by Ed Naha
Clarence Boddicker wiped a bead of perspiration off his elongated forehead and smiled. “Take his helmet off. I’d like to gaze upon our hero in the flesh.”
Emil ripped the helmet from Murphy’s face. Murphy glared at Clarence. “Glad to see you,” Clarence said, sincerely.
In the back of his mind, Murphy worried about Lewis. He hoped she had gotten away. He hoped she had radioed for backup. He hoped . . .
A gun barrel came smashing up into his chin. He tumbled back onto a wall of crates, dazed. “Party time.” Clarence grinned.
Thirty feet away, at the bottom of the elevator shaft, Lewis came to, hearing faint voices. She moved her body slowly, tiny shards of pain making themselves felt at each joint. Nothing broken. She slowly got to her feet. The floor level of the warehouse loomed ten feet above her.
“Shit,” she hissed.
A rat zipped by her feet. This definitely was not a place to linger. She made a running jump for the dangling, grease-encrusted cables. Slowly, she began to climb, her legs wrapped around the oozing metal rods. Her hands began to slip. Grease cascaded onto her knuckles. She found herself sliding back down onto the bottom of the shaft with a thud. She stared at her hands. They were bleeding and raw.
“Goddamn,” she swore. She began to climb again. “Murphy,” she whispered, “where are you when I need you?”
Clarence’s foot slammed into the side of Murphy’s face, opening a large gash under his right eye. The gangleader circled the fallen policeman casually, his shotgun tipped casually over his shoulder. Every so often, he’d extend the toe of his shoe and prod it into a section of Murphy’s prone body, like a butcher examining a piece of prime beef.
“Are you a good cop?” Clarence bent over to gaze at the policeman’s name tag. “Officer Murphy?”
Murphy remained silent, staring at Clarence’s twisted expression. “Sure,” Clarence said. “You’ve got to be some kind of great cop to come in here all by yourself.”
Clarence smiled pleasantly. Before Murphy had time to react he swung the autoload off his shoulder and sent the butt of the gun slamming into Murphy’s midsection. Murphy doubled over. He fought to control the tears caused by the pain. If he was going to die, he wouldn’t give these streetscum the satisfaction of seeing him cringe.
He blinked suddenly. He might die. He swallowed hard. That idea had always been an abstract before. Something to consider in the future. Now, the possibility hit him full force. He thought of Jan and Jimmy. He cursed himself for not calling home.
Clarence bent over Murphy’s face. “Where’s your partner, Murphy?”
“The other one was upstairs,” said Joe, walking casually to the spot. “I took her out.”
Murphy made a move to sit up. Not the smartest thing to do. Clarence extended a foot and, placing it on Murphy’s chest, pushed the cop back down. “I bet that really pisses you off,” Clarence said. “You probably don’t think I’m a very nice guy.”
“Actually,” Murphy said, “I think you’re slime.”
“Humor,” Clarence said, laughing wildly. The gang members behind him giggled as well. “A touch of humor. How refreshing.”
He took his other foot and slammed it down on Murphy’s right arm, extending the limb flat against the concrete floor. “I have this problem, Murphy. You don’t like me. I didn’t expect you to. You see, cops don’t like me.”
He slowly placed the muzzle of his shotgun against Murphy’s right wrist. “So . . . I don’t like cops.”
Clarence flashed an easygoing smile as he squeezed the trigger. Murphy’s senses reeled as a deep rush of pain cascaded up and down his right side. He turned in time to see his right hand blow clean off his arm. Throwing off Clarence’s foot, he grabbed the stump of his right arm and clutched it. Blood was spurting from his wrist in steady pulsations. He tried to speak. He couldn’t. His vocal cords seemed fused together. The pain from his arm was throwing him into shock.
He slowly got to his feet. He stared at Clarence, blinking his eyes wildly. These were the cop killers. The jackals. Clarence turned his back on the staggering cop and, swinging his shotgun back over his shoulder, walked away whistling. He paused and turned to his gang members. “Now he’s all yours.”
Murphy stood, tottering, before the others. Emil, the ferret-faced punk, picked up his shotgun and fired. The concussion of the blast tossed Murphy five feet into the air. Sailing through space, Murphy stared down and witnessed his chest burst forth out of his protective armor suit.
He found himself in a sitting position some ten feet away from the gang members. He saw his legs twitch. He felt like a marionette whose strings were slowly being severed. He was losing his sight. The room was tilting this way and that. He noticed Chan and Joe pick up their shotguns. They squeezed the trigger. The air seemed to explode around him.
The side of his armor suit shattered and, then, simply flew away into the night. Murphy struggled to maintain his perspective. This all seemed like some drunken dream. Images were both slowing down and speeding up simultaneously.
He almost laughed as the Asian walked right up to him, pointing the muzzle of his shotgun directly against Murphy’s shoulder, and fired. Murphy’s entire right arm went twirling away from his torso. Amazing, Murphy thought. He was beyond pain, now. His severed arm was still spinning like one of those TV gameshow wheel of fortune arrows. Spin the bottle? Lose the arm?
One of the gang members placed Murphy’s helmet back on his head. Another gang member shot it off, taking a hunk of Murphy’s hairline away with it. Two more blasts. Murphy watched his legs shatter.
Murphy’s body seemed possessed by a strange and wild rhythm, something totally new, something almost paranormal. He found himself trying to stand upright on his shattered limbs. He felt himself tip backward.
A thunderclap smashed through his brain. The sound of his head smacking into the concrete floor. He stared straight ahead. The room wasn’t there anymore, not in detail anyway. Rather, the essence of the room seemed to hover above him. A dash of purple. A dash of cold steel blue. A crate or two, represented by a splotch of brown.
Then, there were the faces. High-foreheaded Clarence, a business-minded harlequin. Feral Emil, his deep-set eyes blinking wildly. Lanky Leon, a hayseed with a killer’s instinct. Cool and impassive Joe, globs of Murphy’s blood dripping off his black cheekbones. Chan, yellow and impassive, laughing silently.
Murphy turned his head slightly on its side. He saw the men hover before him. Joe lowered his shotgun and shrugged. “I’m outta ammo.”
Clarence stepped forward and, pulling a Desert Eagle .44 out of his belt, nonchalantly aimed the pistol at Murphy’s head and squeezed off an easy round. Murphy felt the bullet burrow into his left temple. He felt part of his head dribble off in back. The air seemed cold above him, now. Clarence slid the gun back into his belt. He didn’t twirl it, T. J. Lazer-style. Murphy would have smiled if he had control of his muscles. The gang-leader definitely lacked class.
Clarence motioned to his associates. “Okay. Fun’s over. Let’s split.”
The figures of the men melted away into the darkness. Suddenly, Murphy remembered the expression on his father’s face years ago, when the older man lay dying in his own living room. Murphy understood the humor now. He appreciated the ironic sting of the term “an act of random violence.” Random for the perpetrators, maybe, but certainly not the victim. He sighed. He felt his body twitching in long, bone-splintering convulsions.
What a stupid way to die. Laughable, really.
The ground beneath him seemed to rumble. Footsteps. He blinked his eyes, trying desperately to focus his vision. He watched Lewis skid to a halt some five feet away from his shattered form. Murphy sighed. The cavalry had arrived at last.
“Awww, Murphy,” Lewis said softly.
Outside the warehouse, a van roared to life, screaming away into the night.
Lewis knelt beside Murphy. She made a move to cradle his head in her arms. His skull was so badly shatt
ered that she wasn’t sure what to grab. She leaned forward into her ComLink mike. “Officer down,” she blurted. “Repeat. Officer down. Central, I need a MediVac Unit right now . . . my partner’s been shot.”
Murphy smiled from within. He was wrong about Lewis. She was strong. A survivor. So what if she was a woman? Most men would be puking their guts out right about now and there she was, taking charge. He wanted to hug her. But he only had one arm.
He vaguely heard the dispatcher’s voice. “Calm down, patrolman. Help is on the way.”
Lewis didn’t appreciate the dispatcher’s dispassion. “You calm down, you asshole. Get a MediVac here now or you’re going to need one. Copy?”
“Copy.”
Lewis sat down, Indian-style, next to Murphy’s twitching form. She smiled at him. A single tear rolled down her eye. Murphy gazed at her. Her features were alternately hazy and sharp. For a few seconds, she was every woman he had ever cared about. A chuckle rumbled deep within his chest. It emerged from his throat as a slow, hissing sound.
He gazed into Lewis’s eyes and twisted what was left of his lips into a smile. He forced his vocal cords to respond. He wanted to tell Lewis exactly what was going on. He wanted to explain to her exactly what it felt like to have the life blasted out of you, to lose touch with your body, to watch the world fade into a series of abstract shapes and forms.
He looked at her meaningfully. “Sumbitch,” was all he said.
[ 7 ]
A woman was crying somewhere. He heard it. He couldn’t quite get a fix on where it was coming from. He tilted his head. Oh, Lewis. Yes, Lewis was her name. He knew that. He couldn’t quite place the face. He turned his head further. A machine was nearby. With large slats on top, whirling. Whirly. Whirlybird. Helicopter. He remembered that. Very good. Very good indeed.
A steady thump. That would be his heart. Sounded like a drumbeat. Very good. He remembered that. And the loud rushing noise echoing through his ears? His blood. Blood coursing through veins. His veins. He still retained that. Very good.
He was losing a lot though. He realized this. Even now, his memory was fading. He visualized a small home. A smiling woman and a little boy. Their names were Jan and Jimmy. He wasn’t quite sure who they were, but he remembered their names. Very, very good.
He was being lifted. Or was he flying? No, there were hands around him, lifting him into a stretcher pod. Someone was strapping his good hand down securely. Securely. Safely. He took his job to make people safe. That was a good thing. His other arm couldn’t be safe. Couldn’t be tied down securely. His other arm was somewhere else. He stared upward into the blades of the helicopter.
A man in white shone a flashlight down into his face. “Jesus, I think this guy’s still alive.”
He felt the pod sway and saw the stars come closer. He was definitely flying now. Flying high and far, to a land where children never had to grow up or go to school and act like adults. Children. Small people. Jimmy. That was the small person’s name. Jimmy. It was a good name. It matched the small person’s smile. Happy. Jimmy.
Thup-thup-thup-thup. It wasn’t his heart this time. It was the blades of the helicopter as they flew. He could feel his eyeballs bouncing around in their sockets. He was losing control. It didn’t matter. There wasn’t much to see at this point. Someone wiped the blood off his face. That was nice. But it didn’t matter. The blood felt warm. It was good to feel warm. His right arm felt cold. Wherever it was.
He slowed down his eyeballs and tilted his head. Lights were everywhere. Bright, friendly lights. The lights on the helicopter. The lights of the city below. City. Filled with houses. Houses. Where people lived. People like Jan and Jimmy. Nice people. Strangers, now.
Thup-thup-thup-thup. It couldn’t be the helicopter, anymore. He was inside somewhere. Voices were echoing off something solid. Thup-thup-thup. Had to be his heart. He knew that. Very good. Green walls. Yellow lights. Concerned faces. Low, tense talk. Hospital. That was it, he was in a hospital. He was proud of himself for figuring all that out. People have their hands in him. He’s still moving.
Sliding doors bang open and closed. Tubes are being stuck into him. Tendrils. He’s a squid now. Liquid bubbling nearby. Whoops. He’s underwater, now. He swims for the surface frantically. Mom is waiting for him. “Keep your head above the water. You’re going to be all right.”
Damned straight he was. After all, he was. Whoever. He couldn’t remember that one. His name would come to him soon. He knew that. He turned and hit the school bully in the face. The little girl gave him a kiss. He knew her. It was Jan. A little person. There’s Jan again. Older. She looks so beautiful in that white dress. Man and wife. His wife. Who was he, though?
A loud voice crashed through the fog. The dreams shattered. “I’ve got a straight line. Crash cart! 10 cc Adrenalin. Stand clear!”
He felt cold grease on his chest. A surge of electricity slammed into his muscles. There was the ferret-faced thug.
“Hit him again!” someone screamed. A sudden jolt conjured up the face of the Asian hit man. Another jolt. The farmboy. And another. The black man. And another. The high-foreheaded clown who blew his hand to shreds. His killers. He bade farewell to them all. Only blackness filled his life, now. A void.
“That’s it. He’s gone,” he heard someone say from another planet.
“Okay. Hook him up. Patch him up. I’ll make the call.” The voices went away. All was quiet. All was still. No more thup-thup-thup. Everything just went away.
For a while.
Then, he was aware again.
Blackness still enveloped him. Something percolated far, far away. A steady hum. Life jangled through him. Of a sort. He could no longer feel the blood rushing through his veins. He tried to open his eyes. He couldn’t feel the lids. He was floating. That was it. He was floating.
A flash of white caused his muscles to contract. His body was still beneath him. He tried to get a mental fix on his functions. It was useless.
Green lines. A grid. A computer grid. Where was the screen? Was he seeing it? No, he was feeling it. Sensing it. A high-pitched squeal caused him to wince internally. Color bars, the kind you see on a television set at four in the morning after the tape of “The Star-Spangled Banner” blipped off, suddenly filled his existence. The colors faded and changed hues. They bounced. They zigzagged all around him in a swirl. Then, they were gone. And he missed them.
Snap.
Blackness.
“Shit,” someone whispered.
Snap. He was out of the darkness, now. In a hospital. Human forms hovered above him. He saw beyond them. High-tech equipment everywhere. Corporate heaven? Wait. Something was wrong. The figures were in black and white. He had to be hallucinating. A giddy feeling rumbled through his brain. He wanted to laugh. He was caught in an old movie, perhaps. A movie from the 1930s. He tried to smile. He wasn’t sure if he still had a mouth. He felt nothing. Not good.
“Are we locked in?” one of the white faces said.
Suddenly, the white face was pink. Pinker. Bright red. He heard a snap. Darkness again. The hum in the background enveloped him, bathing him in a calm, relaxed aura. He was asleep yet fully aware. The humming noise kept him company.
A fog enveloped him. Clouds of swirling thoughts.
He saw a beautiful woman and boy. They had no faces. They were fading fast. What were their names? Whose names? He didn’t remember. What was happening? Time had come to a stop.
Click. Click. Click.
The humming grew louder. Not threatening. Dominant, now. The hospital room, the lab room, was back. Three-dimensional. Living color. A skinny, nervous man bounced on the balls of his feet above him. A black man in a suit was there, too. They were moving their lips. Sound was coming from them. What was this called? What were they doing? Speech. Did he remember that? Speech. Very, very good.
A whitecoat talked to them both. “Mr. Morton. Mr. Johnson. Glad to have you here. We were able to save his left arm.”
Arm?
The fidgety man wasn’t pleased. “What? I thought we agreed on total body prosthesis. Lose the arm, okay?”
The speaker stared down at him. “Can he understand what I’m saying?”
A voice from beyond replied. “It doesn’t matter. We’re going to blank his memory anyhow.”
Memory? Did he remember that?
Morton turned to his associate. “I think we should lose the arm. What do you think, Johnson?”
Johnson shrugged. “He signed the release forms when he joined the force. Legally, he’s dead. We can do pretty much what we want.”
Morton walked away. “Great. Let’s lose the arm.”
Another voice. “Okay. Shut him down and prep him for surgery.”
Click. Darkness. “Can you bring the system up for a minute? I gotta check something.”
The words became garbled. The voices fell under the spell of the constant humming. He relaxed, allowing himself to fall into the strange sensation that had taken him over . . . when? Why was it strange? This was life. This was existence. Wasn’t it?
Click. The lab once again materialized from the void. Morton. Johnson. Two white suits. Two new dark suits.
The two dark suits fed words to each other. The white suits made noises among themselves. Volley after volley of word-sounds. He had trouble hearing the words. He didn’t understand them, but realized they dealt with his existence, somehow.
“Our studies have shown the importance of Human Recognition Factor in the acceptance of authority,” said one dark suit.
“Thanks. Let’s test the neural connectors before we lock down the joint,” babbled a white blur.
“We’re getting into shaky legal territory here. It’s not clear what the legal ramifications would be if a former associate were to recognize the deceased,” darkblur pointed out.
Morton interrupted. “Look, he’s a law enforcement product. He should look like a tough son-of-a-bitch.”
A flash of light nearby. Two white suits conferred. “Where’s my laser ratchet? If I’m going to slice, I’ll need my laser ratchet.”