by Adam Steel
Aya had turned it off, before she had been able to see the men carry the body from the room. When she had seen the images, first, she had staggered in shock. Then she had retched. She believed that Abigail must have added the final video just for her. Aya had been unable to take any more and had collapsed on the bed. The world had spun around her in a dizzying whirl of laughing faces until Max’s hammering at the door had woken her from her stupor.
Now, here she was, back in the present, with her lover - Max.
Max’s gaze followed her gesture. Lying a short distance away on the bed was a shining black Info-Pad. The area around it was still damp from the saturation of her tears. Max held her out at arm’s length and shook her back to the present. He had seen people in distraught states before: back in action. Getting any sense out of people like that wasn’t easy, and he never had had that much patience for it.
‘Aya! Snap out of it! Tell me what’s going on! We don’t have much time!’
‘TALOS is looking for me!’ Aya blurted out. ‘They say they want me. To help them with that serial killer thing…but it’s a lie! There is no killer! Jack set me up, and now they think I’ve crossed them! They just want to get rid of me!’
Max shrank back again. He was not used to complex situations such as this one. He much preferred action over words. His head was aching and the twitch in his eye had started up again. His mind screeched for the bleeders. TALOS? Serial killer? Aya was not making any sense to him.
Seven minutes.
‘What serial killer?’ he said.
Aya shook her head in frustration.
‘Where have you been living? Under a rock!’ she stormed.
She bit her lip when she realised where he had been. Her new green eyes had a fire in them that he was not sure if he liked, or hated. Catching herself, she tried as calmly as she could, to explain.
‘Max we have got to get out of Utopia. If they catch us, they are going to kill us...I don’t even know why, but they do this ALL THE TIME! Something is going on in Utopia and they kill anyone who finds out. They think I know what it is! There…On that thing is the proof!’ she gestured wildly at the device.
Max shook his head. He worried that the cannabis had dulled his mind more than he had thought.
Nine minutes, they had been here, nine minutes too long.
He knew that they would have to unravel the insanity of the situation somewhere else. Somewhere safe.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said, dismissing the device. ‘But you’re right about one thing. We do need to go right now, so get up and…’
BANG! BANG!
The pounding on the door halted the conversation. Max and Aya froze and stared at each other in disbelief.
BANG! BANG!
Out of time.
‘Open up in there! This is TALOS Security. We have an arrest warrant.’
The thick voice sounded slightly muffled through the door.
Aya became hysterical and bounced up and down on the edge of the bed.
‘They’re going to kill us!’ she shrieked. ‘Max help me!’ she shrilled.
Her voice tried to pierce his brain. Max ignored her and went straight to the window. He peered out hopefully. It was a sheer drop. Shit. No other exits.
‘How did they know!’ Aya repeated to herself in a shrill voice. ‘How did they know? HOW DID THEY KNOW.’
BANG! BANG!
‘This is your final warning! Open the door!’
Max screwed his eyes shut desperately trying to think between Aya’s screaming and the pounding on the door. The door began to splinter under the blows.
‘Pleasse don’t let them take me!’ Aya pleaded desperately.
She was panting so hard that she looked like she might faint through an overdose of oxygen to her brain. A second later, the door flew open to admit two men into the room. They were dressed in the full uniform of TALOS security. Max noted, unhappily, that both were armed. Their pistols were slung in holsters around their waists. One of the guards was large and muscular and of a similar age to him. The man accompanying him was younger, short and stocky. He wore a shit-eating grin.
Max addressed them casually.
‘Yes?’ he queried, as if nothing were out of place.
He was almost feeling better. He could deal with any crisis better than he could with an hysterical woman, who was possibly mad and spouting conspiracy theories. That kind of behaviour hurt his brain.
‘TALOS division,’ the muscular man stated.
The brass door knob fell off and rolled across the floor.
Aya cringed.
Max suspected the man enjoyed making the obvious statement.
‘We have reason to believe there is a fugitive in this room. Who are you?’ he said.
Max straightened up and stated flatly.
‘Private Benson. Max Benson - Immigration control.’
He wondered if the two TALOS men knew the names of the escapees from CURE Prison. He hoped not. The longer he could lull them into a more relaxed pose with conversation, the more chance his hastily conceived plan had of working. Max could hear people talking in whispers in their rooms; too afraid to come out.
The muscular man pointed at the shorter man next to him as he spoke.
‘Privates Hawkins, and Dillinger. TALOS. We have an arrest warrant for one…Aya Kaleem.’
Hawkins peered into the room behind Max. He saw the girl cowering behind him.
‘You need to come with us Miss.’
I’d like to see you try that, thought Max, as he sized the two men up. Max backed up. The two men pushed their way into the room, closing the remains of the splintered door behind them. Their heavy boots crunched over the splintered wood on the floor. Aya hid behind him, peeking over his shoulder. She was trembling uncontrollably.
‘What’s she supposed to have done?’ Max protested.
Mentally he had noted that the two men had taken up flanking positions on either side of him. Being out manoeuvred, he thought, need an opportunity.
Hawkins fixed Aya with a heartless glare.
‘Aya Kaleem…You are under arrest for the violation of aiding and abetting known criminal, one Jomo Marseilles,’ he stated professionally. ‘You have to come with us for questioning,’ he ordered.
‘Her actions have caused a large and very damaging breach of security at CURE Prison North,’ Dillinger added, pointing at Aya.
‘You don’t say?’ Max quipped and imagined the jailbreak scene the day before.
‘This can be as easy or as difficult as you make it,’ Dillinger stated flatly. ‘You’re also coming with us for aiding a known fugitive.’
Max tried to look as injured as possible by the accusation.
Aya went into hysterics, grabbing the Info-Pad from the bed, and brandishing it at the two men like a shield.
‘It’s because of this!’ she screamed at them, ‘I know! I know what you’re going to do to us! IT’S ALL ON HERE!’
Max hoped the outburst would surprise the men and give him his opportunity, but it never. They didn’t seem surprised at all.
Dillinger grinned.
‘She knows,’ he said to Hawkins.
‘Yes she does,’ Hawkins agreed, ‘that makes this easier. We need her alive.’
Dillinger moved fast, slapping the device from her hand in a sweeping motion. It hit the floor and shattered under Dillinger’s boot when he crashed down upon it. Aya looked mortified as she saw her only proof broken into pieces on the floor. It gave Max all the opportunity that he needed. He grabbed Dillinger’s outstretched arm and pulled him forwards, unexpectedly. Good. Never was much of a talker, he thought. Dillinger was thrown off balance and lunged forwards. Aya fell back against the wall and landed with a thump on her backside on the floor. She was screaming and crying.
Max grabbed the back of Dillinger’s hair – that haircut ain’t regulation soldier – and punched him clear in the face: sending a spurt of blood, flying across the room. Dillinger collapsed into a heap. He
was knocked out cold. Max allowed himself a brief moment of satisfaction. He had always suspected that the younger members of TALOS were not actually up to much. Now he had proved it. He made a mental note that if somehow, he ever did bump into his old work supervisor again, he’d punch him out too. Just to be sure. The brief moment of contemplation (brought on surreptitiously, by the waning effects of the cannabis smoke that he had inhaled) cost him dearly.
Aya watched, wide eyed, as Hawkins lunged at Max. Luckily for Max, it was too close for Hawkins to bring his gun to bear, so he had abandoned it, leaving it half drawn, and jumped him instead. Hawkins’s powerful arms grappled Max from behind and threw him off balance. Aya backed away into the corner ‘mumbling.’ The sudden outburst of violence had sent her reeling. She had hit her face and it was bruised and bleeding.
The two men grappled with each other. Hawkins was at least a foot taller, and a lot heavier than Max. The two of them punched and kicked each other in a tangle of wrestling muscle. They grunted and heaved as they struck each other.
‘The great thing about this? Is that we don’t need you soldier boy, only her. So I can cap’ you’re sorry ass right here, and nobody cares!’ Hawkins jeered.
He had Max in a headlock. The two men spun around. Max struggled in vain to escape the deathly hold. Aya was quivering with fear. She could see that Max was taking such a beating that he was going to be overpowered. She watched in horror as Hawkins punched him repeatedly in the stomach and face. Max looked close to passing out.
Aya’s bag lay in front of her right where she had dumped it.
Max felt the sudden pressure in his ears. He knew what it was instantly. He had experienced it in warfare. Aya was thrown backwards against the wall by the ear-splitting BANG that ripped out from the gun she was holding.
Everything went in slow motion.
Max howled in pain as the bullet tore into his shoulder. It had passed straight through Hawkins’s reinforced jacket, slamming into him when Aya had fired it blindly from the other side of the room. Hawkins released his hold on Max in surprise (and watched with a hint of satisfaction) as Max slumped to the floor in front of him.
The girl was quivering in the corner. She was staring in astonishment at the smoking gun that she was now holding in both hands. It only took a second for the man to realise that the girl had shot her accomplice by mistake. Aya dropped Jack’s gun when she realised what she had done. It clattered to the floor.
Max folded over: blood poured from a wound in his shoulder. He slumped in front of the triumphant Hawkins.
Aya’s hands flew to her face, and she slid to the floor: sobbing hard.
Hawkins looked down victoriously at his fallen adversary. He moved to strike Max hard on the back of the neck, when he realised his fatal mistake. While he had taken the luxury to look at Aya, Hawkins had taken his eyes off Max: only for a second, or two, but it was enough. Max had pulled Hawkins’s half-drawn pistol from its holster, and stuck it directly into his belly. Hawkins was thrown back by the propelling bullet that ploughed into his stomach. Behind them, Aya felt something warm and wet, spray across the side of her face. Max had shot him at point blank range.
Max dropped back to the floor in agony. He was clutching the gaping wound in his shoulder. From the outside it would have looked as though someone had thrown a bucket of red paint on him from one side. Pieces of Hawkins slid off his face. He rocked back and forth, trying to bring the pain under control.
Hawkins lay collapsed against the wall. He was holding both hands to his stomach, and roaring in pain. Blood was haemorrhaging from between his fingers.
Max staggered to his feet. His vision was still wavering from the punches. His eye was already swelling, and he spat a glob of blood on the floor. One of his teeth came out with it: its ivory colour a stark contrast to the dark red blood.
Aya stood, hands shaking, staring at Max’s weeping shoulder.
‘I-He-He was going to kill you. I had to do something! I had too,’ she stuttered and wept uncontrollably.
The shock of what she had done was setting in. Max lurched towards her and steadied himself on her with his good arm.
‘Yeah, but next time babe... do something else.’
Hawkins moaned in the corner. A pool of blood was spilling out from underneath him.
‘You fucking bastards,’ he spluttered. ‘You think you’ll get away with this? You got no idea what you got coming. No idea at all.’
The blood was filling his mouth. It stopped the burble of conversation. He groaned again: clutching at his bleeding guts. Max looked back at him: accessing the injury. The gunshot wound in Hawkins’s stomach was gaping. He was thinking that this was not going to be good. Self-assessment first soldier, his combat voice told him.
Max felt the wound in his shoulder. Deep. But not fatal, at least not yet. There was no exit wound. Hawkins’s flak jacket had absorbed much of the bullets momentum. Max could feel its alien presence trapped somewhere between his bulging muscles. He recalled a time when he had been shot once before – a long time ago. He remembered then just how much it had hurt, when the field surgeon had pulled it out. The memory gave him no comfort. His own blood was trickling between his fingers and he tried to stem the flow.
‘Aya,’ he said calmly. ‘Get me something to stop this. Get his belt. Quick,’ he snapped, nodding at the unconscious Dillinger, who was lying across floor. ‘Then get me that pillow.’
Aya complied without hesitation. She moved robotically, as though she was on a shaky autopilot. She did not speak.
Max looked down at the mortally wounded Hawkins. Gunshot wound to the stomach. The man’s already dead. Probably knows it himself. Max had seen wounds like it before. Hawkins stomach had been ruptured by the round. The stomach sac was already leaching its powerful acids: dissolving the unfortunate man from the inside out. The smell was overpowering. Soldiers were trained in the field to know which injuries could be saved, and which were inevitably fatal. Hawkins was a dead man who had just not stopped breathing yet. If he was lucky, he had fifteen minutes, fifteen incredibly painful minutes.
Max was still a soldier in his heart. He knew what needed to be done. He would have expected the same too, if it were him lying there with his guts all shot out. It came with the territory. The man was his enemy, and an evil bastard too, Max suspected, but that didn’t matter. There were inbuilt rules of combat that he still followed: even if nobody else did. It was his own sense of martial pride.
Max turned back to Aya. She had vomited against the wall, and she didn’t look to him, as though she could take much more.
‘Turn away,’ he said simply.
He took the pillow from her.
Her green eyes widened as she took in the meaning. He thought for a second, that they made her look like a reptile. Then, she closed her eyes tight.
Max placed the pillow over Hawkins face. He did not resist. The gunshot was quieter this time (but the splatter, and thump of something heavy falling to the floor) was still horribly clear. A cloud of bloodied feathers, spread out across the room. Max wiped his good arm across his face, sweeping them off.
‘Help me here,’ Max said, grunting through the pain.
The smoking pistol fell to his side. Blood, from his shoulder wound, was running down his arm and dripping onto the floor. It pooled and mixed with Hawkins’s blood. Max fell to his knees and waited, while Aya strapped the belt awkwardly around his shoulder joint. Aya didn’t look at Hawkins lying under his red pillow. Max’s warm, sticky, blood oozed over her shaking hands. Max’s face was a mess of cuts and fresh bruises. He looked like someone had taken a sheet of course sandpaper to his features.
For a few seconds there was total silence in room 11.
He held her tightly and surveyed the damage in the room. There was blood everywhere. He was covered in it and some of it had matted Aya’s hair. He didn’t like to point out to her that there was the odd, red, chunk, of something unrecognisable, in there.
Hawkins l
ay slumped in one corner. Dillinger was out cold. A pool of Hawkins’s blood was creeping across the floor towards him.
Max left Aya sitting on the floor, while he dragged Dillinger’s unconscious form away from the red carpet and began stripping off his uniform. Max was thinking that the fat cow, down stairs, had gotten off lightly, compared to what they had just done to the two TALOS guards.
Aya sat silently on the floor, rocking back and forth, slightly. Max ignored her for the moment, and tore his t-shirt off. He vigorously mopped the worst of the blood from his face with it and tossed it into the corner with Hawkins. He struggled to latch Dillinger’s uniform on. As much as he hated the TALOS goons, he had to grudgingly admit to himself, that the military uniform that they wore was, ruthlessly efficient, and perfect for combat. It was tough, hard-wearing, flexible and light. It was exactly what he needed. Besides, he thought, he could act like one of them if they got caught and no civilian would question him dressed like TALOS.
Aya was staring into the corner as she rocked back, and forth. Her eyes were distant. She was playing with her hair and, unconsciously, touching a piece of Hawkins’s flesh.
Max tried to stay focused, as he transferred his belongings from his civilian clothes, to his new uniform. Max stuffed the red vial and tab of Apexir pills from his jeans pockets, into his new outfit. He popped one of the pills, feeling its haze fall on him a minute later. It reduced the roaring pain in his shoulder to a dull ache and he could think again. He collected Hawkins’s and Dillinger’s weapons, stuffing one of them into his TALOS holster, and keeping the other to hand. He yanked Hawkins belt off and used it to tie Dillinger’s hands up behind his back. He pulled one of Dillinger’s socks off, and rammed into his mouth. He secured it in place by tying a curtain chord around his mouth, and tying it hard at the back of his head. He left Dillinger slumped on the floor where he had landed.