Halfhead

by Stuart B. MacBride

Will kicked his way though the doors at the end of the corridor and swept the area with green light.

  There was a large woman standing beside a vending machine, a plastic of something hot and dark in her hand. ‘What the hell’s goin’ on?’

  Will pointed the Whomper straight at her and she had to squint in the lightsight’s glare, her orange hair bleached green in the targeting beam.

  ‘Buchan, is that you?’ She hobbled forward a step. One leg was encased in plaster to the knee, but she still stood like a rugby player.

  ‘On the floor now!’

  ‘I don’t understand—’

  ‘Get your arse on the ground before I blow it off!’ Will thumbed the trigger, not with enough pressure to fire, just enough to make the weapon snarl in his hands. The woman dropped to the floor fast, coffee splashing across the dark terrazzo.

  Will jabbed the Whomper into the back of her neck. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know what you—’

  ‘Will?’ That was Brian, sounding worried. ‘What you doin’?’

  ‘This was one of the pickup team that got her.’ Will said. ‘This is the one that put me in the hospital.’ He turned his attention back to the redhead and made the Whomper growl again. ‘I SAID WHERE IS SHE?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about—I don’t even work here!’ She covered her head with her hands, face pressed against the floor. ‘Please don’t hurt me…’

  Brian placed a hand on Will’s shoulder. ‘Hud oan. You don’t want to do this. You’re no’ that kind of person.’ Brian gently pushed the Whomper’s barrel away from the big woman. ‘But I am.’ He kicked her in the ribs. Hard. Something dark splashed out of her mouth and Brian kicked her again.

  ‘Right, sunshine,’ he said balling his fist and grabbing the coughing, gasping woman by the throat. ‘We know who you are.’ He slammed the fist into her face, spreading her nose like meat paste. ‘You know who we are.’ He loosened a couple of teeth for her. ‘And you know where our friend is. Okey doke?’

  ‘Jesus, Brian!’

  ‘No’ now Will, I’m workin’.’ He grabbed her arm and twisted it round through ninety degrees, locking the elbow. ‘How about a nice wee game of This Little Piggy?’ Brian took a firm hold of her index finger. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know what—’

  ‘This little piggy went to market.’ He jerked it back. A soft ‘crack’ sounded and she squealed.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Bastard! I don’t—’

  ‘This little piggy stayed at home.’ Crack.

  ‘Ah Jesus! I don’t—’

  ‘This little piggy had roast beef.’ Crack.

  ‘Aaaagghh!’

  ‘And this little piggy—’

  ‘She’s in the main interrogation suite! Down the corridor, first left, second right!’

  Will jumped past them, leaving them in darkness.

  ‘There you go,’ said Brian, as if he was about to give the ginger-haired wifie a lollypop, ‘that wasnae so hard now was it?’ He let go of her hand and she pulled it against her chest, sobbing. Poor wee soul.

  ‘Come on, Cat.’ He struck a heroic pose. ‘Will’s only gonnae get himself in all kinds of shite if we’re no’ there to bail him out.’

  ‘First things first.’ Constable MacDonald placed the barrel of the Bull Thrummer against the woman’s battered head. ‘You have beautiful eyes.’ One second the big-boned woman was there, the next there was nothing left but a dark, sticky mist that tasted of iron.

  Brian stood, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. ‘But…You…’

  ‘What?’ Cat hoisted the weapon. ‘Like we’re going to leave her alive to raise the alarm and shoot us in the back? I don’t think so.’

  Brian watched her disappear up the corridor after Will. Jesus: they were a lot tougher in the Bluecoats than they’d been when he was a sergeant.

  The lights flickered on above Will’s head. They’d got the backup generators online already. So much for all the cameras being out.

  He pulled up outside the double doors marked ‘HOSPITALITY SUITE’. The roar of a Bull Thrummer sounded behind him, swiftly answered by the bark of a Whomper. More gunfire echoed down the corridor. The lights were on and someone was home.

  Will stabbed his throat-mike: static crackled in his earpiece—the jammer was still going.

  Cat sprinted around the corner, screeched to a halt and yelled, ‘Down!’ The hallway sizzled with blue light as her Bull Thrummer bellowed again. Brian came scrabbling after her; the hair on the back of his head a lot shorter than it had been fifty-seven seconds ago. He slammed into the wall at Cat’s feet, turned, and fired his Whomper back the way he’d come.

  ‘BRIAN!’ Will yelled over the noise, ‘KILL THE JAMMER, I NEED TO CALL FOR BACKUP!’

  Agent Alexander fumbled in his pack and the static filling Will’s ear died.

  ‘Control, this is Hunter, put me through to Lieutenant Brand!’

  ‘Sir? Half the city is looking for you, Director—’

  ‘Put me through to Lieutenant Brand, now!’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  Brian dug a Sticky Willy out of the pack, pulled the pin and hurled it down the corridor. Someone shouted ‘Fire in the—’ and a wet whoomping noise rattled the ceiling tiles as everything in the blast radius was coated in a thick layer of polymer adhesive.

  Cat’s Bull Thrummer roared again.

  Will’s earpiece popped and a tired, irritated voice came through loud and clear: ‘This better be bloody important!’

  ‘Emily, shut up and listen. We’re in a secret research facility under Sherman House. You know the one, you’ve been here.’

  ‘What the hell are you doing there? You told me you were going home!’

  ‘We’ve found DS Cameron, but we’re under heavy fire.’ He ducked as a section of wall exploded into hot plastic shrapnel.

  Cat MacDonald heaved the Bull Thrummer back and forth, teeth bared.

  Someone screamed.

  Will fired a couple of shots into the thick cloud of Thrummer dust. ‘Lock onto my signal and get your team down here ASAP!’

  ‘Damn it, Will, You lied to me!’

  ‘I didn’t have any choice. When they caught us they stuck listening bugs under our skin. Trackers too. If I’d told you anything they would have known.’

  ‘They put listeners under my skin and you didn’t tell me? You should have told me!’

  ‘Just get yourself down here pronto, OK?’

  There was a pause and in the background Will thought he heard the Dragonfly’s engines changing pitch, though it was difficult to tell over the roar of Cat’s Bull Thrummer.

  ‘ETA two minutes thirty.’

  ‘Thanks Emily, I owe you one.’

  ‘You should have told me.’ She killed the link.

  Will sighed and turned to face the hospitality suite doors. Brian and Cat were keeping the facility’s guards busy; Emily and her team were on their way; all he had to do now was rescue Jo.

  How hard could it be?

  The Whomper sang in his hands as he drew back his foot and kicked the door off its hinges.

  28

  Light, so bright it was painful. Will skidded to a halt, blinking, one hand up in front of his eyes. Nothing was visible past the broken door—the rest of the room hidden behind the lights shining straight into his eyes.

  ‘Mr Hunter,’ said a familiar, mid-Atlantic accent, ‘hey, nice to see you again. Drop the gun.’ Will snapped the Whomper round, pointing it straight at the voice.

  ‘Whoa there! You shoot, you blow a hole in the lovely DS Cameron! Want to see her head explode when you whomp it? You want that? Cos if you do, go right ahead.’

  Will squinted into the glare. ‘Jo, are you OK?’

  Silence.

  Then Ken said, ‘Don’t be rude, Sweetheart, the nice man asked you a question.’

  ‘Kaaaaaaaarl thhhfugin basstdd Will, shoothfuger…’ Her voice was weak, slurred and swollen, but i
t was Jo alright.

  ‘I want to see her!’

  ‘OK, but remember: you use that cannon of yours, she’s not gonna need a party hat for Christmas.’ The light flickered and dimmed.

  The shapes were fuzzy at first, just blobs, reflected again and again in the wraparound mirror, but as Will watched they resolved themselves into three figures: a gorilla in fatigues standing against the back wall, carrying a Thrummer; Ken Peitai standing beside one of the interrogation chairs; Jo strapped into it.

  Her face was swollen and bruised, her left eye little more than a puffy, prune-coloured slit. Blood caked the side of her mouth, her lip split like the skin on an over-ripe tomato. Half a dozen wires were taped to her head and two intravenous lines ran from her arm to a small, cat-sized box festooned with little blinking lights.

  Will twisted the focus on the Whomper’s lightsight until the green point sat dead between Ken’s shifty eyes. ‘Bye, Ken.’

  Peitai flinched. ‘Henderson!’

  The gorilla in the suit hauled his Thrummer round and Will shot him in the face. The Whomper’s bark echoed around the circular room as Henderson’s body twitched its way to the floor, fountaining bright red up the mirrored wall.

  ‘Nice shootin’ Tex.’

  Will swung the Whomper back, but Ken wasn’t in the same place—he now stood directly behind Jo, one hand wrapped up in her hair, the other holding a Palm Screamer.

  ‘Now you got that out of your system, what say we have us a little chat like civilized human beings? OK?’

  ‘Let her go.’

  ‘You put that thing down or I do us up a batch of sizzlin’ long pig. You catch my drift?’

  ‘I said—’

  Ken placed the Screamer against Jo’s right arm and thumbed the trigger. Hot noise burst from the weapon and her skin swelled and cracked, letting out puffs of steam and the smell of roasting meat. She turned to look at the cooking joint, her face slack, eyes not quite focused…And then the screaming started. It began as a low moan, barely audible over the pop and crackle of her flesh as it baked, then it got louder and more piercing, as painful to hear as it was to watch.

  ‘You like your meat rare or well done?’

  Will tore his eyes away from the sight and the Whomper growled in his hands.

  ‘Now, now,’ said Peitai. ‘You put that thing down or it’s brains next on the menu.’ The Screamer rested lightly against Jo’s temple.

  ‘Do it and I’ll kill you.’

  A grin split Ken’s face. ‘Yeah, but then she’ll be dead and I’ll be dead and the man standin’ behind you’s gonna turn your insides to mush.’ Will felt something hard jab into the small of his back. With all the light bouncing back and forth from the mirrors he hadn’t seen anyone else enter the room.

  Ken winked. ‘So you’ll be dead too. Now where’s the point in that? Much better you put down the Whomper and we see if we can’t figure out a solution to our little misunderstanding. DS Cameron here can always get herself a new arm when we’re done.’ He shrugged. ‘Can’t get herself a new head.’

  The box hooked up to Jo’s arm bleeped and her screams faded to a dull whimper.

  Will lowered the Whomper to the floor.

  ‘There we go—all one big happy family.’ Ken pointed the Screamer at Will’s discarded weapon and melted the casing into plastic slag. ‘Lincoln, help Mr Hunter to his seat.’

  Hot blue sparks exploded behind Will’s eyes as all the muscles in his back contracted at once. He fell to the floor, twitching. The Zapper must have been on light stun, or he’d be unconscious by now. Rough hands grabbed his shoulders, dragging him into an interrogation chair.

  Will gritted his teeth and tried to punch Lincoln in the throat, but his arms weren’t working. Pins and needles pulsed through his arms and legs as Lincoln strapped him down and wired him up to a bank of monitors. ‘There’s a pickup team on its way, Ken. It’s finished. You’re through.’

  Peitai shrugged. ‘I’m gonna give you a chance to think things through, Will.’ He clicked a panel open on the box attached to Jo’s arm and started flicking switches. ‘We’re not like them other shlubs in Special Ops, we’re Unit 731. You’re just Network. Trust me, if we need you to disappear, you go bye-byes. My boss: he wants to see you filling a little jar on his shelf. Me: I think, even though you’ve been a right royal pain in the ass, you’re one of the Good Guys, like me.’

  He finished fiddling with the box and put a hand on Jo’s shoulder. A thick line of drool silvered her chin. ‘I think you and me could do a lot of good here, Will.

  ‘You know what, Ken?’ The sensation was starting to come back—Will tried to work one of his hands loose. ‘You’re not “one of the Good Guys”. You’re scum.’

  ‘I’m deeply hurt to hear that.’ Ken sighed. ‘I know it looks bad, but it’s the only way we’re gonna win the war.’

  ‘We’re not at war!’

  ‘Will, Will, Will. We’re always at war. You just don’t get to hear about it any more. Sure we let the armed forces wave the flag when they’re off on them international peacekeeping missions, and all that humanitarian bullshit, but that’s not where the real fight is. It’s here.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘You know how people in Oldcastle always look so damn stupid? Know why that is? Cos some bastard put this chemical in the water that retards neural development. An’ you wanna know who did it? It was one of our allies. Not our enemies, our friends did that to us.’ Ken shook his head. ‘Unbelievable.’

  ‘You see,’ he said, settling back against Jo’s chair, ‘it ain’t about land or religion or any of that crap anymore. It’s about money. They make enough of us stupid—we can’t compete with them. They make enough of us infertile and we got no workforce in twenty years. They make us riot and kill each other…’ He shrugged again. ‘We can’t prove the VRs weren’t caused by a manmade pathogen, released into the wild on purpose. We need to have an antidote in case they decide to do it again.’

  ‘Don’t speak shite. You’re not looking for a cure; this is a weapons programme!’

  The smile disappeared from Ken’s face.

  ‘OK: you got me. We’re buildin’ a weapon, so what? “They” do it all the time: look what happened to Oldcastle.’

  ‘Chemical warfare is illegal!’

  ‘Jesus, Will, grow up. This ain’t the God-damn World War Cup, this is real life. All’s fair in love and war, remember?’ He slapped another smile on his face, straightened his tie and gently slipped the IV lines out of Jo’s uncooked arm.

  ‘You’re using human beings as lab rats!’

  ‘Eggs and omelettes, Will, eggs and omelettes. How we supposed to fight the bad guys if we ain’t got any weapons?’

  Ken turned and faced a seam in the mirrored wall, popping it open to reveal a hidden door and a small, quiet passageway beyond. ‘Down the end of that corridor there’s a shuttle bay.’ He pulled the electrical pickups off Jo’s forehead and dropped them on the floor. ‘I can put her in a car and away she goes to A&E. She’s got so much crap in her veins she’s gonna remember none of this. All you need to do is get with the programme. Help your country.’

  Will scowled. ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘She dies. You die. The two monkeys you came here with die…if they’re not already dead. We can’t have you out there shootin’ your mouth off, Will. When we use this stuff we gotta make sure there’s nothin’ linkin’ it back to the powers that be. Can you imagine the world of shit we’d be in if they found out the Scottish Government infected a foreign country with VR?’

  Will watched as a thin stream of gravy leaked out of Jo’s roasted skin.

  ‘How the hell can you do this?’

  ‘Cos I have to. We ain’t evil monsters and this ain’t my idea of fun.’ He ran a hand across Jo’s bruised and shiny forehead. ‘What d’you say sport? Last chance: you gonna join us?’

  Will closed his eyes and hung his head. ‘You promise you’ll let her go.’

  ‘Give yo
u my word. You join the team and she goes free. We’ll pay for any care she needs. The two of you live happily ever after.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Well, they’ll have to make up their own minds, but at least they’ll get the option.’

  Play the hero and get everyone killed, or join the bad guys. Become responsible for atrocities. Save Jo’s life…

  Will hung his head. ‘I’ll do it.’

  Ken nodded and looked at his own green-suited reflection in the mirrored wall. ‘You get that, sir?’

  A cold, disembodied voice floated out from hidden speakers. ‘He’s lying.’

  ‘Are you sure he isn’t—’

  ‘Positive. You know what to do.’

  Ken sagged. ‘Yes, sir.’ He looked Will in the eye. ‘Jeez I hate this bit.’ He took the Screamer and pointed it at Will’s head. ‘I’m real sorry about this. I thought we could make it turn out different.’ Ken pressed the trigger.

  A faint heat washed over Will’s face and then the Screamer went ‘plink’.

  ‘Sonovabitch.’ Ken turned the device over in his hand and peered at the power reading. ‘Empty. Lincoln, you want to do the honours?’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  Will felt the cold barrel of a Whomper pressed against the side of his head. He glowered at Peitai. ‘I will kill you. This world or the next: I’ll find you and I’ll kill you.’

  Ken smiled sadly. ‘Guess it’s gonna have to be the next, buddy, cos your time in this one is up. Do him.’

  The man on the end of the Whomper said ‘Aye, s—’ and then exploded.

  29

  Lumps of red meat spattered against the floor, an arm thudding off the side of the interrogation chair, then twitching where it fell. Blood dripped from the low ceiling tiles. The front of Lincoln’s Whomper hit the deck in pieces, like a bag of spanners, clattering and clanging against the tiles. Ken backed away, dropped his empty Screamer and dived through the mirrored door, slamming it shut behind him.

  Will craned his head round to see Brian, cheeks freckled with dark red dots, teeth bared, snarling. The Whomper in his hands jumped and the mirrored door exploded in a whirlwind of shattered glass.