Halfhead

by Stuart B. MacBride

  ‘GET ME OUT OF THIS!’ Will had to shout over the deafening noise.

  Brian looked through the gaping hole to the passageway beyond, then back to Will.

  ‘Cut me free! The bastard’s getting away!’

  ‘Arse.’ Brian yanked his boot knife out and sliced through the straps.

  Will staggered to his feet as Constable Cat MacDonald burst into the room, her eyes sparkling like cold, feral diamonds.

  ‘Through there!’ Will pointed at the section of wall Ken had asked for instructions—where the observation suite had to be. ‘Kikan’s in there: Peitai’s boss. Bring the bastard down!’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ She grinned and the Bull Thrummer roared, turning the mirror into a fog of ionized particles. With a whoop she dived into the cloud.

  Will knelt next to Jo. Her eyes were glazed, sweat dripped off her battered face. She was unconscious and Ken was getting away.

  ‘Look after her, Brian.’

  He grabbed the Thrummer from Henderson’s headless corpse, and dived through the shattered doorway, sprinting after Ken Peitai. The weapon buzzing in his hands.

  Left alone in the interrogation room, Brian crossed to where Jo was slumped in her seat and brushed the hair from her face with a gentle hand. Poor cow looked like shite, all battered and broken. The sweet, meaty smell of roast pork rising from her blistered arm.

  Brian’s stomach rumbled…then lurched.

  The whole thing was cooked from fingertips to elbow. No way that was healthy.

  He whipped off his belt and wrapped it around her bicep, hauling it as tight as he could. It might not help, but it couldn’t hurt.

  ‘Don’t you worry, hen,’ he told her. ‘We’ll kill the fuckin’ lot of them.’

  The passageway ran straight for about a hundred yards and so did Will, the Thrummer held out in front of him like a battering ram. He smashed through a security door at the end of the corridor and burst back out into the shuttle station, twenty yards down from the main doors.

  The platform was still shrouded in heavy clouds of ionized dust from when Cat had decimated the power lines. The dirty white outline of a parked shuttle was just visible in the gloom, it’s tail lights blurry red balls in the fog.

  ‘Ken!’ Will made sure his new Thrummer was powered up and ready. ‘Where are you, you little bastard?’

  Something moved in the murk and Will pushed the Thrummer’s trigger, whipping the dust into a frenzy. It blasted a hole straight through the cloud to the main entrance, tearing the double doors apart, making the fog there even thicker.

  ‘It’s OK, Ken, you can come out now. I’m not going to hurt you!’

  The shuttle doors hissed open. The lights inside the car flickered on, and Will could just make out the a blurry shape frantically punching something into the destinator. As the car began to lurch forward Will pulled the Thrummer into his shoulder and stepped to the edge of the platform.

  ‘Oh no you bloody don’t!’

  The assault rifle shivered in his hands, then let out a deafening howl—ripping into the shuttle’s rear end, turning a big chunk of machinery into crackling powder. But the shuttle was already on its way, building up speed as it powered away from the platform. It listed hard to one side and slipped off the maglev track, still accelerating. The nose dug a groove out of the tunnel wall and ricocheted back, twisting as it bounced over the guide rail and ploughed into the concrete on the other side. It scraped along in a shower of hot-metal sparks, shrieking against the wall.

  The tunnel turned right, but the dying shuttle didn’t; momentum spent, it ground to a halt. The safeties finally kicked in and shut the whole thing down, leaving the car’s lights clicking on and off in emergency-warning orange. Darkness. Orange. Darkness. Orange.

  Will walked to the edge of the platform and dropped down to the tracks, the Thrummer’s lightsight a solid bar of green in the dust.

  Behind him he could hear Brian staggering through onto the platform. ‘Holy mother of shite…Will?’ He had Jo slung over his shoulder, her face covered with a thin film of dust and sweat.

  ‘He’s mine, Brian, understand?’

  ‘You don’t have to do this.’ Brian climbed carefully down to the tunnel floor. ‘I’ll slit the wee bastard like an envelope if you want me to. No one’ll ever know.’

  ‘I will.’

  They marched towards the crashed shuttle, bathed in the on-again, off-again light of the warning beacons. Ken was inside, struggling with the door catch. A long gash snaked down one side of his face, spilling dark red onto his collar, saturating his shirt. With a final heave he hauled the doors open and fell out onto the tunnel floor.

  They watched him struggle to his knees and then his feet.

  Will powered down the Thrummer and handed it to Brian.

  Brian frowned. ‘You sure this is a good idea?’

  ‘You don’t shoot him, you got that? You don’t shoot him unless he kills me and tries to get away. Then you blow his fucking head off.’

  They could hear Ken talking to himself as he lurched away from the wrecked shuttle car. ‘No, no, no…’ One hand was clutched to his chest, the other held out against the wall, trying to hold himself upright. ‘Aw Jesus no.’ He slipped and fell sideways, bouncing off the wall as he slithered to the tunnel floor. ‘Why’d the old bastard have to do that? Aw Jesus!’

  ‘PEITAI!’ Will picked his way through the wreckage. ‘Told you I’d track you down.’

  ‘Why?’ Ken looked up as Will closed the gap. ‘Why’d he have to do it?’

  ‘Stand up, you piece of shit. Stand up or I swear I’ll kick you to death where you sit.’

  Ken held his hand out for Will to see. Shards of glass glittered in his palm and through the breast pocket of his torn jacket.

  He let out a weird, high-pitched laugh. ‘I’m already dead…’

  It’s darker in the observation room: the light that bleeds in from the interrogation suite does little to banish the gloom, nor do the flickering monitors. There are no heartbeats or brainwaves for them to register; instead they twitch away to themselves, displaying nothing but static.

  Pretty.

  She steps into the centre of the room and sniffs: old leather, and bitter-almond aftershave, she can smell it even over the stink of ionized glass. The old man has been here.

  She lets the Bull Thrummer drift around the room, looking for a target.

  The place is empty, but it hasn’t been that way for long: the door at the end is still drifting shut. She sidles over and nudges it open with her foot.

  Outside a corridor runs left to right with a pair of labcoated women crouching at the furthest end, looking nervous and flustered, picking up printouts strewn across the floor—as if someone has run past and knocked them flying.

  She’s so glad she decided not to kill Hunter when she saw him outside the hospital. If she had, she wouldn’t be here right now. And this is much, much more fun. William Hunter will kill Ken Peitai for her and then, after she’s caught up with her old friend Tokumu Kikan and given him his present, she’ll pay Mr Hunter a house call and say thank you in person.

  She laughs and sprints down the corridor, past the scrabbling scientists, and on to the end of the passageway, following the trail of destruction and bitter-almond.

  The old man is running for his life. She is so looking forward to seeing him again.

  Ken shuddered and twitched. Red spittle frothed at the corners of his mouth, his hands flapped and skittered, the little shards of glass sparkling in the palm of his right hand.

  ‘What’s the wee bugger shooglin’ about like that for?’

  Will frowned. ‘No idea.’

  Ken’s head snapped back, smacking off the tunnel wall with a resounding thunk. Slowly the trembling eased and he slumped into himself. Not moving.

  ‘He snuffed it?’

  Will took a step back and said, ‘Lets find out.’ He kicked the sagging figure in the chest as hard as he could. Ken bounced back against the wall and then s
lid gracelessly to the floor.

  Brian spat a long, phlegmy, gob onto the back of Ken’s motionless head. ‘And there was me lookin’ forward to seein’ you beat seven shades of shite out of him.’

  ‘Damn it.’ Will kicked him again for luck.

  Nothing.

  Dead or unconscious. Either way, he wasn’t fighting back.

  Will reached up and keyed his throat-mike. ‘Lieutenant Brand, this is Hunter. Where’s your team?’

  ‘Sherman House. Where the hell are you? We’ve searched the whole lower floor and we can’t find an entrance to that damn lab.’

  ‘We were on the forty-seventh floor when they zapped us, and we woke up in the lab. Easiest way to get us down here would be the lifts.’

  ‘Floyd, get that lift console jimmied open.’ Emily’s voice was curt and businesslike. ‘We’ll be there as soon as we can.’

  ‘Thanks I—’ But the connection was dead. She’d cut him off. ‘Great.’

  Brian gently lowered Jo to the tunnel floor, then fumbled about in his pack for a med-kit. ‘We need tae get her to the hospital. Her arm’s fucked, and Christ knows what they’ve pumped her full of.’

  Will nodded, and sank down beside Jo, stroking her swollen cheek. When he’d told her to leave him in Kelvingrove Park, he’d thought she’d be the one to escape…And now look at her. It was all his fault, he’d got her involved in this. With that bastard Peitai.

  ‘Will?’

  He looked up to see Brian staring at him. ‘Yes…Right. Emily’s upstairs, we’ll take the Dragonfly.’

  ‘Good. I’ve had about enough of this shitehole for one day.’

  ‘Call Cat and tell her to get back here. I don’t want her wandering about on her own when Emily’s lot come charging in, all guns blazing.’

  Brian stood and clicked his mike. ‘Cat?’ He paused and tried again. ‘Cat? Can you hear me?’ He shook his head, pulled his earpiece out, peered at it, then stuck it back in. ‘Everythin’s buggered…Constable MacDonald, do you read?’

  He scowled at Ken’s twisted body. ‘If any of your bastards have hurt her, I’ll kill them!’ He threw a kick into Ken’s ribs, hard enough flip him over onto his back. The body groaned.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Brian knelt and felt for a pulse. ‘The wee shite’s still alive. Happy days!’ He grabbed Ken by the lapels and backhanded him. Ken’s head snapped to the side, another groan. His eyelids fluttered, then opened.

  Brian dragged him to his feet, singing, ‘Oh Kenny boy, the pipes, the pipes are callin’,’ as he slammed him back into the wall.

  ‘Brian, don’t.’ Will sighed and looked away. The initial burn had gone, leaving a bitter taste behind. The Network didn’t make people disappear, it hauled them into court. All above board and legal. ‘Read him his rights, he’s got an appointment with an operating table.’

  ‘After what this wee shite did to Jo? Halfheadin’s too good for him.’ He stuck his face inches from Ken’s blood-caked features and shouted, ‘Wakey wakey, Kenny, it’s time to get the shite kicked out of you!’

  Ken still hadn’t said anything, but his eyes were wide, dancing back and forth, his cheeks twitching, teeth gritted. Brian slapped him again.

  ‘Your lucky day Kenny: two beatin’s for the price of—’

  It was if someone had run a thousand volts through Ken’s battered body. He exploded off the wall, hands wrapping round Brian’s head, teeth snapping like a rabid dog. Sinking them into Brian’s cheek, ripping, tearing…

  ‘Aaah!’ Brian shoved him away. ‘Ya wee bastard!’

  Ken spat out a chunk of Brian’s flesh, then lunged, going for the throat.

  Brian whipped his head back and then forward again, smashing his forehead into Peitai’s nose. Crack. They both staggered off: Brian into the middle of the tunnel, blood pulsing out from the hole in his cheek, Petai groping along the wall. The maglev rail caught Brian in the back of the knees and he went down like a sack of tatties, banging his head off the floor.

  Will grabbed Ken on the rebound and smashed his elbow into the little bastard’s face. Ken’s nose burst like an egg, but it didn’t even slow him down. He bared his teeth again and jumped, knocking Will off his feet. They crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

  Will scrabbled backwards, trying to get away from those bloodstained teeth.

  Ken’s hands groped for Will’s cheeks and for a heartbeat the flashing emergency lights sparkled off the glass embedded in his right palm. The blood that dripped from the sharp, curved edges wasn’t clean and red: it was tainted with something green and viscous. Something that had turned Ken Peitai rabid.

  Will stopped trying to fight off the teeth and grabbed the back of Ken’s injured hand, forcing it over on itself—trying to snap the wrist. Peitai kept coming.

  ‘BRIAN!’

  Blood poured out of Ken’s shattered nose and the gash across his face. Lunging forward he sank his teeth into Will’s eyebrow. Sharp, stabbing pain.

  ‘Argh! Get off me!’ Will rammed his right thumb into Ken’s eye socket all the way up to the first knuckle. That got his attention. He let go of Will’s face with a gargled scream, and struggled to his feet, one hand pressed against his ruined eye, trying to hold the contents in.

  Then he lurched back into the middle of the tunnel and staggered away into the dark.

  Will picked himself off the floor and grabbed his stolen Thrummer. His torn eyebrow throbbed and stung, blood dribbling into his eye. He wiped it clean on his sleeve—grimacing as the fabric pulled at the wound—but it just filled up again.

  Brian was still lying flat on his back, groaning and swearing.

  ‘Look after Jo.’ Will flicked on the Thrummer’s lightsight and headed off down the tunnel, following the sound of Ken’s footsteps.

  Everything smelt of damp and mildew and hot copper and oil and death.

  ‘You won’t get away, you know that don’t you, Peitai?’

  No reply.

  Dark splashes of blood sparkled in the lightsight’s green glow, like slicks of oil. The little bastard was moving fast and Will had to jog to keep up. Whatever Ken had in his top pocket it had done more than turn him bug-crazy, it had given him a whole new lease of life.

  The tunnel twisted off to the left and Will stopped for a moment, straining his ears, trying to tell where Peitai was. It wasn’t easy, but he could just make out the scuff-click, scuff-click of cowboy boots in the darkness.

  The air was changing: he could feel it on his face as he moved. It was warmer here than it had been back at the platform, less musty—that meant the main line was close. He stopped again and listened…

  Nothing but silence.

  Either Ken had stopped running or that handful of glass and chemicals had finally killed him.

  Will stepped into the middle of the tunnel, one leg brushing the cold metal of the maglev rail. He swept his Thrummer back and forth like a spotlight, looking for a target, but all he could see were shadows, haunting the empty alcoves between the stanchions and the end of the tunnel, where it joined the shuttlenet.

  ‘Where are you, you wee—’

  Something snatched at his ankle and pulled.

  The floor disappeared beneath Will’s feet and he tumbled backwards, hitting the concrete hard. The Thrummer roared in his hands, filling the dark tunnel with blue light that danced in an expanding ball of dust as a chunk of ceiling evaporated. His head cracked against the tunnel wall and the weapon jumped out of his hands, skittering away down the passageway. It clattered to a halt, the lightsight pointing back up the tunnel, casting grotesque shadow puppets across the concrete as Peitai leapt on him. Teeth flashing in the green glow.

  A hand grabbed Will’s face and he sank his teeth into it—not caring if there was glass in the palm or not.

  Ken screamed, a bellow of animal pain with nothing human in it.

  Will scrabbled away from the reaching hands. Not fast enough. Something slashed across his cheek and he felt the hot sting of flesh parting bene
ath multiple tiny blades of glass.

  Bastard! He drove his knee into Ken’s groin, hard enough to jack-knife him three feet into the air. Peitai collapsed, vomiting, clutching his groin.

  Will scrubbed at the cuts on his face with the sleeve of his jump suit. The little bastard had infected him!

  ‘Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!’

  There had to be something in the jumpsuit’s med-kit he could use. He fell to his knees and fought the pouch free from its clips, spilling the contents across the floor.

  ‘Blockers, skinpaint, dressing,’ His hands fumbled through the pieces, spreading them far and wide. ‘Skinglue…Where the fuck’s the Biolene?’ His fingers wrapped around a tube of sterilizing paste. It wasn’t perfect, but it was all that he had. He ripped the top off with his teeth and mashed the sticky gloop into the cuts on his cheek. Then did the same with his torn eyebrow, just in case whatever it was could be transmitted through Ken’s infected saliva.

  He looked up, suddenly aware that he’d taken his eyes off the evil little bastard for far too long. Peitai wasn’t rolling around on the concrete holding his ruptured testicles any more—he was on his feet, limping, knock-kneed down the tunnel towards the fallen Thrummer. Will scrabbled after him, but it was too late. Ken had made it out of the branchline and into the main tunnel, snatching the assault weapon up off the deck.

  Peitai screamed at him, the words making no sense, jumbling into one another like meat in a grinder as the Thrummer’s lightsight caught Will in its green gaze.

  A soft whisper of air stirred the dust cloud of evaporated ceiling. Will looked about for somewhere to hide, but all he could see was empty tunnel. His eyes darted back to Ken—the little man seemed to be lit up from within, a soft nimbus of white light sparkling around him, getting brighter with every heartbeat…

  The shuttle hit him hard enough to spread him all over the inside of the tunnel like pâté.

  30

  She follows the old man as he hurries through the facility, making for the hidden exit to Monstrosity Square—the one they used to sneak her through for their little Twenty Questions torture sessions. He knows the value of discretion when the Network comes a-rampaging armed to the teeth. She lets him get all the way to the doorlock before she stops him.