forward. The light followed. He took three steps to the right. He was a child who has just discovered his shadow.

  “Looks like you’re having fun,” said Liaison from just outside the edge of the light.

  “I AM!” he screamed. “Cause I hate soft, stupid flesh!”

  He danced around the street, leading the light on a merry chase, stopping suddenly sometimes, trying to confuse it.

  “SLOT IT OUT OF HERE NOW!” The voice boomed from a loudspeaker.

  “Who is that?” Peter yelled.

  “LEAVE THE AREA!”

  “Are you a softie? You got that soft flesh I love to squoosh?”

  A few guards poked their heads over the top of the wall.

  “Can I scrag him?” one shouted.

  “NO!” came the loudspeaker voice.

  Another voice shouted, “We’re going to have enough trouble with Byrne. Let him buzz off.”

  Peter pointed at one of the men on the wall. “Are you a coward? Are you? You a coward? Come on! Come down and fight me!”

  The men scowled at him, but didn’t budge.

  “Fraggin’ cowards. Afraid to take on a troll unless you can do it by shooting me down with your fancy guns. You fraggers! I’ll take four of you at once. That’s right. Four of you.”

  The men looked at one another.

  “Five!” Peter shouted. “I’ll show you fraggin’ wastes of carbon who should be running things. Or are you too busy pulling on each other back there?”

  The heads dropped down behind the wall. There was a moment of loud arguing, and then the gate unlocked.

  “Bye,” said Liaison.

  As the gate opened, it revealed eight guards. Three of them held rifles pointed at Peter.

  “Hey!” said Peter, laughing and raising his arms. One of the men, apparently the leader, smiled at Peter.

  He held a tape recorder up in front of him. “You want to fight?”

  “Yeah!”

  “You sure you want to fight?”

  “Sure I’m sure, drekbrain.”

  “Just because it’s fun, right?”

  “Right. ’Course, I won’t mind mashing your soft little pink heads into little pink pudding. But that’s just me.”

  The leader switched off the tape recorder and handed it to one of the men with a rifle. “No weapons. Just hand to hand.”

  “Sure. Whatever.” Thank the spirits, Peter thought.

  The leader nodded to two of the men without rifles. They walked up to Peter and frisked him. They were good at their job. “Clean,” one said, finally.

  “All right,” said the leader, drawing something out of his pocket. “Five on one. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Great.”

  Peter saw each of the men place studded knuckles on his hands. “Hey, wait a minute…”

  “Say what, chummer?”

  “You get those.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t get nothing.”

  “Right, and you’re not going to get nothing. You don’t want this to be to easy, do you?”

  “What do you mean?” Peter said, stalling for time. He was almost certain, but not positive, he could still take the guards on. But maybe if he kept them talking long enough, Liaison would be back out with the data and he could skip the whole thing.

  “I mean, you’re a big strong troll. We’re just puny ‘softs,’ right?”

  “Right. But…”

  They were on him with a quick rush.

  Though Peter moved quickly, his opponents worked well as a team, cutting off a possible dodge to either side. A pain sliced at his shoulder, and in that instant he remembered Breena hadn’t healed him yet. A sudden dread passed through him.

  He moved to the right and shoved himself forward, hoping to bowl over the guard that charged toward him.

  He and the guard crashed into each other, but Peter had mass on his side. He hurled himself into the man and slammed him down onto the snow-covered pavement.

  Peter tried to keep his feet free of the man, but tripped and stepped into the guard’s groin. The man howled, and Peter stumbled low to the ground for a few steps.

  In that time the other guards had gathered around him and were slamming their fists into his back. He tried to twist away from the blows, but he ran short of maneuvering room and the guards nailed several punches into his spine. A sharp pain ran up and down his back, and for a moment he couldn’t see.

  Their studded knuckles weren’t just metal. They also had some kind of electrical shock. Peter had never seen anything like them before. His vision cleared just as he slammed into the ground. He brought up his hands to block his fall, but his palms slid across the snow and his face crashed into the pavement. He rolled over quickly, but the guards came in fast to batter his abdomen and face with swift kicks. The damage was light, but Peter knew it would take its toll. Was this really the best plan available?

  He swung his arms wide (like making angels in the snow, he thought crazily) and smashed the ankles of the guards with his fists. They fell onto the street with loud grunts. While they rolled on the ground, Peter scrambled up. Lifting his head, he came face to face with the first guard he’d knocked over, who was also just getting up.

  The guard swung his fist up again, but this time Peter blocked the blow with one hand and punched the man in the jaw with the other. The guard staggered back several meters and fell onto his back.

  Peter whirled around to face off against the rest of the guards. He’d taken his blows, but now he felt in the spirit of the occasion. Even his pain had dissipated, dispelled by a rush of adrenaline.

  The guards got to their feet, but then stood swaying a bit. Peter balled his hands into fists. A warm pleasure ran through his thoughts. He knew he could take the fraggers who’d shot up Byrne, and take them up close.

  “Peter. There’s a problem,” Liaison said softly to his right.

  “You’re not fragging kidding,” Peter screamed. He jumped a bit, and the guards took it as fear. They stood a bit straighter.

  Peter grunted. He pulled back slightly, cutting around to me right to keep Liaison out of earshot of the guards. He moved slowly enough that they didn’t chase him.

  “There’s no way into the building. The door is locked and has a combo lock on it. There’s no way to pick it with all the guards walking around the compound. They won’t see me, but they’ll see the exposed electronics when I pull the face plate off.”

  Peter grunted again. “Just wait!” he shouted at the guards. Then he added softly, “For someone to go inside.”.

&n
bsp; “I did. Almost everyone outside the building is watching the fight, though some of them are still watching the perimeter. Everyone inside is probably watching the fight over cameras.”

  Peter glanced up at the walls of the compound. Guards stood on the gunnery platforms and watched the proceedings through barbed wire.

  “And I don’t think we’ve got time for someone to get bored and wander back into the building.”

  The sound of chopper blades filled the air. Peter looked up and saw a Stallion flying in from the north. Probably the one from Byrne returning after the search.

  “Right!” Peter screamed. “I’ll show you pervos just like my brother showed you up in Byrne.”

  The guards all lowered their fists.

  “What are you doing?” Liaison whispered harshly.

  “What?” demanded Peter of the guards.

  The leader raised his hand and pointed at Peter. “Your brother was at Byrne?”

  “You bet. He wasted a half dozen of you pervos!”

  The two guards by the door raised their rifles. Peter braced himself for the impact of the bullet. The leader shouted, “Wait! You! Get your hands up.”

  “What?” Peter said stupidly.

  “Get your hands up, you trog!”

  Peter raised his hands. “Aren’t we going to fight?”

  “No. Where’s your brother now?”

  Peter laughed. “I’m not going to tell you that. He’s my…”

  “Shut up! Where is he?”

  “I told you, I’m not going to tell you. Come on,” he said, and lowered his hands and balled them into fists. “Let’s fight.”

  Each of the guards with rifles fired at the ground by Peter’s feet.

  “Hey!”

  “Tell me now.”

  “BRING HIM INSIDE. WE’LL STRAP HIM.”

  “Get your hands back up, and move in through the gate.”

  Peter did.

  24

  They led him at gunpoint to the door of the building, where the leader punched in the keypad combination. The man blocked Peter’s view, but he hoped Liaison could see it.

  The door opened and Peter entered. With luck Liaison also made it through with the group.

  The men in the building glared at him with cold expressions.

  They led him into a small room with unpainted cinder-block walls. In the middle of the room was a large chair equipped with thick straps. On a table to the left rested several machines that Peter couldn’t identify.

  Second, third, and fourth thoughts about the wisdom of his plan began to fill Peter’s mind.

  “Sit down.”

  With feigned confusion, Peter asked, “Why?”

  “Spirits! You are stupid, aren’t you? Do it because I said so!”

  “But why…?”

  One of the guards slammed the butt of his rifle into Peter’s back. Peter’s spine was getting quite sore. He decided to comply, and hoped to stall in the chair.

  Once he was seated, several guards set about wrapping the straps around his wrists and ankles, his waist and his neck. Peter thought of the hospital, and for an instant he thought of the guards as the orderly.

  Helplessness seeped through his body.

  “Give me the box,” said the leader.

  One of the guards pulled a rotting wooden box off the table. A hand crank rose from its top, and two cables coiled out from something that looked like a generator.

  “This one is a bit old-fashioned, but we’ve found it does wonders for trogs like you.” One guard wrapped a cable around Peter’s neck just above the strap, another wrapped the second cable around his right wrist. The bare cables felt cold and smooth against his skin.

  Peter realized they had tied him to a primitive taser.

  The leader held the box in his right hand and took the handle of the crank in his left, then began to turn the crank very slowly. Peter watched the magnets in the generator also move very slowly, and as they moved around he felt a tingle at his wrist and around his neck. His neck and arm muscles felt warm and frozen and prickly. It was gentle, but threatening.

  He didn’t want the torture to go on.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me questions?”

  “Not yet. First I want to hurt you, like your brother hurt my men.”

  “It wasn’t me that hurt them.” He felt an edge of pleading in his voice, and was ashamed of it.

  “And I wasn’t one of the guys who got hurt. It doesn’t matter.”

  Something in the man’s words got caught in Peter’s mind, and for an instant he thought about Thomas. But before he could pursue the notion, the leader turned the handle quickly around. Peter’s back arched as the jolt shot through his spine. His fingers spread out and became so taut that he thought they might snap off his hand. His neck strained at the strap holding him down. He realized he was choking himself, but could not control his actions.

  All he could hear was the whirring of the rusted hand crank and the sound of his own choked breath.

  The leader stopped.

  “Pretty impressive for low tech, huh?”

  Peter gasped for air, unable to answer. “Please…”

  The crank turned again, and once more Peter felt his body straining against his bonds. He imagined the muscles in his neck bulging out through his flesh, bloated and ruined.

  The leader relented once more. Peter went slack in the chair.

  “Now, what did we just learn? You don’t speak unless I ask you a question. Got it?”

  Peter wanted to answer, but it was as if his face were too far away to make his mouth work.

  “One more lesson…”

  Once more the crank turned. This time his arm began to shake uncontrollably. When the cranking stopped, his muscles did not. The arm kept shaking and shaking.

  “When I ask you something, you answer. Got it?”

  “Y… y… yes,” Peter stuttered out. It took immense effort to speak the words. He didn’t know how they expected him to answer their questions like this. A thought worked its way back through his head. Maybe they didn’t expect him to. Maybe they could punish him more for failing.

  “Now, where is your brother?”

  He knew he shouldn’t just answer, he had to stall for Liaison. But if he kept lying… ?

  The door opened.

  Thank Bear, he thought. A reprieve. A moment of distraction.

  With great effort he turned his face toward the newcomer.

  Pig-face.

  The man’s face was harsh and determined and weary. He smiled as he looked to the other men in the room. A true sadness passed among the assembly, a silent respect for their fallen comrades.

  Peter thought for sure he was dead now.

  He felt something press against his boot.

  He glanced down. The strap around his left ankle slowly slid out of its buckle.

  Liaison.

  He started to breathe comfortably.

  “I hear you’ve got the brother of the troll.”

  “That’s right,” said the leader.

  Pig-face stepped forward.

  Peter felt Liaison working on the other ankle strap.

  “All right, you,” Pig-face began, but stopped short.

  Peter turned his head away from Pig-face.

  “Wait a minute…”

  Pig-face grabbed Peter’s head with both his hands and jerked Peter’s face toward him. The motion came abruptly, and it felt as if the man had snapped the muscles of Peter’s neck. His neck shook uncontrollably, feeling as though it would never stop. He wanted to cry out, but he could not control his tongue.

  “This is the trog.”

  “What?”

  “This is the same troll. This is HIM! Same duster, same trog face. Same broken horn. This isn’t his brother. This is the bastard.”

  In one quick motion Pig-face had his pistol out and the barrel pointed at Peter’s head.

  “Good bye, trog.”

  A spray of autofire appeared out of thin air, riddli
ng Pig-face’s chest with red blotches.

  “You’re up, Prof,” Liaison screamed. His Predator also appeared from thin air and landed on his lap. He realized that in the last few moments Liaison had freed his left hand.

  The guards, startled by the invisible assailant, gawked stupidly for a moment before pulling out their guns and looking around. None of them noticed the gun in Peter’s lap.

  The guards fired in the direction of the shots, but, of course, Liaison had scrambled over to the other side of the room by that time.

  Peter grabbed the gun and began to fire just as Liaison cut a line of lead across the chests of the guards. The guards returned fire. Peter, still trapped by the neck, waist, and one arm, had no way to dodge. Three slugs hit him in the chest and knocked the air out of him. For a moment he was aware only of the sound of a great deal of gunfire.

  When he looked up, all the guards were on the ground, some dead, some dying.

  “Come on,” Liaison said. She worked the strap around his neck and waist, while Peter clumsily took the strap off his right wrist. Liaison kept saying over and over again, “Breena, Breena, Breena,” in a soft, reverent, and hopeful voice.

  An alarm bell rang.

  “Frag!” she shouted.

  “It’s all right,” Peter said, still so winded from the shots that he had absolutely no idea what was going on, let alone whether everything was all right or not. “My chest,” he wheezed.

  “Oh, that does look bad,” said Liaison.

  “Good. I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

  “Ready?”

  “No. Let’s go.”

  “Open the door for me. I’ll duck across the hall.”

  Peter opened the door, but kept behind it. He waited a beat, then stuck his head out and took pot shots at guards coming up from the front of the building. The guards turned their guns on him, then moved up the hall when Peter ducked back into the room. As they advanced, Liaison opened fire, catching them all off guard. She cut them down, all the while shouting, “Now! Now!”

  Peter rushed out of the torture room and down the hall. He knew Liaison ran alongside him, because every few moments a spray of bullets appeared from mid-air and slammed guards against the corridor walls.

  They reached the front door. “It’s locked,” she said. A key pad identical to the one outside was on the wall to the left of the door. “Frag!”