The Chop Shop

by Heffernan, Christopher

  Rick put a hand over his mouth as he coughed deeply, and a look of pain surfaced briefly on his face. “Okay, Ward, let me put it to you like this. These enhancements do not make superhumans. They'll die like anybody else, it's just a question of time. There's a limit to what we can do with technology. You're ex-army right? Think of this stuff as a force multiplier. This stuff would be wasted on a regular infantry unit. There's no point to it. Small unit actions, though? Now that's a different matter altogether. It's like putting special forces on acid.”

  Michael gave a sigh and leaned back against the van's interior. His eyes lingered on the four-pack of water bottles in the corner.

  “Thirsty? Here,” Megan said, ripping one from the plastic and handing it to him.

  He downed a quarter of it one go, before wiping his mouth on the back of a hand. “Let me backtrack a bit. These people hit a three vehicle motorcade the night before I got my flight here. Just six of them, and they killed a lot of people, bystanders mostly, but they cooked the guy in the limousine, too. He was a higher-up employee of the company I work for.

  “One of the unit took a burst of automatic fire to the chest, and then got back up again. These were rifle rounds, went straight through his vest. I followed and shot him multiple times with my sidearm. There wasn't much blood loss, and the pain didn't seem to bother him much, either. He only went down when he fell behind the others during their escape. Somebody must have decided he was a liability if captured, so they detonated his suicide vest.”

  “It's part of the package, an enhancement to the chest cavity,” Danny said, gesturing with his hand. “Think of it like the self-sealing fuel tanks on aircraft. It'll clog open wounds in the chest and stem the bleeding, but they'll still die eventually. Auto injections will numb most of the pain and allow the combatant to continue on for long enough to get medical attention.”

  Rick nodded. “These people aren't invincible. Dangerous, yes, but not invincible. Put them against a company of infantry in a straight up firefight and they'll still lose, there just won't be much of the company left afterwards. The problem is that you're always going to be engaging on their terms and strengths. Small unit actions is what this entire project was designed for.”

  “Want to tell me how you lose something so dangerous? If Eratech are fitting out private military units with this stuff, then the Chinese will have their hands on it by now.”

  He heard the pitter-patter of rain on the van's roof.

  “Couldn't tell you even if we wanted to. That's outside our knowledge. Our economy is tanking; Eratech brings a lot of revenue into the country, and they have a lot of clout with the government as well. Nobody wants to upset them, because they could easily up and relocate to one of the African countries. They're keeping the technology to themselves, at least for now.

  “Besides, it's not like they're struggling for money. They rake it in, and they have a stronger hand just equipping their own personal security forces with it,” Megan said.

  “And if somebody in my station drags in a carcass rigged with this stuff and puts it on a platter for the world to see?”

  “That would be regrettable, but that's a concern for us, not you. Nobody here wants it falling into the hands of the Chinese or the Africans. The world's resources are getting depleted at a faster rate every day, World War Three should have settled this, but it didn't, and there are still enough weapons for round four, and if it happens, don't you think it's better that we win? Can you trust the Chinese? The Africans? At least with us it's the devil you know,” Megan said.

  Chapter 9.

  They walked along the street, eating their burgers out of paper wrappers. Industrial pollution passed overhead, and he saw himself in the puddles he walked through, more haggard than he remembered, and thinner. The blue skies darkened and blurred into purple at the horizon. Lights turned the streets a shade of orange.

  He felt cold and miserable, and every step he took was a reluctant one.

  “I know that look,” Megan said, breath turning to mist. She buttoned up the top of her coat and moved in to lean against him as they walked. “You don't want to go back to England.”

  “Am I really that easy to read?”

  “Like an open book. I've barely known you two days, but you just let everything show on your face. You're terrible at hiding what you're thinking about, so don't ever take up poker.”

  “I'll keep it in mind.” The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as felt her body heat.

  They dumped the remains of their food into an overflowing bin, and the wind knocked it straight off the top of the pile and into the road.

  “But if it makes you feel any better, I'd know anyway. I've seen that look before; my husband's in the army,” she said, stroking the ring on her finger with a thumb. “He hates the job and loves it at the same time. Every time his leave is up, he gets that same look in his eyes. He's not the sort of guy you'd expect to get shaken up like that, but it always seems to get to him. Never says anything, either, just turns around and walks away. It feels like we never talk as much as we should. Marriage on autopilot.”

  Megan sighed. The sky turned that little bit darker and the lights that little bit lighter. His eyes ached from the shades of orange and brown.

  “It's hard. Everything is hard these days.”

  “What's it like over there?”

  “In England?”

  She nodded.

  “A mess. Most of the country is uninhabitable. Scotland is mostly gone, except for Glasgow, and everything east of France, Italy and the Nordic countries is a wasteland until you hit occupied India. What's left of Europe is a dump.”

  Megan bit her lip. “Sounds bad.”

  “I guess it is, but when you live amongst it for long enough, you stop noticing. It becomes ordinary, just another run down street, or another house that's laid undisturbed for a decade, complete with the skeletons of the occupants.

  “It's easy to forget what the sky looks like under the plate, but even when you're on top, there's so much pollution it always seems like night time anyway.”

  “My husband was a company commander in thirty-seven during the second Korean War, and now he's commanding a battalion and faced with the possibility of killing his friends and family just because they live in a different state.”

  Neither of them said anything for a while. The streets seemed deserted, and the buildings grew taller until they were enveloped on all sides by concrete and brick, leaving the sky as the only piece of natural scenery.

  “Do you really think they're crazy enough to fight another war? A civil one? This is one of the few places left that isn't destroyed. The people here don't know how lucky they are.”

  She shrugged. “That's what they said before, wasn't it? ’There's too much at stake, nobody wants to risk complete destruction, people don't want to die, the politicians will sort it out'. But the politicians started the wars anyway, and look where we are now.”

  “Stupid.”

  “What can you do? Nothing. Nobody really has a say in what happens, it's all about keeping your head down and praying that you come out of it alive. What time is your flight out of here?”

  Michael checked his watch. “I'm heading out at five. Rick is going to drive me back.”

  “I'll drive you. It'll be quicker.”

  She walked him to the shopping area. Restaurants pumped the smell of freshly cooked meals into the air, and Michael stopped by a pillar, observing a remote-controlled chain gun mounted high above his head. It tracked left and right, ammunition feed stretching as it pivoted away from the mount. A green light flashed every five seconds on its camera.

  “What are you going to do when you get back?” Megan said.

  He hesitated for a moment, still looking at the chain gun, before answering. “Maybe I can hunt the group down. I know what to look for now. They'll leave footprints behind somewhere, it's just a case of finding them. I'd rather drop the case, but my commander won't let it lie. There's a lo
t he's not telling me.”

  “Somebody paid a lot of money to get you access to this information, major bribes. They wouldn't do that if they didn't think they had a higher pay off down the line. Your commander's dropped you in over your head. Good luck, you'll need it. And be careful. I mean it. One moment of hesitation is all it takes to cost you your life, and I've seen too many people end up dead. They never know it's coming until that last second, and then it's too late.”

  He nodded. “Thanks for your help, I'll see you around.”

  Megan smiled. “You won't, but all the same, see you.”

  She tightened her scarf around the neck, gave him a nod and faded into the crowds, where the hordes of people swallowed her up.

  Michael went into a discount bookshop where the dollar prices meant nothing to him. They carried books like Black Widows: Deadly Serial Killers of America, How to Think Like A Genius, and The Fatties' Guide to Fast Slimming, with endorsements from no name reviewers and celebrities he'd never heard of.

  He moved onto the next aisle, stopping dead in his tracks as another book caught his eye. Michael's throat turned dry. He stared at the cover, made from a composite of different photos to reflect British forces fighting in Berlin, and unified by a few coloured filters. His eyes drifted up to the blood red title.

  He recognised the tank, recalled the endless burnt out husks he'd walked alongside on the roads, and the charred bodies of the crew members who hadn't been able to escape before they died.

  The cover claimed it was a best-seller, but he didn't know if it was true or not. He plucked it off the shelf and flipped it over to look at the back cover, then wished he hadn't. Michael looked around, waiting for the businessman in the aisle to move onto the next. He let it slip from his hand and kicked it out of the sight beneath the shelf.

  Sweat glistened on the palms of his hands, reflecting the lights above. He wiped them on the front of his coat and glanced over his shoulder to make sure nobody had seen him. The stabbing pain in his chest remained.

  A young employee stopped him near the end of the aisle, long hair draped over his shoulders. “Hey, man. Are you sick? You look like you're gonna puke.”

  “I'm fine.”

  The man shrugged. “Well, if you pop, make sure it's outside. I'm always the one that has to clean that shit up, and it's a real bitch to get out of the carpet.”

  He went back to stacking shelves.

  In the far corner of the shop was a cardboard bargain bin filled with packets of sweets. Something dark moved amongst them, disappearing for an instant. The cockroach reappeared with two others. A security alarm screeched outside, and then screaming. The other customers began to move towards the front of the shop, faster and faster.

  “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” the employee muttered to himself, as he trembled.

  “What's happening?” Michael said

  The man blinked, looked at him for an instant and ran to the back of the shop. He passed through the storeroom door, and the lock clicked shut.

  Michael moved to the entrance, only to find his path blocked by a dozen people standing in the doorway. A burst of automatic fire sounded from somewhere nearby, sharp and intense. People ran through the terminal in the opposite direction, and one woman dropped her purse. Hundred dollar bills scattered across the floor, but she didn't stop, and neither did anybody else.

  The flashing green light on the remote weapon station turned red. It jerked on its pivot, aligned its barrel with some of the crowds and spat bullets at them. Recoil shook the weapon and its linkless feed, and empty casings ejected from the side as half-inch rounds splattered people over the floors.

  Blood ran like spilt water, and people screamed, fighting each other to get out of the way, sometimes stumbling when they brought others down with them, too slow to avoid the bullets.

  Two marines returned fire, blasting chunks out of the pillar before finally damaging the weapon's ammunition feed. It ceased to shoot. Gunshots sounded from other parts of the terminal.

  “This way, quickly now. Move,” one marine said, beckoning to the group huddled in the bookshop.

  They pushed for the right to be first. Machine gun fire chewed them up, and bullets shattered the shop windows as somebody cried out. Both marines went down. Michael stumbled behind one of the shelves.

  He breathed so quickly a wave of nausea overcame him. He found his hands shaking and reached instinctively with one for the gun that wasn't holstered on his hip. A distant explosion sounded outside, and he tensed up, knuckles turning white as he gripped part of the shelf and leaned out just enough to see into the terminal.

  A pair of men in casual clothes and body armour strolled along, stepping over bodies and puddles of blood without care. Another three followed behind. One of the marines was still alive and tried to reach for his rifle.

  The group's leader pinned him to the ground with a foot. He pointed his rifle at the man's head, waiting for him to realise what was happening, and then he pulled the trigger. Brains dribbled out onto the floor from the fist-sized exit wound.

  Michael backed away deeper into the store. He knocked a book off the nearest shelf with his elbow. Three sets of footsteps came towards the bookshop. Shards of glass cracked beneath their feet. He crawled on his hands and knees towards the checkout counter, and then beneath it, trying to steady his breathing.

  Somebody fired off a few rounds through one of the shelves, and shreds of paper exploded in the air like a party-popper. Michael peeled away a strip of electrical tape holding a snub-nosed revolver to the underside of the counter.

  He pushed the cylinder out, counted the bullets and eased it back into place. The men kicked each shelf over in turn, and books spilled across the carpet. He felt his skin sting with the irritation of sweat. Moisture droplets streamed down the side of his face.

  The men moved towards the end of the store. They banged on the locked door, and the shop employee screamed and begged for mercy. One of them fired his weapon on automatic until the magazine emptied. The employee screamed louder.

  Michael crawled out from under the counter. He looked back into the terminal, saw the others had gone and then crept over the scattered books and shelves. The trio had their backs to him, but one started to turn, so he raised the revolver and aligned the sights with his skull, before gently squeezing the trigger.

  The bullet passed through his clenched teeth and came out the other side, leaving a trail of gum, blood and shattered bone in its wake. He collapsed against the wall. The others spun around, and Michael fired again, but he jerked the trigger too hard, and the bullet struck the man dead centre in his body armour.

  They fired back, spraying a hail of bullets at him. He buried himself behind a fallen shelf, and heard the rounds punching through the metal and paper. The firing bolts on their rifles locked. Michael peeked over the top and fired off three rounds.

  The first blew open the left shooter's kneecap, dropping him, but the others went wide, and his cohort was already reaching for the German 9mm in its quick-release holster when Michael put the last bullet in his groin.

  Michael rose from his cover and sprinted forward, clambering over the mess, nearly tripping on another shelf and reaching the group just before they could react. He tossed a discounted children's playset at the second man. His nose crunched under the impact. The third was reaching again for his pistol with a convulsing hand and wide eyes.

  He batted the hand away and took the pistol for himself, executing all three of them in turn with single shots to the forehead. The entry wounds left them looking like they wore bindi spots, until blood began to leak down the front of their faces.

  His throat was dry, and the adrenaline left him as quickly as it had flooded his body. A wave of fatigue washed over him, forcing him to the ground in the corner, where he sat unmoving.

  “Is it safe?” the shop worker shouted from behind the door.

  “No,” Michael said. He remained in the corner, waiting and wondering what was going on
outside.

  The drone of aircraft overhead snapped him out of his stupor. He looked out of the shop and across the terminal to one of the runways, where they flared, nose up, shifting both wing propellers into a vertical position as they came to a hover.

  Ropes dropped from the rear doors, and marines descended down, taking up positions behind an abandoned luggage trailer. A storm of footsteps approached, and a gloved hand jutted into view from around the corner, rolling a cylinder into the shop.

  It exploded in a blinding flash that never subsided, as pain filled his ears.

  Gatwick terminal filled him with a strange feeling, and his ears still rang from the stun grenade. Somebody dropped a hardback book, and the sound echoed through the terminal like a gunshot, mingling with hundreds of voices and footsteps. It stopped him dead in his tracks, and he stood there, watching as a young man picked it up again.

  Michael swallowed the lump in his throat, checked his watch and then walked on. The hordes of people slowed his pace. He clenched his teeth as an old lady with too much jewellery on stopped right in front of him, too sudden for him to slow down in time, and he crashed right into the back of her.

  She turned around and scowled at him, as she straightened her bearskin coat.

  “Watch it, beggar,” she said with all the menace of a vicious dog.

  Her bodyguard pushed him away, and they traded stares for a moment. Michael felt the rage building inside of himself, and the smug, superior expressions on both of their faces only made it worse.

  “Go on, try something. Come on, what are you waiting for?” the bodyguard said in his African accent.

  Michael passed them by, and brisk footsteps followed after him, pace quickening. He clenched one hand into a fist.

  “Michael, slow down; I'm here to pick you up,” Samantha said. She was wearing a black coat, face seeming a little fresher than it had when he last saw her.