by Andy Remic
They reached a large chamber filled with bubbling vats of blue tox. They paused for a while, surveying the area, watching, waiting. A worker passed to their right and they let him go, hearts hard. They didn’t want to kill people. But if they had to, they had to. These people were torturing the planet. These people were killing Jenny’s world...
“Look at the stars, little lady. Look how they sparkle! How they light up the night sky!”
She stood with Old Tom, her dad, her father, her love, her hero, the Biggest Man in the World, the Greatest Man in the Galaxy, on top of the hill. Ice was under their boots, a wind snapping at them like wolf jaws; but she was snuggled and warm inside her fleece and hats and scarf and gloves and boots... and snuggled up to him, with his huge arm around her shoulders, holding her tight, protecting her. But more, she was warm inside. Warm like honey. Warm like angels. She was with her dad. And his love and strength were bright, real things.
“Aren’t they tiny?” she said.
“No, they are massive, so big they would swallow our whole world if they wanted to.”
“Wow. Is that true, daddy? Really true?”
“As true as their beauty. Look out, Jenny. Look out on our planet, our world, our incredible, fabulous planet. Amaranth. Deep in the heart of the Zynaps System. Wonderful, and fabulous, a million years of history deep under our very boots.”
“It’s so beautiful, daddy. I love the world. And I love you.”
He gazed down into her big baby blue eyes, and ruffled her hair through her thick bobble hat. “I love you too, munchkin. Love you till the stars go out.”
A month later, Greenstar bought the planet and signed the paperwork. The Company made their signed-in-blood agreements with corrupt Quad-Gal politicians, and the Titan-Class Space Freighters moved in. Orbiting Dump Pipes were set in place; vast, armoured, mech-laser-protected itanio tubes which freighters could lock to above orbit and dump trillions of litres of crap to the surface through without having to land. Of course, the global population of Amaranth were offered generous payouts to pack up and ship out. Whole villages and towns, even cities, were abandoned overnight. Bus Shuttles shuttled millions from the condemned planet’s surface. But, as was human nature, millions more chose to stay. This was their planet. Their world. Their home. Their history. Their soul.
Old Tom chose to stay. Three months later, his wife, Jenny’s mother, had died from a rare allergic reaction to some of the new pollutants introduced to Amaranth - now being commonly touted by the media as Toxic City, or simply Toxicity. Oh, how The Daily Shite mocked and harangued those people who chose to stay. Funny cartoons depicted the remaining populace growing three heads and extra legs, and spouting comedy penis growths and jocular new diseases. They laughed and laughed and laughed. The day of Jenny’s mother’s funeral, Old Tom started to drink real bad. And he never stopped.
The Daily Shite ran comedy sketches, columns, cartoons and features... right up to the day when Jenny and three newly recruited Impurity Movement activists had bombed their HQ on Earth. That had been the beginning...
And although Jenny knew it was wrong; well, fuck it. It was also right.
Jenny and Sick Note waited until the worker left the chamber. They moved across the big space, slowly, confidently, in control. Their target was close, now. One of the main Reprocessing Decks that also formed a structural connection point for the whole plant. The Plant had four, one in each corner; foundation stones holding up the roof and the towers. Blow the Decks, where the toxic crap was supposedly “reprocessed,” and the whole factory would come tumbling down upon itself...
As they drew near, Jenny stopped. “Listen.”
“I don’t hear anything,” said Sick Note.
“Exactly. The Reprocessing Decks should be running 24/7. They’re not even operating. Which is incredible, seeing as a hundred Super Tankers have just supposedly dumped their loads here for reprocessing.”
“Jen,” said Sick Note, softly. “You don’t need to convince me. I’m on your side.”
She gave him a dark look. “Sometimes, I think they think I’m mad,” she said.
Sick Note touched her arm, tenderly for such a skinny little psychopathic madman. “Not me,” he said.
Zanzibar came through on the net. “You copy?”
“Yeah. We’re on target. You?”
“In position. The convoy is eleven minutes away; we’ll hit it with so many bombs they’ll think it’s fucking Detonation Day!”
“Roger that. Will connect. Out.”
“We on?” said Sick Note.
“We’re on,” said Jenny, and pulled a small, brown charge from her pack. “Let’s do it.”
They moved towards the massive Deck, which squatted in the gloom like a warship tipped on its nose. It veered off, upwards, a curiously angled skyscraper. Sick Note looked around, not nervous, but manically cautious. His weapon tracked different arcs. If they were spotted now, they were fucked.
Jenny knelt, and slowly spun out thin loops of gold wire. There was a clack as the charge connected with the metal, and tiny teeth chewed their rapid way into the alloy surface.
Satisfied, Jenny rocked back on her heels and glanced up at Sick Note. “We good?”
“We’re good,” he said.
Suddenly, both Jenny and Sick Note’s comms burst into life. There was rattling gunfire and explosions. The pitter-patter of falling debris. “It’s a set-up!” screamed Zanzibar. There came several krumps. “They were fucking waiting for us! Get out! Get out now!”
The comm went dead.
Jenny felt her heart drop into darkness. Hackles rose on the back of her neck and across her arms. Her jaw clamped tight, and she gave a sideways glance at Sick Note. “Come on. Let’s finish it.”
“But...”
“We’ve gone too far. We fucking finish it.”
They ran through the gloom, unchallenged, heads low, SMKKs at the ready. Sick Note watched Jenny powering forward, a woman possessed, and made sure they weren’t followed. Or watched. He grinned manically. Hell, how would they even know? This place could be rigged tighter than any high security bank. Just because it looked scummy from the outside, what was basically a glorified tip, didn’t mean they didn’t have access to all manner of high-grade observation technology. They could afford it.
They reached the second Deck in just under four minutes, and Sick Note was streaming with sweat, wheezing, and wondering if it was time to finally give up the weed. Annoyingly, Jenny was not even out of breath. She knelt, priming the charge, as Sick Note tried to raise Zanzibar, Meat Cleaver, Bull or Nanny on their comms; nothing. They were either down and out of the game, or their tech had been compromised.
“Shit.”
“Nothing?”
“No. Let’s get the shit out of here, Jen. This is turning real sour and I don’t trust this place.”
“Let’s go.”
They made their exit with care, and it was with incredible relief they ran to the fence and their rendezvous with Randy and Flizz. The two hadn’t yet arrived, and Jenny waited impatiently, crouched by the wire, eyes focused on the direction from which she thought they would emerge. A cold wind blew across her, and it felt strange; like somebody crawling over her grave. Amazing, as she wasn’t dead yet. Not yet.
“Still can’t raise Zanzibar. What do you think is going down?”
“Bad shit. Zanzibar wouldn’t have cut in on our mission like that for fun. It sounded like an all-out warzone.”
“They’re here.”
Jenny glanced left, a tiny frown creasing her pale skin. Randy had emerged from a narrow alleyway, looked left and right, then cautiously approached in a crouched run. “Shit, did you hear Zanzibar on the comm?” he hissed, dropping to his knees before Jen.
“Where’s Flizz?”
Randy stared at Jenny. “She’s just finishing up. Laying spool decoy, or something. Don’t panic. Have you got the det?”
“Yes,” said Jen, showing him her left hand where the digital
detonator squatted like an oval bug.
“Good,” said Randy, and placed the muzzle of his pistol against Jenny’s head. “Then you’ll be handing that over to me,” he said. He smiled.
Sick Note spun, eyes filled with rage, body tense for combat.
“I wouldn’t, motherfucker. This baby has a hairline trigger and could go off with the slightest squeeze. And by that, I don’t mean Jenny’s clit.”
“How much did they pay you, Randy?”
“Not enough,” he said, voice charming now as he stood and Jenny rose with him. Her guns and bombs; so close and yet so far. If she could just...
“Do not be fooled by my apparel, nor my nonchalant charm,” said Randy, leaning in close to her. “I’d kill you as readily as swatting a fly. I will spread your brains across the wall.”
“What did you do with Flizz?”
“Let’s just say some big men in big coats with a big black van took her away. Somewhere nice. She can, oooh, perhaps have a snooze, with a nice meal; then a spot of torture for dessert? I think that may be on the menu.”
“Blow it,” said Sick Note, eyes and gun fixed on Randy.
“She’ll have a job,” said Randy, smiling easily. “I swapped the trigger lines. Now, give me the det.”
Suddenly, there was a deafening clatter of three choppers, slick and glossy, which zoomed across the sky, searchlights painting massive circles of light against the ground. Jenny sensed, more than saw or heard, the special ops soldiers behind her; creeping through grass, drifting like ghosts between the trees with weapons primed and hearts hard. They really had been set up. The enemy. The Company. Aided and abetted by a back-stabbing Randy. The bastard.
Jenny turned and looked at him. “Why?” she said, eyes haunted, lost, hurt. Then she spat in his face and watched the dandy in him leave, like a soul drifting upwards from a corpse. Was it just a persona? A created character for our benefit; to get inside Impurity? To get inside us? To break us?
“Give me the detonator, bitch,” he said.
The special ops soldiers were through the fence now, a ring of weapons around Jenny and Sick Note. Slowly, Sick Note bent and placed his weapon on the ground, hands in the air, game over. Jenny, however, seemed locked in battle with Randy. As if some great contest of wills was taking place, and he really didn’t have a gun to her head.
“When I detonate,” said Jenny, slowly, enunciating every word with care, her eyes locked to Randy’s, “you know as well as I the whole fucking place is going to come smashing down. This close, it’s a toss-up between whether we live” - she licked her lips, and smiled - “or die. I believe in my cause, and I’m willing to die with honour, Randy. Are you in the same place? In your heart? In your soul?”
“I explained,” barked Randy, annoyed now. “I swapped the trigger lines.” He gave his own dark smile then; it was almost as dark as his hooded, glassy eyes.
“And I’m explaining now,” said Jenny, dipping her head a little and lifting the detonator in her gloved fist, “that I bypassed them altogether. I didn’t trust your alien shit. I wanted the job done.”
Her hand was high in the air, now. Her eyes shifted and met Sick Note’s. He knew what to do.
“So - it’s live?” he asked.
Jenny could see a pulse beating at Randy’s temple. It was flickering wildly.
“Oh, yes,” she said, and squeezed the detonator like a lover... and in a dream, watched the world come tumbling down.
~ * ~
THREE
NEVER LOSE YOUR temper.
Horace was bald. Horace liked being bald. He especially liked it when somebody shouted, “Oi! You! Bald bastard!” Then, Horace would have to remove a few teeth. Horace had removed lots of teeth in his career, but that wasn’t why they called him The Dentist.
“Never lose your temper.”
Horace stood cupped in the shadows of the gloomy, low-rent, drag-strip neon-tattooed bar, arms limp by his sides, face neutral, and stared at the three large, hairy, overly-angry men before him. Glass lay shattered on the whiskey-stained boards. A woman in a leopard-skin mini-skirt sat, stunned, blood trickling from her smashed lip.
One man growled something incomprehensible, and snapped a pool cue over one knee. Horace gave a long, slow, reptilian blink. The length of splintered wood whistled as it slammed through the air, and the modest-looking, mild-mannered Horace twitched and swayed to the side by just enough, eyes cool, face serene, breathing calmly.
The second strike was avoided with equal ease, and screaming in frustration, the large, heavily muscled wife-beater leapt at Horace, who simply turned sideways, allowing the huge man to cannon past, charge uncontrollably into a stack of tables, and send the whole tower tumbling down with a noise like a fat man falling down the stairs.
With neat little movements, Horace turned his back on the group and walked towards the exit. On his way out from the darkened, seedy bar he pocketed a photo cube in his expensive neat black suit pocket. A glass flew past him, shattering on the wall, and then Horace was outside, breathing cool, snow-laced air, neon party-lights flickering above him with promises of SEX SEX SEX and CUNT CUNT CUNT. Digital echoes played across Horace’s alabaster skin.
He started down the sidewalk, filtering out the noise of the partying nightlife all around. He sensed the three men emerge from the bar behind him. A door cracked shut.
“Oi, you! I said YOU! Bald fucker!”
Horace stopped dead.
A tiny muscle twitched in his jaw.
Horace sighed. And turned. He watched the three men charging towards him, and waited until the last moment before twitching sideways to the right, right fist driving upwards under the middle man’s jaw and lifting him clean off his feet. In a reversal of the same movement, his elbow drove backwards into another man’s eye socket - disintegrating the bone - and as the third man stood suddenly still, shock registering through alcohol and hate, Horace stepped in close and leant towards him.
“Do you know what they call me?” he said, quite placidly.
The man tried to take a backward step, but realised Horace had hold of his belt. He stared down at the neat white features, the polished dome of the bald head, and he felt a tremor of terror ripple down his spine.
“No,” he managed, gusting sour whiskey fumes and spittle.
“They call me The Dentist,” said Horace, gently, words little more than an exhalation of calm air. “Have you heard my name?”
The half-drunken thug nodded, eyes growing wide. Everybody had heard of The Dentist. Everybody had heard bad things about The Dentist. Growing up in Callister Town, the wild frontier for partying nutcases, the rumours were always exaggerated; but always, as these things were, based on a grain of truth. He’s as big as five men, son, the bullshitters would bullshit. He can punch through plate steel, and has balls the size of watermelons!
But... why do they call him The Dentist?
Only he knows that, son. But one thing I can tell you is that if you hear that name, you’d better run, ‘cause your meat is deader ‘n dead meat.
Jonboy had heard the rumours, of course he had, everybody had, and the stories, and seen the pictures (artist’s impressions) in papes and newscubes. The scenes of destruction. Of torture and murder. The wanted posters containing blurry images and colossal reward sums for information leading to the capture and execution of the killer known as The Dentist.
Nobody would invoke that name without having some serious backup, or serious hardware. Jonboy looked frantically for a gun, but could see none. No stick, no knife, no ‘dusters.
Shit, he realised. This greasy little pasty-face bastard was taking the piss!
Jonboy let out a snort, partly fuelled by alcohol, partly fuelled by the realisation that only a skinny little bastard without real muscle was gripping his belt. A little bastard who was about to get the kicking of his life.
“You don’t fucking say,” Jonboy snarled, bravado returning on a surfboard of adrenaline and whiskey.
�
�Yes.” Horace smiled. “Actually, I do.” His hand came up swiftly, formed a fist, and drove into Jonboy’s mouth like a pile driver. Fingers opened like grappling hook irons, and Horace gave a violent twist of the wrist, like he was unscrewing a lightbulb, breaking both lower and upper jaws with one swift crack, and extracting both gleaming teeth and yellow jaw from the suddenly gaping cavity of the skull. The bone trailed ripped tendons on a torrent of torn muscle and gushing blood.
Jonboy gawped for a moment. He had little option.
Horace surveyed the excised jawbone in his fist, and slowly analysed each tooth sequentially. He gave a little smile, as if acknowledging some internal diatribe. He then dropped the jaw to the ground with a clatter and strode away, watched by Jonboy who slowly folded to his knees, hands pawing his missing lower face.