by John Shirley
“So they call you Razor?” the guy was asking. His nameplate said CANNER.
“Steppin’ Razor,” the teen had corrected him. “Who the fuck are you, and what the fuck you want?”
“I’m here to offer you a choice. Jail or RRTS Field Recruitment. We’ve got a deal with the courts, boy. Word is you’re good with weapons. Got nerve. But you’re using it all wrong.” Canner’s eyes had glinted; other than for that, no expression. Just…waiting. Watching and waiting. Never taking his eyes off the boy—who would someday be a man called Destroyer.
“That right? Fuck you.”
“That’s it—that’s the all-wrong part. That ‘fuck you’ bullshit. Man doesn’t get far that way. Serve your country, you serve yourself.”
“My country? You motherfuckers, what I heard, serve UAC more than the country. You’re Privatized. You ain’t no real soldiers for the country.”
“Country uses us and UAC does, too—UAC’s interests are the same as the country’s. You want to go to jail?”
“I ain’t afraid of jail.”
“I didn’t ask you if you were afraid. I know you ain’t. That’s why we want you. I asked you if you wanted to go there, dumb-ass.”
“Fuck no. ’Course I don’t want to go.”
“Then get up out of bed. You sign these papers I got with me”—he waved a manila folder—“and you’re in my custody. We can tell that cop outside the door to go to hell. Then me and the MPs escort you to Training Center Thirty-two. Sign the paper, ‘Steppin’, and get up—you don’t let a little wound like that slow you down. Then you join my cadre.”
“Training center. Cadre. Yeah right. You mean boot camp. Pure hell, that’s what I heard.”
“You can’t take a little hell? No, that’s wrong—it’s a lotta hell. So what? It’s a challenge, boy.”
The challenge was there, in Canner’s eyes. But there was something more…
Understanding. This guy had grown up without a father, too—“Steppin’ Razor” knew it intuitively.
But he didn’t trust easily. “Why’s your ‘gang’ better than mine, man? ’Cause it’s all gangs. Some are big, and they got uniforms made in a factory. Some are small and they make their own uniforms. But it’s all gang soldiers. We call our country the ’hood, that’s all. I can be a ‘general’ in this army, man. I’d never make no general in yours. And I get myself killed in yours as easily as in mine—maybe more easy. Why I want to do that? For medals? I’d rather have a hot car. And bitches.”
He had the satisfaction of seeing some surprise in Canner’s eyes, then. Most of his recruits probably didn’t think much.
Finally Canner nodded. “Something in what you say. But there’s…levels of being a warrior, son. I can give you a kind of training you’ll never get down here. Achievement of a kind you’ll never get anywhere else. And I’ll be there for you. I’ll make it hell for you in boot camp—but afterward, we’ll go on a training mission together. I’ll be there, too. Anytime you want advice—you come to me. And that’s a guarantee, son.”
Ten long seconds. Then the young man who would one day become “Destroyer” said, “You got a pen?”
“A pen?”
“How else I going to sign?”
That was a long time ago…
He wondered where Canner was now. And what he’d think of this mission. Of Olduvai. Probably he’d shake his head, and say, “That’s a UAC mission for you. Just do it and get your black ass home.”
Only, home is a long way from here, Destroyer thought bitterly.
Destroyer looked at his watch, then at the door to the lab. Where the hell was Portman? He waited a few moments longer, then yelled into the semidarkness of the lab: “Portman!”
No response. He sighed, went into the lab, scanning the room as best he could with limited visibility. Found the bathroom door and knocked. Hammering on the door with his fist, shouting:
“Portman, how long does it take for a goddamn—”
He broke off, aware of a smell like rancid vinegar and something coming at him—he didn’t have time to level his gun before being jerked off his feet, yanked him violently into the darkness.
Destroyer found himself on his back, the wind knocked out of him, staring up at a gaping, salivating mouth big enough to swallow his whole head in one easy snap. Big the thing was, bipedal, every muscle outlined in unhealthy pink-and-blue tissue; bulky, without eyes—but with plenty of teeth and claws. A manacle on the thing’s leg with a broken chain trailing from it…
All these impressions came to Destroyer in the fraction of a second it took him to see his enemy and roll aside, trying to get his chaingun.
He tried for his knife, but the hulking mutant swatted it away—the blade skittered across the floor, fell with a clink into the holding pit.
The creature’s slashing claws just missed him as he rolled, leaving a row of gouge troughs in the floor, torn-up tiles flying like tossed playing cards as Destroyer slammed a kick into the creature’s inside right thigh, toppling the beast—even as it batted his chaingun from his hand, the heavy-duty machine gun crashing against the wall.
The monster scrambled to its feet as Destroyer sucked air into his tortured lungs.
…and kept the roll going, got his feet under him and at the same time grabbed the chain attached to its leg, putting his weight, his motion, and his muscle into it as he jerked the monster off its clawed feet. The chain wrapped around Destroyer’s wrist.
The chaingun was almost in reach—Destroyer grabbed for it, missed—then yelped as the beast leapt up and wrenched the chain on its leg with tremendous force. He felt himself being flung, pitched through the air, tumbling, skidding, rolling, feeling the beast bounding over him, the two of them falling…
Into the holding pit. Falling, he grabbed at the gurney hoist—it snapped in his hands as he fell but broke his fall so he was able to land on his feet. Winded, half-stunned, he straightened up, confirming he was in the pit with the steel sides that Goat and Portman had found. Dark in here, just a little light coming from above.
Something was in the pit with him.
He could hear it breathing liquidly, growling deep within itself. It shuffled forward, and he saw that the hulking creature had fallen in with him.
Destroyer looked at the walls. Twenty feet or more up to the rim. No way he was getting out of here anytime soon. Not alive.
So this was it. He was going to finish his life fighting in a steel pit with a thing that was pure aggression…
Kind of fitting, really. He was just sorry that Canner, that cold-blooded son of a bitch, wasn’t here to see how well one of his men could die, when the time came.
Anytime you want advice—you come to me. And that’s a guarantee, son.
He knew what advice Canner would give him now. Sell your life dearly, son. If you can, take the miserable bastard down with you…and the gods of war will be waiting to give you the gang handshake in the next world…
The beast came closer, an enormous, fever-colored scabrous presence in the gloom; almost magnificent, monstrously Herculean, snarling, raising its claws as it prepared to meet its enemy head-on. It growled again—and, intuitively, Destroyer understood that growl:
One of us will die now.
“I see we speak the same language,” Destroyer said.
Pinky, at the secondary comm. console in the wormhole chamber, was staring at the screen trying to work out where Destroyer was. But Destroyer had evidently dropped his gun—the guncam was sending only a nondescript wall. Was that a little blood on the wall? That could be anywhere in the facility.
“Destroyer?” came Sarge’s voice, filtered, over the comm from the corridor near the special weapons lab. “Portman? Come in…”
Pinky wanted to be able to give Sarge some sense of where his men were—but Destroyer’s tracking blip was going in and out. Maybe…Carmack’s lab?
But maybe not. Hard to say for sure. The transmitter had been damaged. Chances were, Destroyer was dead.
And Portman, too.
“Lost Portman,” Pinky said, into the comm, “and all I’ve got from Destroyer is some kind of wall…”
In a steel-lined pit…
The big mutant charged and whipped out with a clawed fist, hammered Destroyer’s uplifted left arm hard—faster than he’d have thought so big a creature could be—and Destroyer staggered and fell, rolled, got his feet under him again, and lunged at his enemy, all his strength going into that assault, slamming his shoulder into the thing’s lower torso, making it stagger back into the wall.
Crack! High-voltage electricity making the thing howl, the pit strobing with the fat sparks, the monster lit up for a moment, roaring, quivering with the voltage, smoke rising from where its flesh fried on the metal wall. It shook, its jaws spastically opening and shutting, clacking—then it tore itself free, whimpered just once, lowered its head like a bull and came at him like a locomotive—
Destroyer laughed and ran at his enemy, screaming, “Pray for war, motherfucker!”
They met in the middle, the creature with more sheer bulk coming harder, lifting Destroyer off his feet, even as he dug his fingers deeply into the wet places where its eyes should be, sank his teeth into the place that should’ve been its neck so that he tasted its tarry blood, and head-butted it so hard his scalp split open like that orange Mac had pitched to him…
Until the two of them crashed into the wall, the electricity searing through both of them now, as they tore flesh from each other’s bones in the death throes of shared electrocution.
Crashing white light, all consuming darkness, infinite journey to nowhere…and then…
Good job, son. Welcome to Valhalla.
Duke was sitting on a chair as Sam sewed up his wound. He was pretending it didn’t hurt as much as it did.
He was staring at the “imp” trapped in the nanowall. It’d gotten some of its strength back, was thrashing around, jet blood streaming between its teeth, foam dripping from the corners of its jaws, blood leaking from the edges of its eyes…
The creature thrashed and moaned.
“That’s why I don’t do nanowalls,” Duke said. He looked at the wound. Good, neat sewing. “Now that I’m dying,” he said gravely, “I want you to know I will accept mercy sex.”
“Sorry,” she said, bending to bite through a suture thread. “I’m afraid it missed the brachial artery. You’ll live.”
“Just my fuckin’ luck.”
Half a smile from her, then. Almost.
The lights flickered—off. On. Off and on. Duke and Sam looked up at the ceiling lights as they fluttered another time…and finally, almost reluctantly, decided to stay on for a while.
“Good,” Duke said dryly. “Because it’s not as if it wasn’t scary enough in here already.”
Sam grunted in agreement, and went over to the exam table, looked at the incisions she’d sawed into the dead imp’s chest.
Duke looked at the other imp trapped in the door. Almost felt sorry for it. Almost.
“Give me a hand here,” Sam said.
Duke turned to see Sam bent over the monster’s corpse on the gurney. She had a crowbar in her hand, was working on the thing’s chest. He sighed and went to help her pry it open. She used the crowbar, he used muscle, grabbing the two halves of the thing’s chest-exoskeleton, pulling them apart. Repugnant smells and fluid gushed and sputtered out, runneling over his hands, down his forearms.
This was not Duke’s ideal of a good first date.
They got the chest wide open—and Sam stared into it, mystified.
Duke didn’t look too close, himself. Sure he was tough—but he was a little squeamish about some things. “Jesus…you ever seen anything like it before?”
Sam nodded numbly. “Yes.”
Eleven
IN THE INFIRMARY’S observation room, a zipped-up body bag on a gurney was stirring. Whatever was inside was getting restless. The bag was squirming like a chrysalis just before the moth breaks out.
The body bag settled into stillness…
Then it suddenly lurched, the motion carrying it off the gurney, onto the floor with an ugly thump.
It lay still for another few moments—until an arm punched through the vinyl, at a place where the seams met in a corner; another arm ripped free.
And Goat, who’d been dead for some time, thrust his head out through the break. The whites of his eyes had gone red; the pupils were the color of dead flesh. His skin was like the imp’s—as if outer layers had been stripped away.
But it was Goat. Wriggling, ripping, climbing out of the body bag—insect from cocoon—getting to his feet, swaying, staggering to the glass wall between him and the two human beings who had no notion that he was there, that he was staring at them, that he wanted to shred their throats with his teeth…
Sam and Duke were staring into the imp’s pried-open chest.
“Look,” Sam was saying, her voice hoarse, “there’s a heart, lungs, liver, kidneys…”
“But…” Duke was trying to think his way out from under the conclusion that was threatening to settle on them both. “But like, dogs got kidneys, right? Pigs…pigs got kidneys…”
Sam shook her head. “See this scar? On the lower right side abdomen here…and this ligature, and stitching…” She swallowed, and looked at him. “It’s…had its appendix removed.”
He stared. “What are you saying? Are you saying…”
She nodded. Looked back at the imp, having difficulty accepting it herself. “It’s human.”
When she looked back at Duke again she saw him staring, suddenly pale, at the observation room behind her.
She turned to see Goat glowering balefully at them from the other side of the glass wall. Goat tilted his head and bared his teeth. His eyes were two embers glowing from the hollows of his skull.
Then he raised a hand to his forehead and made the sign of the cross.
“Oh my God,” she breathed.
Goat turned away…walked a few steps…Then turned and sprinted toward the window and rammed it with his head—the audible crunch of bone reached them and black blood ran down the glass.
Duke saw it then—a look in Goat’s eyes. Horror. Recognition. Despair. A mute entreaty…
And again Goat slammed his head on the glass. And again. Duke and Sam watching helplessly as Goat pounded his head on the glass, over and over until bone fragments flew and gray matter clumped on the transparent wall beside the blood, to ooze slowly down the glass. And at last—Goat collapsed. He shuddered and twitched, then lay still.
A second death. A final death.
It was a long moment before either Duke or Sam could speak. “He knew,” she said at last, softly. “He knew he was turning…”
Sam looked at the imp on the gurney as the realization struck her. “That thing didn’t butcher Willits—it is Willits.”
She turned to the imp in the nanowall. Walked toward it, suddenly on a mission. “We’ve got to keep it alive…”
Duke looked at her. Keep it alive? As far as Duke was concerned, that sentiment was totally baffling.
Once, in a faraway desert place, they’d been driving half the night in a big, six-wheeled armored vehicle, Sarge and Destroyer, Duke and Reaper and three other men. Sarge was driving—all three of those other guys were now dead. Red Morrison, Rolf Gestetburg, Lee Zhang. They had the bad luck to be in the rear of the ATV when the RPG hit just above the right rear fender.
One moment they were ribbing each other about flatulence and snoring, the next they were screaming as shrapnel cut them to pieces. Blown clear, Zhang lived about ten minutes and then blew out his own brains with his sidearm when he realized he was missing most of his lower half.
Upfront, Duke had been wounded, but got out in one piece. Sarge had been stunned by a spinning chunk of steel fender, was slumped over the steering wheel of the burning vehicle, vaguely aware of what was going on but unable to move. Reaper was out on the road, firing at the enemy—the insurgents cresting the dune on th
e east side of the road. They were skidding down the dune to kill any RRTS who’d survived the blast. Maybe torture them a while before they killed them, knowing these desert guerillas.
Destroyer grabbed Sarge under the arms, pulled him from the ATV just before it went up in a fireball.
All of them—even the enemy—were knocked flat by the secondary explosion. Reaper’s jacket caught fire; Duke had been stunned; Destroyer’s eyebrows had been burned off. He must have been a terrifying sight as he got to his feet, smoke rising from his brows as he stood over Sarge, firing his chaingun, mowing down the surprised insurgents. The guerillas had expected to find these outlander ’Privines’ without any fight left in them. Duke and Reaper opened up on the enemy on one side, Destroyer on the other.
Sarge had gotten movement back, some of the mist cleared—and looked up to see Destroyer towering over him like a giant statue, an ancient wonder of the world. Sarge was flat on his back and Destroyer was standing over him, boots planted to either side of his chest, ready to go down protecting his NCO.
When he’d run through the last bullet on that chaingun, he’d run through all the guerillas, too. Twelve of them were lying sprawled on the face of the dune, blood seeping into the yellow sand. Dead or dying.
Then Destroyer had tossed the gun aside, stepped back, and hunkered down, helped Sarge up. Sarge had tried to walk—and had collapsed. He’d sustained a pretty serious concussion.
Destroyer shrugged and picked Sarge up, only grunting once with effort, slung him over his shoulder, and carried him—a man who weighed as much as Destroyer himself—off down the road, toward the Marine outpost, seven miles away.
Now that, Sarge thought, was a real set of balls. Destroyer was a helluva damn soldier.
He remembered all this, thought all this, as he stared down into the holding pit, his gunlight picking out the two bodies on the floor, wrecked cadavers still smoking and bloody, barely recognizable: Destroyer and the monster he’d killed, locked in lethal, terminal embrace.