Wight

by Dorien Vincent

  It had a big dent in it.

  His watchward during the night was looming over him again, and now straddled his middle.

  "How do we kill you?"

  Tset pointed to the egg in his chest, guessing correctly.

  "Huh," He looked confused for a second, leaning in close to peer at the egg.

  "What's this?"

  The man reached out and touched it. Tset felt that, the pain was immense and clouded his thoughts.

  But there was a click, and a little shriek, like a heating element, and Tset felt warmth all through his body to his toes and fingertips.

  He also felt his ribs punch through the invading hand.

  Tset lay and shuddered, arching his back. There was new pain as his parts started to work again and as blood reached bloodless places. As he regenerated.

  The man retrieved his bloodied hand from the depths of Tset's sternum.

  Tset exhaled very hard and rolled over. His left arm worked, now that it connected at the shoulder again. He hadn't even noticed it hadn't before.

  He stood, and was aware he was still naked.

  He took his hand for a fig leaf for a moment and addressed the assassin, who now had a gun on him.

  "Would you give it a rest?" The burst of energy and adrenalin was more than Tset could handle. He screamed his words. The assassin faltered.

  Tset wounded him in the eye with his free hand. The gun went off but Tset was on him, wrestling one-handed for the pistol. Tset blacked out.

  When he saw again, the man was dead, and in Tset's left hand was the hair-matted pistol. He tossed it away, sighing a hitching sigh. He tried to catch his breath again, he was winded, and everything dimmed.

  Yonotan was the first person he saw when he came to for the nth time. It was darker as Yonotan had closed the curtains. Muted light still filtered in.

  Yonotan crouched over him, "Mister Tset! What are you doing?"

  Tset's mouth was entirely coated in film, he'd been sleeping with it open.

  He worked to get it off.

  "I got attacked. Get Tristram over here to move my equipment."

  "How many were dere?"

  Yonotan helped him up.

  "Four maybe? Not sure."

  "Dey be pros wit dey clean up."

  "No kidding. Go, get dressed, we're going to the Club tonight."

  Yonotan nodded. "You be okay?"

  Tset held his arms out, "You see a scratch on me?"

  "No, but dis is weird to me, Tset."

  Tset pulled on some boxer shorts and waved at Yonotan, "Don't worry!"

  He was looking at the floor very closely, on his face. Yonotan raced over, "Okay, tonight, you rest. We go tomorrow. Tristram be by soon. Keep your cell phone on you." Yonotan threw him onto the bed and got him some whisky from the minibar that buzzed pleasantly in the corner.

  Yonotan helped Tset to get rid of the remaining body - it left with him in his trunk after being bagged and dropped into the alleyway between the hotel and the next building.

  Tristram came and pounded on the door until Tset rose, dizzy and with pangs in his chest, and opened it.

  He let Tristram in.

  "Just throw all my shit into boxes and ship it. I need to leave."

  "Yeah, right, dude, tomorrow fucking morning. I don't know if anyone's gonna come back around for you, so show me your assault rifle."

  Tset took him to it. It was placed, comically, in the umbrella holder off the foyer, next to a golf club.

  "Excellent. Lock and load." Tristram snapped the breach open and closed as he said this.

  "I'm going to be awake tonight, Keeping your ass safe, so sleep tight."

  Tset wandered back to bed, and lay down, face first, on the covers. He still held his small whisky bottle and was about to say something when he was very deeply asleep.

  That night, Tset dreamed. The first he could remember since the nightmares of the tank. Had he dreamed at all?

  The sight of the room, however grainy, brought it back into stark recognition. That was the room he wandered out of and into the night to start his journey to wherever it was he was.

  There were people in it this time, however, and he was on the operating table. Instruments clicked and gasses pumped into his lungs. The hum of the amniotic tank was soothing.

  "His heart is ruined."

  "Natty said it had become enlarged during birth, due to complications."

  "He won't live another year on this leaky bag, and we need him longer than that."

  "We're being fully funded, Alex... they'll reimburse us and forwarded us their credit already."

  "Are you saying we should just dump the prototype into this bastard?"

  "Why the hell not? We'll just buy another one."

  Alex moved away from Tset, then came back and picked something up off his stomach.

  "Are we still going with the plan?"

  There was hesitation, Tset felt palpable fear in his dream.

  A stutter, "Y-yes."

  "Good. Use the prototype."

  Tset dreamed of just that space for an hour or more, the doctors had left and he was still there.

  He began to worry. Had he never left? Was his hotel and everything else the dream? His imagination carried him through many different scenarios while he waited - maybe he'd only been in a car accident, and now lay comatose, or near-comatose. Or everything was a dream. He felt he may be in a cave, looking at shadows, never to leave.

  This brought him fear, but nothing could be done for it, and so he lay...

  He heard the door open, after hours, and the doctors came back, they carried a machine between them, which they placed over Tset's chest.

  He could see them shaking hands over the heavy steel construct that rested on him, "Here goes." Alex said.

  The machine began to run and Tset watched in horror from his motionless but focused periphery as a rotary blade descended, slowly, whizzing and reflecting Tset's inert features back at him. When the saw touched his chest, it did not stop - it steadily went on, down, down down.

  The pain, again, was immense. Soon his chest was cracked. Like a cadaver, like a corpse. The nameless doctor had blood on his face. He yelped and stepped back, "I got it." Said Alex.

  Tset felt a thud when his heart exploded in his chest.

  The moist blankets gripped him, he tore them apart, "Jesus Christ!"

  He clawed at where the machine had been. He breathed hard, and tried to make it to a corner, but friendly hands lifted him up from behind and dragged him back to bed. Tristram. Tset was alive. He had left the room. Everything was real. Its solidity and aesthetic showed him that clearly in the darkened room.

  The chest pains were entirely gone.

  "Nightmare, man, go back to bed, have more whisky. Tell me about it tomorrow. You look like shit."

  Tset slept, peacefully, after coming down from the shock. His pains were all gone, he felt normal. His confidence returned. He smiled in his sleep. The dream left him, the idea of his heart being an implant left him.

  The next morning, he felt fresh. He devoured his breakfast, then another, Tristram actually had to call room service seven times before Tset was sated. Then he showered, when he came out, wearing one towel and using a second to dry his hair, he pulled a pair of sharp pinstripe dress pants over his white heart-dotted silk boxers.

  He wandered around his hardwood floors in his white-bottomed Hanes for a minute trying to figure out what to wear, then decided on a tailored sky blue shirt, his pair of black shoes, no combat vest, no tie, no undershirt. He wore a pants matching blazer to conceal his pistols.

  Tristram had moved all of his things besides basic equipment out to a truck before he got up. "I have witnessed... a godding." He spoke reverently.

  Tset was digging in the fridge for more milk, he turned and looked, his hair was still wet and messy from his shower, "What?"

  "Perfection, so perfect, it is... beyond God himself."

  Tset snorted, "Shut the fuck up."


  There was a less-than-polite knock on the door.

  Tristram looked to tell Tset to get into hiding, but he was gone - the fridge door hanging open.

  Tset had totally disappeared.

  Tristram answered the door. A well-dressed man was outside. "Hello, police. We heard reports of a commotion here last night." He flashed an ID badge.

  Tset, suddenly right outside the view of the officer, against the door, mouthed, 'bullshit.'

  "Oh, yeah, maybe it was moving and packing? The owner jammed this morning like I've never seen. I'm just here making sure all his shit got moved."

  Tset was gone again. 'How the hell does he get around so fast?' But a note was pinned to Tristram:

  Tset's cell phone buzzed in Tristram's back pocket once.

  "Let me look around anyway, the previous resident may've been a little shadowy so we want to check up on things."

  Tristram agreed, "Yeah, maybe."

  He turned and scanned the room for Tset and then let the officer in. Tset was creeping him out.

  "Hey, let me see that badge, again. I just realized you need a warrant to do this shit so I don't think you're legit, suddenly."

  The cop laughed, of course his badge would check out. He handed it to Tristram, who held it with the same hand he held Tset's phone with, peering at it.

  The phone beeped.

  Negative. Haliburton ID.

  The cop poked around in the room, peering into closets, accepting his ID back absently.

  "Hey, how's Haley?"

  The cop froze and stood up suddenly, "What?" Too quick, too stiff.

  Tset was out of nowhere in a flash and softened him up a bit with a golf club to the face.

  The assassin yelped and fell to his knees, holding his bleeding eye socket, where Tset had fit his rusty nine iron.

  Another blow to the base of the skull was much too much for the assailant. He toppled forward. Probably dead - the tortured scream had been cut off short and only a second in - Tset did not care either way.

  "We're leaving."

  He kicked the ribs of the luckless invader on his way to the bathroom where he took a minute or two to fix his hair with a comb and old-fashioned Murray's Pomade. Then he kicked the body again on the way out - it lay limp on one arm with its waist at a weird angle.

  A few minutes later, Tset was stepping out of the elevator and pulling on his gloves. On his way to the concierge desk, he wiped his prints from the club.

  Tset checked out, paid a few thousand Eurodollars cash for damages and 'ask me no more questions,' and left.

  On their way out the door, two other well-dressed men, obviously compatriots to the one upstairs, stood with backs turned, they were watching the door. As he and Tristram approached, Tset jabbed one with the handle of his club to move him out of the way. The man reflexively grabbed it and spun. Tset smiled and excused himself, bodily pushing past them while they stared, agape.

  In Tristram's truck, Tset called Haliburton.

  "Hello?"

  "I'm sending you encrypted ID info. Was this person supposed to know who I was?"

  A pause as the data downloaded. "No."

  "Well he did. What about these two morons?" Tset had surreptitiously scanned the other two.

  Another pause.

  "No."

  "Well, they're in cahoots. Curly the first was posing as a cop trying to get into my room to investigate. He's dead. Larry and Moe were standing in the lobby as a backup team of idiots. I know them by face, so I'll kill them next time."

  "That won't be necessary. Yonotan is waiting for you at Duke's. You are to investigate the Hunters' Club by tonight. We are updated on the happenings of last night, but you seem well, so the mission goes forward.

  "I would prefer that, actually. I want these fuckers out of my hair."

  "Feeling's mutual."

  Tset hung up, and when they pulled up to the next stop sign, he leaned out the window and threw the golf club into a dumpster. He sat back and dusted off his gloves. Tristram was staring at him. "What? It had that guy's prints on it and blood from the one upstairs. I've effectively killed two birds with one nine iron, since they themselves will call the police before the day is out."

  "You, my friend, are a total fucker." Tristram was grinning while he put his truck in gear.

  Tset looked forward, with his elbow on the sill and a smirk on his face he said, "Whatever gets it done."

  The Hunters' Club

  Third Run

  They met at Duke's. All three enjoying an American steak lunch - thick and red, with a chilled beer each, same as last time. Tset ate four potatoes with sour cream and chives and two orders of french fries, he'd been ravenous since the last attempt on his life.

  Yonatan gave the rundown: Essentially, the Hunters' Club was where the Haliburton assassins went when they wanted to unwind with others of their kind. False names were given, ID cards deactivated.

  It was a safe haven.

  Except, oddly enough, someone had been tampering with and hacking IDs, as well, some female assassins were being picked up and never heard from again from within the Club itself.

  Yonatan and Tset were to go in, Tset accompanied by Elisabeth, the French woman he'd spoken with on the phone before he'd even known what Haliburton was, and the men would be linked by radio.

  It was literally a surveillance mission.

  "Now, come wit me, meet your date. Okay?"

  Tset nodded, dabbing his mouth with his linen napkin and following Yonatan to the bar. "Dere she is." Tristram had stayed behind with another beer.

  Elisabeth was impossible to spot for a second, Yonatan had to nudge Tset.

  Then he was struck.

  Elisabeth was a golden brown. Her features Egyptian, immaculate, sculpted. Her hair fell to her shoulders, it was wild but naturally perfect.

  Her deep black eyes gripped Tset by the mind and soul as she smiled and came from her place at the bar, "I'm Elisabeth. We met by phone, monsieur Tset." She offered her hand.

  Tset had his smirk back on his face, quickly recomposing his thoughts. "I don't know who picked you out, but let 'em know I owe 'em." He lightly held her delicate fingers in his, a polite bow.

  She laughed pleasantly, a deep, throaty thing. "I will remember to do that. Shall we? I should get ready." Not only was the accent impossible to pick up without the tinny telephonic distortion, her voice was rich.

  However superhuman Tset was, he was superior in another sense in that his bursting adoration of this deep olive-skinned idol was somehow muffled and, aside from the surprise earlier, he was able to regard her with no more emotion than he did Yonatan. He was not stupid - she was very obviously her own flamingly intelligent creature.

  "Tset, we go to pick up your ride. Den we come back t'rough an' you get Elisabet'."

  Tset nodded, they paid the tab, and left. Tristram climbed into his truck, Tset and Yonotan left in Yonotan's rented Porsche.

  As they drove to the vehicle pick up, "Why don't I just use this car?"

  "Ah, I picked one out dat would be more fitting your style, mister Tset."

  "Like what?"

  Yonotan smiled with some mischief, "You'll see."

  Tset was awed. It was American, and powerful. It sat on its four wheels like it was Atlas holding up the world.

  "Haliburton got dis for you. Any driving, dis be your ride."

  "Wha-?" Tset could not speak.

  It was red, cherry, like his bike, with white racing stripes down the hood, roof and tiny trunk.

  It was wide and long and low and beautiful.

  It was a 2110 vintage Dodge Viper GT.

  Yonotan had to push the remote into Tset's hand.

  "Yonotan?"

  "Yes?"

  "Do you have any idea how I drive?"

  Yonotan laughed, "Well?"

  "I could give Satan lessons in Hell."

  He laughed again, "Okay, Tset. We will meet at de club. Go now, Elizabet' will meet you at Haliburton."

  Tse
t reached for the door handle, nodding.

  There was no door handle.

  "Eh?"

  Yonotan turned, he had already started leaving. "It's on de remote, mister Tset."

  He checked. There was a button with an open padlock imprint.

  Tset pushed the button with his thumb and the scissor doors, as was the style for sports cars back then, slid upwards on a sleek pneumatic arm, while soft halogen lights slowly came up inside, lighting the chrome, lambskin and velvet.

  Tset cooed and slid down into the car. It was so low he felt like he was sitting on the ground in a plush black cloud.

  The interior smelled like polished leather. He inhaled deeply while the show lights went down and the dashboard began to glow irridescently. He held his breath, exhaled, smiled. Materially, he was complete. Or so he thought, anyway.

  He keyed in the electronic starter and gunned the engine.

  His dash board was a full control panel - softly glowing, covered with buttons. He could control engine performance entirely.

  For right then, Tset was satisfied to turn on the heater, then the radio, deciding on Led Zeppelin and tuning the fine little knob until Robert Plant's screams swelled and reverberated between the glass and steel peaks all around.

  He pressed the gas down again and the vibration buffers cut in with the RPMs. "Ha."

  To his right there was a cute little gear box - the stick was so small.

  When he worked it out of neutral it was so very smooth that it snapped to where his hand wanted it.

  Something about this car. Something, between the power steering, the dozen cylinders and the racing clutch, the buffers and the Gaussian suspension. Tset had never even driven a real car himself up to this point, a truck maybe, not a car. And no car was like this. This one... it seemed to subtly purr at enough decibels to shatter windows and it seemed to envelope and appreciate Tset just as much as he did it.

  He popped the clutch.

  From its predatory crouch and into a drift so hard it left streaks a foot wide.

  And when he was very gone notes of Black Dog still lingered on the cool dusk air.