by Andy Remic
“Stand up, Jenny. We have a lot to discuss.”
“Why?” she said, looking down meaningfully at Zanzibar, who still rested against her, as if the big man was asleep. “Why did you kill him?”
Candle’s face went hard, then. “He turned against us, Jenny. They all turned against us. You were a pawn. Part of a bigger game. A bigger tapestry. But you will see. I will show you. You will understand. Come with me.”
He held out his hand. It was a large hand, powerful, and Jenny found herself staring at it.
Who did she trust?
Did she have any option?
Slowly, she eased Zanzibar down to the ground with as much respect as she could muster, then climbed to her feet. Her head hung low, her SMKK dangling on its strap. Every limb felt lead-weighted, useless. All the fight had gone out of her. All the life had poured from her.
They stepped into the corridor, and there was a squad of twenty soldiers. They wore the olive-green of Greenstar, their gold logos emblazoned proudly on military jackets and berets. Their weapons were held smartly. To attention.
Jenny went for her SMKK in a rush, but Candle reached out, steadying her with his strong hands. She looked into his face. He reminded her of her father. He smiled at her, and shook his head.
“You are Greenstar,” she said, understanding dawning.
“Yes.”
“But why? Why betray us?”
“I have not betrayed you. I have always been Greenstar.”
Jenny wrestled with this. “Greenstar, the very fuckers who we hunt down and kill and bomb and exterminate - they employ us to do this? Greenstar own and organise and run and supply the Impurity Movement?” She started to laugh, and the laugh was touched with hysteria. “Greenstar use ECO terrorists to bomb their own factories?” She was laughing openly now, tears tumbling down her face.
“Yes.”
“But why? Why, you bastards? I don’t understand!”
And Jenny was in his arms, a small child again, a small child needing protection from the world of the grownups. Because this was a different place, a different game. Jenny no longer understood the rules, if indeed there were any. Jenny was divorced from reality, cut out from the equation of life. Everything she knew and trusted and believed and fought for - all of it was built on a foundation of quicksand.
Candle squeezed her, hugged her, murmured soothing noises into her hair.
“Come on,” he said, whispering in her ear. “We must go to the Director’s Office. There, everything will become clear to you. There, everything will be explained. Do you trust me?”
Jenny looked up through her tears. “I trust nobody,” she said.
“That’s okay. Come on, come with me. I’ll answer all of your questions there. We won’t hurt you. Nobody will hurt you again.”
And weeping, Jenny allowed herself to be led. Like a lamb on a leash.
~ * ~
HORACE, ANARCHY ANDROID, otherwise known as The Dentist, swam through the toxic sludge. Slowly, he could feel his body failing him. His new, incredibly powerful toxic body - it was failing. The lirridium in the sludge, filtered through in channels, in skeins, was burning him. It was decaying his toxicity. It was neutralising the acids and alkalis, reducing the pollutants, halving the half-lives. And yet he fought on, pushing through the tox, swimming through the miles and miles of vast pipes that ran under the ground and under the rock, under villages and towns and cities, taking in their crap, taking in their toxicity and pumping it somewhere else.
Horace pushed on, only one thought in his mind now. And he realised they were lining his route, the psi-children, hundreds of them, thousands of them, products of evolved toxic waste, products of the world of Amaranth that had been abused and crushed and dumped on, a living breathing toxic Hell, and he had to push on, had to make a difference...
Had to be the Trigger.
Now his body was soaking up lirridium, it was flowing into his mouth and ears and nostrils, flowing into his lungs, his bloodstream, his lymphatic system, and he became infused with the fuel, infused with the liquid gold so important to space travel, so important to Greenstar, so important to Amaranth, so important to Manna...
And realisation hit him like a hammer.
To become the trigger, the spark, the ignition, the detonator.
He knew how it would be done.
And all around him, the psi-children began to sing... they sang a long, low, crooning song, a song of lamentation, a song of desolation, for their lost world, for their dying world, for their dead world.
~ * ~
THE DIRECTOR’S OFFICE was the top floor of the Greenstar Factory Hub, at the pinnacle of the central tower. It was a vast space, incredibly opulent, with thick glass carpets, marble windows and mercury furniture, which rippled gently on contact.
The lift doors hissed shut, leaving behind the squad of Greenstar military.
Silence greeted Jenny, and she looked up, looked around, absorbed her new surroundings.
Mr Candle left Jenny at the door, still with her weapons, and walked forward to a massive boardroom desk. By the wall, decorated with original paintings by some of Amaranth’s most famous and unique “Toxic Painters,” renowned across Manna for their work using toxic materials to create art, Mr Candle poured himself a drink from a crystal decanter and lifted the small glass in his huge hand. He turned and looked back at Jenny.
“Why don’t you come in, Miss Xi?”
Jenny stared at him, then shifted her gaze. Several figures were seated around the mercury boardroom table. There was Renazzi Lode, the Director of The Greenstar Recycling Company. Small and powerful, she sat upright, hands clasped before her, a forced smile on her face. Jenny could tell it was a forced smile; she could smell insincerity from a thousand yards.
Jenny padded forward across the carpet and stopped, staring at the people before her. Mr Candle made introductions. “Renazzi Lode, I am sure you are aware, is our Director. She handles every facet of the company from the top down, and makes all our truly important decisions - as any thoroughbred director should.” He gave a small laugh. Jenny’s keen eyes moved from Renazzi Lode to the others seated around the table.
“This is the Assistant Director, Sowerby Trent.” Jenny looked her up and down, the barbed-wire hair, the face like a puckered cat’s arse, small and shrivelled as if worn down by decades of bowing and scraping and fighting, fighting, fighting to get to the top, top, top and beyond... but never succeeding. “She aids Renazzi Lode with some of our more complex ethical problems.”
Jenny switched her gaze to a small man, small and squat and looking uncomfortable in his expensive suit, as if he really shouldn’t be wearing one. He had a massive explosion of boils across his neck and the side of his head, which Jenny attributed to some kind of contact with a toxic substance, perhaps. She smiled inside at this, but not very hard.
“Aaul Thon Lupy, Chief of Recycling Management. We have a joke in The Company. We call him The Toxic Poisoner. Obviously, the joke being that he doesn’t so much recycle waste, rather he poisons every single thing around him.” A ripple of brittle crystal laughter went round the head of the table.
Jenny did not smile.
“Now, quickly moving around the rest of our management team, we have Helle Mic, Head of Communication Services” - Jenny stared at the slim, acerbic-looking woman, hair back in a tight ponytail, overbite sturdy enough to crack the caps off a bottle of beer; indeed, the wheels off a JCB - “this is Head of Public Relations Management, Sanne Krimez, the woman responsible for smoothing over, shall we say, some of our biggest social networking disasters” - he gave a little chuckle - “and lastly our Foreign Affairs Director and keen pink leather motorbiker, Arroon Lupar, the man responsible for making sure we don’t get a Halo Strike up our arse for upsetting the Shamans.” He laughed again, only this time with less enthusiasm.
Jenny looked around at the group, in their neat suits and fake smiles, and they all seemed to be watching her expectantly. She was also
painfully aware of the SMKK hanging slack by her hip with a pretty much full clip. One twitch, one spray of bullets, and she could wipe out the bastards who had done this to Amaranth. The fuckers who had crucified her world. But first, some answers...
“Explain it to me,” said Jenny.
“Which part?” said Mr Candle.
“Start with the Impurity Movement. Why the fuck would a company intent on poisoning a world then employ its own terrorists to bomb its own factories? It doesn’t make sense.”
Mr Candle had moved to stand before the window, which took up the entire wall and looked out over Amaranth. He gestured for Jenny to join him, and warily she padded across the rich carpets. It was late, and the green sun hung low in the heavens, casting beautiful rays over the planet below. The scene was... stunning. And yet the beauty was marred by distant factories and towers belching smoke, scarred by the dumps and slag heaps and teetering towers of waste -all waiting to be “recycled.”
“Jenny, Jenny, Jenny,” he said, and placed a hand on her shoulder. She was sorely tempted to draw her combat knife and smack it through the back of his hand, but she resisted. Just.
“Don’t keep saying my name, you’ll wear it out,” she said.
Mr Candle looked down at her. “What Old Tom used to say, right?”
Jenny stared at Candle for a long, cool time. “How could you know that?” she said, eventually.
Mr Candle grinned at her. “Don’t you see the family resemblance? Of course you do, you just won’t admit it to yourself. I’m your uncle, Jenny. I am Old Tom’s brother. I am Kaylo Xi. They call me ‘The Candle’ because I stand alone, a solitary flame against the dark.”
And it clicked into place. Everything clicked into place, like a videogame of falling bricks which suddenly aligned in a rush and a blink of an eye, aligned and popped and buzzed and progressed you to the next level of understanding. Mr Candle was Old Tom’s brother. Jenny’s uncle. And she remembered: distant memories, toddling around when her huge kind Uncle Canny used to come and visit, always bringing her wonderful gifts, sitting her on his lap and bouncing her. She would pull at his neat moustache and he would roar with laughter...
“No,” she said.
“Yes,” said Candle, eyes sparkling. “Greenstar Recycling Company is my company. But more, it was also Old Tom’s. We had a 50/50 share. That other fifty percent - well, now that’s yours. On your thirtieth birthday... which is...”
“Tomorrow,” said Jenny, mouth dry, eyes watering.
“Now. To answer your previous question. Greenstar are aware, of course, that our actions are not favourable to a very large part of the Amaranth population. Fucking do-gooders always getting in the way. Well, it was your father’s idea. If we began an ECO terrorist group, made them high profile in the media, give them some redundant or useless targets to destroy - then...”
“Then they’d attract every like-minded individual to their cause,” said Jenny, her voice like gravel, a voice of the tomb, a voice of the dead. “You would assemble a massive army of terrorists - whom you would control. No rogue bastards destroying Greenstar stuff, oh, no; you’d pull the strings. If there were going to be rebels, going to be terrorists, then you might as well control them, right?”
“Of course,” smiled Mr Candle. “It always helps to know what the ruffians are going to do next. The power of information, my dear. Never, ever underestimate its worth. It’s worth more than gold, diamonds, and even lirridium.”
Jenny put her face in her hands and shook her head. She groaned. “I have been such a fool,” she said.
“Nonsense, my dear! You have been doing your father’s work!”
“No, no, that’s not how it was. He wanted me to destroy Greenstar! He wanted me to bring it down. It was the last thing he told me before he died.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” said Mr Candle, and there was a crack in his voice; a fracture in the crystal. He quickly recovered. “Old Tom liked his drink, did he not?” He laughed. “Yes, prone to saying some wild things on occasion. But the fact of the matter is, and we have paperwork and filmys to show you to back this all up - Old Tom wanted his half of the business to go to you. You would become Ruling Director on the Board of the Greenstar Recycling Company. You would help us grow the business, expand to take over other worlds. For as you must have noticed, Amaranth is nearing the end of its Pollutant Cycle...”
“Pollutant Cycle?”
“We can only abuse a world for so long,” said Mr Candle, smiling kindly. “Every planet can only take so much before it reaches capacity. You met the psi-children, did you not? Down in the laboratory, where you planted your little HighJ devices? They emerged from the toxic pipes, killed a few of my soldiers - those naughty little children.” He was laughing. “Oh, yes. That reminds me. This so-called Trigger of the psi-children is coming up the lirridium pipe network, in the firm belief he can set the detonators on the HighJ. The idiot. Doesn’t he realise we have disarmed all the det and ignition systems? You there, Helle. Go give the order to have this creature flushed and fired from the system...”
The small, nasty-looking woman rose to her feet.
Suddenly, Jenny lifted her SMKK and pointed it at Helle Mic. “Don’t move, bitch, or I’ll blow your fucking head off.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” said Mr Candle, his voice neutral.
Helle moved, and Jenny fired five bullets, exploding her skull. Blood rained down over the other shocked managers, and the woman’s body slapped the carpet. An awed hush descended on the room.
“That was a very foolish move, child,” said Mr Candle. Now his eyes blazed with anger.
“I am no fucking child,” snarled Jenny, “and you, all you people, you are the fucking enemy!”
“How can we be the enemy?” snapped Mr Candle. “We own you. Your terrorist outfit belongs to us. You are our employee. And...” - his voice softened, and he took several deep breaths - “this is not the outcome your father wanted. Think about it, Jenny. Think hard. Your old father, Old Tom; me and him, we built a world of toxicity! For you! And now it’s yours, girl, all you have to do is believe, believe in me, believe in your father, come to us, lay down the weapon! You will be the richest woman in Manna!”
“I don’t want your fucking money!” she screamed, and the SMKK rounded on Mr Candle. Her eyes were on fire, and lit from behind by the dying green sun, she appeared like some demon-eyed blazing angel of death. Calmer this time: “I don’t want your money. Or your position. Or your job. Maybe what you say about my father is true; maybe he did help build this company. This dark Empire. But at the end, on his deathbed, he saw what he had done. He understood. He hated Greenstar. He wanted it annihilated. And now, yes, I can do this. I SAID, DON’T FUCKING MOVE!”
Renazzi Lode had stood and was sidling towards a comm. She froze, eyes locking on Jenny and the SMKK, which had swung to point at her. Renazzi looked at Mr Candle, who gave a small hand gesture, as if to say, sit down, I’ll handle this, it’ll be okay in a few moments.
Jenny turned the SMKK back on Candle. “So, uncle. We find ourselves in a little bit of a stalemate.”
“You are talking about the HighJ?” He gave a brittle laugh. “You have no method of detonating the explosives. It needs the right frequency electronic trigger. Even if this so-called messenger of the psi-children arrived, he could do nothing...”
“I believe you are wrong,” said Jenny, softly. “Now, sit down. Sit down, all of you. Or I’ll fill you full of bullets and spit on your graves.”
“What do you propose?” said Mr Candle, stiffly. He, too, was eyeing the comm.
Jenny smiled, and moved to the high-backed Director’s chair. She sat down, and surveyed the Board. “Well, Uncle. I propose that we simply sit here and wait awhile...”
~ * ~
HORACE SURGED THROUGH the tox, feeling the lirridium pushing into him, pushing through him, filling him up with its fire and holy purity... every muscle ached, expanded, contracted, expanded, every
molecule buzzed with the raw hot energy of Horace’s converting physiology... and every atom vibrated and screamed and screeched like a banshee in a tight cage clawing to be free...
The tox parted before Horace’s onslaught.
And he felt the proximity...
Felt the pressure building....
This is it, thought The Dentist.
This is it.
~ * ~
“YOU WON’T GET away with this,” said Mr Candle. He was sat, body tensed, as Jenny’s SMKK swept over him, past him, covering the other members of the Greenstar Board.
Jenny laughed. “Get away with it? Hell, I’m just happy to live to see the destruction of this shit-hole.”
“Think about what you’re doing,” said Renazzi Lode. She stood up, and Jenny waved the SMKK with scowl, so she sat down again. “This is a great and honourable organisation; we turn the Manna Galaxy’s waste into lirridium starship fuel! Without our input, the whole galaxy would grind to a halt. The Shamans will not allow you to get away with such atrocity.”