by Andy Remic
Out of the game, Jenny shooed Randy away, who skipped off, his pointed boots with skull buckles clacking, his cuff lace fluffing; she smiled wearily, tested her bruised jaw, and lit another cigarette.
Meat Cleaver was also out of the game, and she watched him carefully. Stocky and powerful, even at a game of cards he must have been carrying... what? Ten or twelve sheathed knives about his person. And of course, down the middle of his back like some Conan-wannabe, a massive, slightly curved meat cleaver which, he claimed, was more accurate in combat than any petty trinket samurai sword. “What happens when you meet a man with a machine gun?” had been Jenny’s first question on hearing that Cleaver refused to carry a projectile weapon of any sort. He’d grinned toothily at her, looked up to the sky, and said, “God works in mysterious ways. And you’d be surprised what seeing my meat cleaver does to a man’s aim.”
Jenny’s eyes moved further round the group, past the dazzling gorgeousness of Flizz (gorgeousness she’d used, predictably, to ensnare many a border or gate guard, dazzling him with beauty and smiles and lip gloss, then rendering him unconscious with a kick to the nads and karate chop to the neck).
Beside her was Nanny, the oldest member of the group. Female, hair in a crew cut, face harsh and haggard and brutal and square. She’d be the first to admit she was the complete antithesis of Flizz; where Flizz dazzled, Nanny groggled, where Flizz beamed smiles, Nanny cracked sour cynicism, where Flizz laughed and skipped and bounced, Nanny moaned and plodded and waddled. Nanny was stocky, muscular, heavy-set, big-boned, wearing size 12 boots and with fists like shovels. She carried several pistols and was the resident detonations expert, having once worked the infamous DemolSquads of Old London. Often the others would poke fun at Nanny, and her nickname was not, as Jenny had first suspected, because of her age; but because of her supposed resemblance to a goat.
Finally, there was Sick Note. A small, skinny, gangly-looking man, completely bald, with thick veins crossing his polished dome. He was never to be seen without either a cigarette or a quarter bottle of whiskey. He constantly moaned (he was moaning now, about losing his hand in the game) and was a hypochondriac. Jenny had questioned this fact when she’d first read it, only to be told, with a wide grin, “Wait till you meet him!” They had, of course, been correct; Sick Note earned his name for good reason. Not a day went by without him developing some new cancer, deadly virus, genetic mutation or terminal illness.
More drinks were drunk, and a feeling of euphoria washed over Jenny. The group were completely at ease with one another. They oozed not just confidence, but... the ability to mesh. Like gear cogs interlocking. They were a team, a unit. And that was good...
Except for Jones.
Had she misjudged?
Zanzibar gestured to her, and she stood, and stretched, and followed him outside into the cool night air. A light rain was falling. It tasted bad on Jenny’s tongue, like ash. Like toxic rainfall. Which, surely, it was.
“Don’t worry,” said Zanzibar.
“About?”
“So coy, mistress,” he grinned. “About Jones. I know how the human mind works. You can see us all as a unit, and you’re wondering if you fucked up. Trust me, you didn’t. What you’re witnessing in our behaviour is the absence of Jones. He is a fly in our butter. A maggot in our collective sweet, juicy apple pie. There is a deep prejudice in him, a deep bad strand. Nobody here thinks less of you.”
Jenny shrugged. “It’s good of you to say, Zanz.” She clasped his hand, wrist to wrist. “Internal bitching and fighting is a pointless excursion; we have a common enemy. A common enemy we need to bring down and fuck up with extreme prejudice.”
“You’ve come to the right place,” smiled Zanzibar.
Jenny nodded. “Well. We’re going to make a difference. I promise you that.”
~ * ~
JENNY SAT ON her bunk, in a tiny 8x6 bunker, and checked over her weapons. She had a Browning 13mm, an SMKK standard-issue machine gun, and a variety of weird and ingenious grenades, everything from smoke and white phos, to DetX and Detox pills.
Happy everything was in order, she kicked off her boots (in need of a polish) and lay back with a creak of springs. She wriggled around for a few moments, trying to get comfy, but resigned herself, as a bad-bed professional experienced in the art of shitty military springs, never to get comfy. She closed her eyes anyway and grasped for strands of sleep, but it wouldn’t come. As was usual when she drank enough to mess with her mindset, she thought about the drink, the alcohol, and drifted back through time.
Sleep tugged at her like a dying man on a rope, and she drifted in and out of consciousness. She felt bad about the fight earlier; in an ideal world, a true world where only good things happened, the fight wouldn’t have happened. But the problem was, there were too many arseholes with too big an ego floating around. Yes. Ha. Even in her unit. Her eyes flickered, and she licked dry lips, and for some reason she was thinking about her dad, Old Tom. She smiled grimly, for although there were many, many nice thoughts of Old Tom - snippets of early childhood, of laughing, being carried high on strong broad shoulders, of wallowing in warm oceans, of building castles in the sand - there were also other memories, more recent memories. Bad memories.
Jenny blinked, and for a moment he was standing there, long hair tangled and unkempt, a bottle in one hand filled with colourless piss, swaying, staring at her with that vacant stare he always had when hammered.
“Please stop, Daddy.”
“Ach, don’t be silly, little Jen. I’ve only had a few.”
“You drink too much, Daddy.”
“Just keeping the winter chills away.”
Always a line, always an excuse. She scrunched up tighter in her bed, eyes narrowing. She had been too young, too frightened, too weak. But her older brother, Saul, he should have known better. But no. He had one cruel eye turned on the piggy bank, the other holding onto the self-destruct lever and ratcheting it down one notch at a time.
“Saul, do something!” she would hiss, with bright eyes.
“He’s okay, he’s a grown man. He can look after himself.” But she caught Saul checking out bank statements, taking Old Tom’s bank cube when the old man was too frazzled on cheap liquor to even know his own children’s faces, never mind how many credits he had in his account. And with a gradual, cold, slippery descent into understanding, Jenny had come to realise what her own brother was really like. He didn’t care about Old Tom. Didn’t want to get her father help. Oh, no. He was waiting for him to die. Waiting for the bastard to drink himself into an early grave, thus funding Saul’s lazy, drugsmoke, groundcar-obsessive lifestyle.
Years later, they’d head-butted it out. But not now...
Not now.
“Why didn’t you help him, Saul?” she murmured, as she fell into a well of sleep.
~ * ~
WHY DO YOU hate your father?
Oh well, that’s a long story. A complicated story.
Well, why do you hate your brother?
Longer. Even more complex. And much more savage.
And your mother?
Poor, dead mother. Don’t cry for me, my darling.
And... your sister?
Nixa? Sweet dead Nixa. I’ll cry for you, honey. We’ll all cry for you.
~ * ~
OLD TOM. TOMAS to his friends. A likeable man. Big, jolly, funny, intelligent, friendly. Not a bad bone in his good bone body. Shaggy hair, shaggy beard, the kids called him “Chewbacca” and he laughed alongside them, laughed with their jokes as his hand touched the cold glass of the bottle in his pocket.
Tom liked to walk, and would head into the hills around Kavusco, long strides in his sturdy shoes. He wore thick molecule-tweed and smoked a pipe. A lot of the locals chuckled, and nudged one another: “There’s Old Tom off on another walk. A simple man. An honest man.”
But what they didn’t know about this loveable, amiable friendly giant was that he was on a mission; he had his orders, orders so important t
he Quad-Gal Military could have issued them from top Army Brass. The order was: to drink. And the mission was: to drink. And the secondary briefing was: not to get caught. And a sub-mission was: to hide it from his family. Old Tom’s own mother, Jenny’s grandmother, was on a slippery descent into death; she was ancient, frail, withered, skin like dry paper, eyes losing the light of life. Her batteries were discharged. Almost empty. Almost gone.
That’s why I drink, Tom told himself, believing it as he believed all the other lies. I can take it or leave it. And I don’t drink too much. I know I don’t drink too much. I can stop anytime, you see. But the wife doesn’t like it, always squawking and moaning, and the kids don’t like it, always asking, “Why are you so happy, Daddy?” and, “Why are you falling over, Daddy?” and, “Why are you being sick, Daddy?” People say to me, it’s an illness. People say to me, I don’t understand. Why do you drink until you’re sick? And then start all over again? Vodka for breakfast? Brandy for lunch? Whiskey for dinner? You’re a sick man! Better believe it.
Tom stopped, and breathed in the cold crisp winter air. He looked up towards the Kavusco Hills, with their peppering of snow. Behind him, far behind, a Tox Tipper droned through the sky and Tom found himself pausing, waiting for the “dump”. It came a few seconds later than he’d anticipated, the banging clattering rattle of junk being tipped into an open landfill. Tom’s nostrils twitched, trying to catch the scent of methane, of rot, of shit and crap; but nothing came. Tom’s sense of smell had been killed decades earlier.
“Damn you, brother,” he muttered, and glanced around before pulling out the bottle and taking a hefty swig. He felt the cold behind his eyeballs, and lowered the bottle, spluttering, piss whiskey warm on his lips and burning in his gullet. His ulcer stung, but he ignored the pain. It would soon leave him, along with his sobriety.
Once, Tom would have said, “I’m just popping out for a walk, honey.”
“Sure, no problem. I’ve put a beef casserole in the oven. Be back by five.”
Now, he knew, she knew, they all knew, “just popping for a walk” was a prelude to “just nipping out to drink until I puke,” and he didn’t say the words, and by not saying the words he knew he wouldn’t get into another argument.
She’ll leave you.
No, she won’t.
She will. She’s sick of your drinking, falling on your face, bloodying your nose, not coming home at night, leaving her worrying and shivering in a cold bed alone, looking after Jenny and Saul alone, going through her life... alone.
No. She understands me. She supports me. She loves me. Everything will be okay. But it wasn’t okay. And Tom knew his mother was dying. He looked into those eyes which had once sparkled so brightly, but now were dimmed, like failing, tumbling stars. Brittle and broken, she was. Eaten inside. Too far gone to help.
My poor mother. I can’t take it!
I’ll just have another drink...
And that’s what this was, a walk in the hills, a drink in the hills, to get over the knowledge that his mother was dying. Had mere days left. And he knew, knew he should be by her side, holding her hand, telling her he loved her just like his brother was. But he didn’t. He wasn’t. He needed a drink. Just a couple. To get over the knowledge that she was leaving this mortal realm...
“Be a man,” his brother would say.
“Fuck you, Kaylo!” he would snarl.
“Don’t blame me for what we did,” his brother would say.
“Go back to your evil,” Old Tom would snarl.
“Tom. Tom. We started this together, Tom.”
“Go to Hell.”
And Kaylo would smile, and his eyes shone like tiny candle lights, and his face was rugged and strong and handsome and Tom reached for his bottle, and downed another drink.
~ * ~
TOM’S BOOTS CRUNCHED on the gravel path as he moved further up into the hills, through forests of twisted old trees, diseased from the junk in the ground and sporting weird and wonderful corrugated bark, a testament to some ancient pollutant. The whole world is poisoned, he thought. And laughed. My whole mind is poisoned!
He stopped after a few more minutes, panting, sweating, and had another drink. He spluttered, piss whiskey burning his lips, and turned. Lights glittered through the fast-falling darkness and the valley spread out before him: the valley of his childhood, the valley of his adolescence, the valley of his adulthood. Kavusco. The town of his life. He’d been born there, he lived there, and he would die there.
And there’d been so many changes. From Beauty to Desecration.
Old Tom lowered his head and wept...
~ * ~
I LIVE IN a fucking soap-opera, thought Jenny as her eyes flared open. She lay there, staring at the ghost. It was a white apparition. Shimmering. Ethereal. It reached out a hand to her, and smiled. And, like she did every other morning, Jenny reached out a hand to her sister. Her dead sister.
“You are sad,” said the ghost.
“Yes,” said Jenny, clutching the covers that little bit more tightly.
“Bad dream?”
“I always have bad dreams,” said Jenny, face neutral.
“You still full of hate?”
Slowly, Jenny’s lip curled into a snarl and the reality of her situation and the reality of the world came tumbling back into focus.
“Oh, yes,” she said.
The ghost of Nixa smiled.
“Then it’s time to go to work,” she said.
~ * ~
IMPURITY5 HAD BEEN watching the Reprocessing Plant for a month, and it was quite obvious The Company, as usual, were not doing their job. Greenstar promised 100% recycling of alien tox. It was policy. It was what not only got them votes, and kept them in power, but earned them a lot of money and a number of God Award certificates from various planets, governments, and monarchies from around Manna - and indeed, the entire Quad-Gal. As far as the members of Impurity5 could work out, the reprocessing ratio was as little as 5%. Which meant 95% of waste being dumped direct into the ecosystem, or what remained of Amaranth’s ecosystem.
In reality, it was a huge shit pie. Quite literally. And the people of Toxicity were forced to take a very big bite in more ways than one.
“So what happens to the other ninety-five percent?” said Randy, running a hand through his flowing locks. “They can’t just dump it. That would be... immoral.” His dazzling, beautiful face was fixed on Jenny. She smiled. Damn, he looked so out of place squatting in a hole in the ground.
“They can, and they do,” said Jenny, and they sat in their covert hole, peering through Long Lenses as a convoy of Super Tankers arrived, perhaps a hundred in total, like huge black slugs buoyed on hover jets, each one as big as a thousand HG Truks. Jenny took photographs.
“I don’t get it.” Randy was frowning. “Those tankers, they could just be delivering more crap. What makes you so sure they’re taking it away for illegal tipping?”
“Watch,” said Jenny. “And learn.”
They watched, as slowly the Super Tankers rolled through high spiked iron gates, one by one.
“I think this is bullshit,” said Randy, pouting. “There’s nothing to see here. We’re on a wild goose chase.” As the newest member of Impurity5, Randy was prone to what the others considered ill-thought-out comments. Randy was the sort of dandy who truly did not know when to keep his mouth shut.
“You have to watch, and trust Jenny,” rumbled Zanzibar. “All will be revealed.”
“Well, I know what I’d like to be revealed.”
Randy was staring at Jenny, head tilted to one side, a curious look on his face.
“Oh, no,” said Jenny. She held up a hand. “Not here. Not now. It’s neither the time nor the place.”
“It’s always the time and the place,” smiled Randy. He tossed back his head, and his curls bounced.
Jenny looked sideways at Zanzibar. His dark-skinned face had gone pale.
“You vouched for him,” she said.
�
�What can I say?” Zanzibar gave a narrow, straight smile, although his eyes were dark. “He came highly recommended. You know it yourself. You fucking helped recruit him!”
“Hey!” snapped Randy. “Don’t talk about me like that.”
“Like what?” rumbled Zanzibar, turning his full attention on Randy.
“Like I’m not here, you big oaf! All this he came highly recommended bullshit. As if I’m not here. As if I’m a prat, a joker, an idiot.”
“Maybe you are?” said Jenny.
“Oh, you spear my heart, dearest one; dearest girlfriend. We are both part of the same universe, it can be seen nestling in our eyes, and yet your lack of poetry is anathema to my very being.”