by Andy Graham
The part of Randall’s cold but brilliant mind that had helped steer Ailan to the power and security that it had today was also watching the showdown. But what it saw was lost in the red shadows cast by the old brain, the primal brain, the brain that civilisation attempts to control but is always being subverted, always being usurped by the traitor that is our own evolution.
As the adrenaline chased any vestiges of sanity from him, there was a moment of peace. He saw it all, felt it all in exquisite detail. The ripple of fabric in the banners surrounding him. The squelch of Chester’s foot in the soft earth as she shifted out of the line of fire. The widening of her eyes. Before the legionnaires could react, Randall’s finger squeezed the trigger. The bullet screeched through the air and clanked into the metal speaker-drone that had been hovering overhead. It thudded into the earth, smoking and beeping, and sense clawed its way back through the red haze. There were three hands on the rifle. Two were his, fingernails immaculate. The third was grubby, fingernails split and blackened. There was a fourth hand on his arm. The extra hands had pushed the rifle upwards, at a flock of birds that were scattering across the sky.
A face swam into view. Randall’s half-brother was blackened and bruised. He was missing a tooth. The others were outlined in red. “One free shot, no more.”
Ray Franklin wrenched the rifle from Randall’s hands and slammed the flat of the butt into his head. It hit with a bone-crunching jolt that turned the inside of his head white and his mouth crimson. He hit the ground, and the cheers started. Bitterly, he realised that the Unsung were cheering loudest of all.
The rifle butt fell again and the whiteness in his head went black.
38
It Ends
The headache filled him. Every part of him was sore. Tingling. He grit his teeth. Enamel squeaked on enamel. The pain flared and part of a tooth chipped off in his mouth. Grit amongst blood. Ray Franklin had hit him with more vengeance than he’d been expecting. Randall Soulier sucked in breath. Even his lungs hurt. His eyes started to focus. The soft blur of light burnt, fuzzy dots became shadows, shadows became shapes, shapes became people.
“He’s still asleep.” A man’s voice. Deep and booming. An Ailan accent. He could be used.
“You should kill him. No one will know. Easy while they sleep. Slit their throat.” Slurred words. Not comfortable with the Ailan language. A native from the mountains?
“They’d probably guess it was murder if we slit his throat while he was sleeping, dude. Not nice to do to someone.”
“Then we pinch here and cover here.” Fingers pinched Randall’s nostrils. A rough palm covered his mouth. He coughed, thrashed, the need to breathe screaming over the pain in his head.
“Looks like he’s awake,” the Ailan voice said.
A Donian warrior, pale as ice, squatted in front of Randall. The peasant’s eyes gleamed pinkly. “If he’s awake, can I cut his throat now?”
“Later.” The friendly tone in the legionnaire’s voice didn’t hide the willingness to hurt. Maybe he couldn’t be used so easily. “We got company.”
Randall was hauled to his feet. Stalactites hung down from the ceiling, dead men frozen in rock. Stalagmites punctured the floor. There was water nearby, lapping against stone. Two men carried a dripping wet corpse through a gap between what looked like thrones. Water streamed off his Unsung uniform to leave a trail in the dust. As they disappeared into the fading light of day, Randall realised the dead man’s shrivelled penis was sticking out from his zip. Then came the soft crunch of feet on dust. His guards looked away from him and Randall saw a shape behind a rock, half-hidden by dust and shade. A blackened steel muzzle. A pistol that must have been lost in the battle. Fingers twitched for it, and the approaching figures came to a standstill. The gun was out of reach for now. He turned his attention to the newcomers, the throbbing in his head easing enough for him to grin, almost painlessly. “Ray Franklin. My dear brother. And you must be Brooke. You’re even uglier than him.”
The blow he had been expecting never came. The physical pain he was seeking to smother the emotional pain of failure never materialised. He would have used it, fed on it, suckled on it until he was numb. Instead, the cavern was filled with a sound that hurt much more: laughter.
“Can I fight him?” Brooke linked her arms through Ray’s. “Please?”
“Since when do you need permission?”
“I don’t. I just thought I’d try this subservience thing I’ve heard about. Maybe it’d help your brother think you more manly.”
Nascimento let out a low whistle. “Too much honesty, Brooke.”
“I don’t really care what he thinks about me,” Ray said, his head cocked to one side. “I think Randall cares about what he thinks about himself much more.”
Randall spat shards of tooth into the dust. “Stop with all the psycho-babble crap. You’re dead. All of you. You think this is the end? The government and legions are—”
“Under my control.” Chester emerged from the shadows. “Both of them. There were too many lies and backhanders in the former and too much indiscipline in the latter.”
Chester was flanked by the two men Randall had seen in the aborted battle. He couldn’t remember their names. They were irrelevant. One was older with bright blue eyes, one younger, the light shimmering on the scarred half of his face. Both men had a crutch each. Randall sneered. “What is the collective noun for a bunch of cripples? A limp? Look at you.” He waved a hand and bells of pain tinkled in his head. “An old woman missing one of her toes. An old man missing half a hand and half a leg. And a boy with half a face and foot. There’s just about enough of you to make one body. I’ll put a word in with Lady Flay for you.”
“Who?” Nascimento asked.
“Professor Wu-Brocker,” Chester said. “A disgraced dermatologist who was struck off for her inhumanely direct approach to treating skin problems. Hence the nickname Lady Flay. I thought she was dead. I believe some of her early work was used as the foundation for what went on in the genetic research camps where you spent your early years.” She raised an eyebrow at Ray.
“I’ve heard the name.” Franklin’s gaze slipped, just for a second.
Why? The reference to his past? Could Randall use that somehow? Or was it the curious looks from his colleagues? Randall staggered, only half-faking it, another crucial step towards the pistol. Time, that was all he needed. Play for time. “I’m at a loss,” he said. “Who are your companions, Field-Marshal?”
Chester indicated the big man, his black uniform torn and dusty. “Jamerson Nascimento, formerly of the 10th and 13th Legions. And we may have to have a word about that, Corporal.”
Nascimento shrugged his massive shoulders. “I’m good, thanks, ma’am.”
A hint of a frown graced Chester’s face as she pointed to the pale man to Nascimento’s left, the one with the fingers that seemed to be twitching towards Randall’s nose and mouth. “Lukaz, leader of the Hoyden, the rebels within the Donian people, and now their interim leader. Dr Swann is in the infirmary trying to console her son.”
“How is Jake? Such a bright kid.” Randall shivered, using it as an excuse to inch closer to the weapon. Franklin or Chester? Who gets the bullet? Brooke, maybe? Two for the price of one plus ruining Franklin’s life. Could he do it: grab, aim and fire quickly enough?
“Jake Swann is not well,” Chester replied. “When told of his father’s death, the boy didn’t react.”
“The kid’s blinked even less than he’s spoken,” Nascimento said in a loud whisper meant for Ray. “Whatever your brother did to him up here” — he tapped his temple — “he did a bang-up job.”
“I didn’t do anything. Just let him watch Wu-Brocker and her orange-smocked sidekick working a patient.”
“You kidnapped him and tried to kill him,” Ray said. “Or is that another example of the political amnesia you people suffer from?”
Randall’s reply was a coughing fit. There was blood in his mouth. He wiped it
off, made sure they saw it, shuffled to the side. Make them think you’re broken. Chester’s arm took in the remaining members of the group. She had assumed that legs akimbo posture of hers she used when orating. Her gestures and poses looked like they’d been lifted from the Beginner’s Guide to Body Language for Real Leaders. Franklin had noticed it, too; he didn’t trust the woman. For once in his life, Randall felt a splinter of kinship to the man. Splinters, though, needed to be removed before the wound festered.
“This is Stann Taille, Ray Franklin’s paternal grandfather.”
And a man with eyes that could blind someone. Randall’s gaze slithered away from Stann’s.
“And former 10th legionnaire Tino Martinez.” Chester completed her introductions.
Randall didn’t care. He wanted to keep Chester talking until an opportunity presented itself. For all of her skill as a tactician, she had one major flaw, the need to hear her own voice over and over and over again. It was a wonder she hadn’t deafened herself. “And you’ve allied yourself with this bunch of losers for what reason? Power? You know the government won’t stand for military rule.”
“The rule is temporary until I can restore order.”
“And so a new dictator is born with a well-worn battle cry passed down through the ages, from the barrel of one gun to the muzzle of the next.” Randall’s laugh brought an irritated frown to Chester’s face and a few uncomfortable ones to her colleagues’. “I’ll admit it does have a nice ring to it: President Chester.”
Chester linked her hands behind her back and settled into parade-easy. Her head was held at an exact angle that had used to be taught to new recruits with pins in their collars. Pathetic. Chester was afraid of the truth and seeking sanctuary in tradition. But her weaknesses were working for him, giving him time. He needed more time. Time fixed everything. Killed everything. Opportunities. Enemies. Hope. Love. He blinked the sweat out of his eyes. It was hot and salty. The pistol was less than a handspan from his foot. Who? Who to shoot when I have the chance? Not Chester. Not important enough. Ray had moved, bringing him closer. My half-brother? Or the bitch with my half-niece or -nephew congealing in her womb?
“Military rule is a transition from Bethina’s government to the next. Your rule will never happen,” the Field-Marshal said.
“You cannot do that, Chester. The fish rots from the head down, as does tradition, as does society. You will ruin everything Bethina and I worked for.”
“How dare you! You murdered her, you sanctimonious runt of a man.”
His temper rose and he stabbed his fingers at her. Lines of hot pain flashed up his arm to explode in his head. When his vision cleared, he was on all fours, fingers buried in the dust on the cave floor. Something hard and smooth was digging into his shin, had bruised it. The pistol. The fall had been genuine but it had got him what he wanted. A glance. They weren’t looking at him. Randall scooped up the pistol and stuffed it behind his belt, under his shirt. A second glance. Still not watching him, not even Stann Taille and those all-seeing eyes of his. They hadn’t bothered with handcuffs and now they ignored him. They don’t even fear me. A surge of irritation at their disdain swept through him and he coughed up a gob of blood between his hands.
“He’s right.” Amongst the forest of boots and the two rubber-stopped crutch ends facing him, the hem of a black coat swirled into view. “You cannot be president, Willa.” The voice cut through the fog in his head, through the dreams and hate that he had nurtured for years. He had spent a decade working alongside that voice and every syllable was a rasping stroke of a file across his teeth. He had killed this voice. Throttled it. Snapped its neck.
Randall Soulier stared up at the face of Bethina Laudanum. Her oil-black hair gleamed in the twilight. That heavy black cloak of hers hanging in immovable folds. He didn’t even get any satisfaction from Chester’s startled look.
“I killed you! No. You’re dead. I—”“ Randall struggled to his feet, staring at his hands as if they had betrayed him. “I killed you.”
“At least we have an admission of guilt.” Laudanum nodded a greeting at Chester. A sly smile was spreading across the field-marshal’s face.
“Bethina Laudanum’s dead. You’re dead. Dead.” His reflection stared back at him from the muddy gleam of a damp stalactite. In that face, for the first time ever, he saw his parents, the jut of his mother’s jaw, the sweep of his father’s forehead. Both dead by his hand. Another distorted image loomed into view.
“Bit of a headfuck, isn’t it, dude? See, Bethina had a twin sister. Didn’t know twins were possible myself on account of people like you banning them for almost two generations and changing the history books.” Nascimento looped his arm around Randall’s shoulders; it hung there with the innocence of a hangman’s noose. “This is Verina Laudanum.”
Memories of a woman who had seemed to be in two places at the same time reared up in Randall’s mind. A woman whose work level was unprecedented. A woman who never seemed to sleep. A woman who had needed an occasional reminder of their last conversation. A woman who had looked at him with confusion when he had burst into her office with murder on his mind and a throttling twitching in his fingertips. “Bethina had a twin sister?”
“Bright, this one, isn’t he?” Nascimento gave him a not-so-friendly nudge in the ribs and shoved him forwards. “Now would be a good time to make your apologies.”
Randall wasn’t sure where he found the laugh from; maybe it was a reflection of their earlier humiliation of him. But it started deep within his belly, close to where the pistol nestled, slid through the headache spitting his head in two and rattled around the cave.
“What’s funny?” Nascimento asked.
And the laugh was gone. Somewhere in the distance, some kind of animal growled. “I’m not sorry I killed Bethina. We worked together for years but all the good she did ended decades ago. I was the one the country needed. She was a plague on this country. Weak and feckless. Her inaction on all levels jeopardised our futures. Allowing Chester’s perpetual tampering with the legions instead of putting them to work dying for our country. Her refusal to insist on more births per marriage means we are going to be outbred by our enemies, our gene pool diluted by undesirables. Not eliminating our enemies meant the end of our race. No race ever survived through tolerance. No society ever succeeded without subjugation of others. You cannot have success without someone else’s failure.” There was no ranting, no delusional screams, just the cold, harsh knowledge that he was right.
Wu-Brocker understood. She with the sinister hands and thirsty scalpels, she was one of the few who knew the sacrifices that needed to be made for progress. It was little matter that others made the sacrifice. If they didn’t like the way the world worked, they had the chance to change — like he had, like Bethina had until he had killed her. “Bethina’s dead,” Randall said. “And it’s better for all of us.”
“Except I’m not so sure that’s the case,” Chester said. “I played Alcazar with Bethina for over fifty years.”
“I’m not interested in this stupid board game of yours.” Tentacles of doubt cooled the pain in his head. Bethina was dead. Ray had the same sly smile on his face that Chester had just been wearing. “What are you talking about?” Randall demanded. “I saw her swinging from that tree of hers.”
“A twin sister?” Chester said with a low chuckle. “That was a game well played for over half a century. However, you don’t spend that much time with someone without learning who they are, not unless you’re so self-absorbed you can’t see past your own reflection.” Chester smiled and took the other woman’s hands in hers. “I had no idea about your sister and am sorry for your loss, but it’s good to see you alive, Beth.” The two old friends embraced.
“You knew?” Nascimento had just clocked Ray’s expression.
“Yup.”
“You didn’t say?”
“Nope.”
“Know any bigger words?”
“Maybe.”
“
Dude, watch it. Now Orr’s not here, you’re running low on friends.”
“I realised a while back,” Ray said. “Wanted to see what Beth was planning.”
“You’re Bethina?” Randall’s voice was hoarse and ragged. The pain blazing from where Ray Franklin had nearly broken his jaw couldn’t touch the desperate sense of failure breeding inside him.
Beth detached herself from Willa Chester. “You killed my sister, Randall.”
“Your sister? No. That’s impossible. You must have known what I was going to do. You sent her to your office to die! You planned this. You manipulated me. You sacrificed her. It’s your fault.”
His attempt to rile her, to deflect the blame, to create confusion, failed. For a woman who was confronting her sister’s killer, Bethina Laudanum was remarkably well-composed. She didn’t even have that hand of hers twitching up to the mole on her nose, the mole he’d dreamed of slicing off, the mole Wu-Brocker had suggested leaving and slicing off the nose around it instead.
“Your life has been based on winning at all costs, mine on survival,” Bethina said. “Lose but live is a win in my books. I made a choice, took a gamble. I had no idea how threatened you were by me nor how depraved you had become. I didn’t think you would actually kill me. I made a mistake, a terrible mistake, and I wish I could bring her back.” She smoothed the front of her coat, as calm as he was furious.
“Depraved? Me? Threatened by you?” The revolver was warm against his skin, pressing hard angles into his belly. “If I was becoming such a problem, why not just kill me?”
“That would have made me a murderer and undermined the moral authority a leader needs.”
He spluttered in disbelief. “You sanctimonious, lying bitch!”
Her hand lashed out and caught him across the face. It dislodged one of the wobbly teeth. Randall spat it and fresh blood on the floor. “You slapped me!”
“I didn’t see that, did you?” Nascimento asked. Solemnly, each member of the group facing Randall shook their head.