by M J Gauntlet
“Such a waste,” the Cree said, looking at it with a regretful shake of his head, “normally the subject would have succumbed long before it had reached this state, but in its present condition the creature is now completely useless. It will now have to hibernate for several ‘T’ months before it will again become useful. It is just not worth the effort to salvage it and go through the trouble of smuggling it back through customs.”
With one swift motion, he threw the creature onto the wooden planked floor and crushed it beneath his right boot. The Bloodworm seemed to explode, as its red vicious meal was now splatted all over the floor. The Cree turned and signaled for his apprentice to again step forward with the case, he then reached in and withdrew the second vile and waived it leisurely in front of his captive’s face.
“To the untrained eye, this creature looks identical to the other Bloodworm, but looks can be deceiving. The one beneath my boot was a male, while this one is a female… a gravid female,” he said, with a sly smile. “And as usual in nature, it is the female of the species that is much, much deadlier than the male. In the case of the Bloodworm, a pregnant female not only induces pain through nerve induction to increase the blood flow, but she has a more sinister ulterior motive.
“In her case, the increased blood flow facilitates the dispersal of her eggs throughout the body of it’s the host. The eggs seek out muscle fibers and attach themselves deep within the tissue, there to eventually hatch and later work themselves up to the surface. Needless to say, the victim dies in intense and excruciating pain. Unfortunately, the eggs are so tiny that even the most complete medical scans cannot find them all.” The Cree straightened up and stepped back from the bound man. “While I do admit that I am a little curious as to how you would withstand such an ordeal, it appears that we will soon have another individual upon which to test their fortitude…your son.”
Hearing this, Grayson’s blood shot swollen eyes widened, and a strangled cry escaped his throat and he croaked the words: “No, please…” His previously flaccid body was now straining at his bonds. Surging forward, he almost toppled over in the chair.
“Ah, I see that has struck a nerve,” the Cree said quietly.
“Zaxxion knows nothing,” Grayson said gasping, “he’s just a kid and wasn’t even born back when I discovered the…” Abruptly shutting his mouth, Grayson cast a sullen eye at his torturer.
“Ah…so you finally admit that you actually found something!” the assassin crowed triumphally. Looking down at the now defiant face, he shrugged nonchalantly. “This may be true, but who is to say that you might have told him a thing or two about his illustrious sire while he was growing up, eh?” Grayson who had been struggling mightily in the chair, then leaned forward to deny the supposition, but the Cree held up a hand to forestall further comment from Grayson. “All of this is beside the point. It’s not him I want to talk it is you that has the information my employers desire. If the only way for me to obtain this data is by subjecting your son to the ministrations of this Bloodworm, then so be it. Ultimately the choice is yours.”
As Grayson stared up into the lifeless eyes of his inquisitor, his taunt body abruptly slumped back down in the chair in defeat.
“Ok… ok damn you to Vishar’s seven hells… I’ll give you what you want. Just spare my son.”
Despite Grayson’s sudden capitulation, the Cree frowned slightly. “You realize that if you do not provide me with the information I seek, in total, then I cannot be responsible for what would follow?” Grayson gave a quick nod, and the Cree nodded in turn.
“Very well…” The assassin handed the cylinder back to his assistant and leaned forward towards his captive. “Time is of the essence Messer Grayson, if you cannot provide me with the full coordinates I seek before your offspring arrives then my options will be severely limited.”
“Yes, I understand… you fucking heartless bastard, just let me get to the computer over there…” he gestured with his head towards the workstation in the corner of the room, “and I will access the files that contain everything you require.”
“No, I think not,” the Cree replied thoughtfully, “we can enter the information ourselves, just supply us with the access codes.”
“That won’t work, Cree. The unit is coded to my DNA. The files you seek are hidden and encrypted, and they won’t be displayed unless I am in physical contact with the unit’s biometric keypad. Any attempt to access the archives without the proper input and DNA signature would result in the entire drive being data scrubbed.”
The Cree paused for a moment, then gave a curt nod of his head. It seemed a reasonable precaution to keep the files from prying eyes.
“Very well. You will remain in contact with the tablet, but my apprentice will perform the actual keystrokes.”
“Fine, fine…but hurry before my son arrives,” Grayson said, with urgency.
The Cree motioned for Kass and Lahrs to move chair with the bound man towards the workstation and indicated that Grayson’s right arm be released from the restraints. While they were doing this, the Cree found himself once more furtively scanning the room, attempting to identify what it was that still had him feeling uneasy. For the third time, he took inventory of the room and its meager contents.
The home’s interior was typical of the lower-class dwellings found on Bright. The furnishings, though well worn, were not in a state of decay or disrepair. The appliances were utilitarian in look and function: an electric induction stove for cooking, and the heating was provided by heat radiating panels along the base of the walls. There was a standard looking computer work-place, that was powered by solar panels that were interspersed amongst the plasticine, ceiling tiles of the dome. There was nothing in the structure that seemed out of place or unusual. Yet, the annoying itch was still there in the back of his mind.
Oaton and Lahrs had maneuvered the restrained Grayson so that his right hand rested on the flat panel of the computer. The screen flickered to life, showing a projected holographic login screen. The apprentice stood beside the ex-scout pilot and placed his hand on the keystroke holo.
“What is the log in pass code?” Ethop asked. Both Lahrs and Kass blinked in surprise. This was the first time the diminutive robed figure had spoken; she had the soft childlike voice of an angel.
“The log in password is the word ‘Sempre’,” Grayson said, his voice heavy with defeat.
A few keystrokes later, the young girl nodded, “Ok, I’m on the main screen. Which folder is it?”
“It’s hidden. You can’t see it on the main screen. It is outside the normal logic chain. Perform a search for the word S.A.R.A.I., then follow the prompts.”
The Cree was only half listening to Grayson’s directions to his apprentice, something that Grayson just said made him pause his current train of thought. He had said that it was ‘outside’ the…what? The assassin began to think furiously. There was nothing unusual IN the house, but what about OUTSIDE the structure! Thinking back to when they had first approached the house, he mentally reviewed the scene…a cleared area around the building’s perimeter…ok, a geodesic dome of normal construction… ok, smoke issuing from cooking vent…ok, fuel reservoir attached to side of…???
A fuel reservoir was a common attachment on many of the homes in Last Town. They usually served as a secondary depository for either liquid fuel or pressurized gas as a crude energy source for cooking or heat. The assassin’s mind refocused on the interior of the cabin… but everything in this structure was electrical, including the cooking surfaces and the heating elements!
Snapping out of is reverie, the Cree was just in time to hear Grayson’s last instructions to his apprentice:
“Enter the phrase ‘potius morto quam foedan’ and press ‘execute’.”
As the words appeared on the projected screen above their heads, the Cree frowned. The phrase was in some obscure forgotten language, but the assassin did recognize one word: morto which in several languages was another word for ‘death�
��.
The Cree’s eyes opened wide, as realization flooded into his brain.
“STOP!” the assassin shouted, as he bounded forward towards his apprentice, but he was seconds too late. He had just enough time to see Grayson’s face turning towards him and smiling as he said, “See you in hell killer!” just as a wall of flame burst through the sides of the house, turning everything into a searing pit of hell…
As the Cree had belatedly surmised: the ‘auxiliary’ fuel tank attached to the side of the house was not filled with the normal hydrocarbons used for heating. Instead, it contained a mixture of an antiquated substance known as ‘gasoline’ along with an emulsifying agent very similar to ordinary soap. In antiquity it was known as Napalm.
The instant the young apprentice pressed the ‘execute’ button, a rectangular shaped, explosive charge attached to the inside of the ‘fuel reservoir’ detonated, puncturing both the tank’s relatively thin metal wall and the plasticine covering of the house. At a temperature of over 1200 degrees Celsius, the contents of the reservoir poured through the rupture, igniting its meager contents in a gigantic red, black and yellow, mushroom shaped, fireball which consumed everything and everyone within.
CHAPTER FOUR
Zaxxion wiped his sweat-covered forehead with the back of his grimy jumper’s sleeve. It would leave a grease smear across his brow, but it was better than having whatever might be mixed in with his sweat transferred into his eyes. Having made that mistake once before, it took a trip to the company’s Medidoc (which was docked from his pay) and a full week, before the contaminates had finally been completely flushed from his eyes. Once again, he found himself cursing the engineer and captain of the Brooklyn Queen to Vishar’s seven hells for the condition of the ship’s ion tubes, but at least this was the last engine exhaust to be cleaned.
Raising his left wrist, he tapped it once to activate the embedded wristcom’s time display then swore once again. Seven fucking hours! When he had started the job it was night, but now the daylight of the first sun was seeping through the hanger doors. Even though his father was used to his irregular hours, Zax still hated to leave him alone for too long. If there was no one there to keep an eye on him, his father tended to lapse into one of his melancholy moods or delusionary fits. It was times like those when he would sometimes relapse and turn to Blitzo again.
It is not as bad as it used to be after his mother had died. It appeared that as time went by, he tended to need the drug less and less. Zax seemed to remember that back when his mother was alive, he seldom took it at all, but after her death, he had become a Blitzo addict. “To keep away the voices,” he would say. There were times, Zax had seen his father staring off into space and murmuring as if he were speaking to someone that only he could hear. Other times he would wake up screaming, grasping his head in pain, and talking about things he shouldn’t (not could not) remember. Those were the bad times, the times when Zax would come home bruised and beaten by other kids, only to find that he had to administer to his father rather than to his own injuries.
Sometimes, it was ‘Firsters’ kids who had attacked him because they thought that he was an ‘uppity’ Laster for daring to own land. Other times, it was from other Laster kids who resented the fact that he and his father were both eligible for the Land Acquisition Grant while they weren’t.
In one of his more lucid moments, his father had looked down at his bruised and battered son. He took him aside and told him that it was time for him to learn how to fend for himself. His father scrounged around Last Town, collecting various discarded materials, and spent an entire tenday week building what he called a ‘training yard’ for Zax. When it was finished, he then took him out into the yard and began to systematically beat the crap out of him day after day.
Each time Zax was hit or tripped, his dad would show him why had happened and how to counter it. He would show him how to use the terrain to his advantage and how to angle his body to lessen the force of a blow. He showed him how to misdirect a punch, counter a blow and disarm a weapon-wielding opponent. There were many days where Zax had ended up more bruised than when the other kids had beaten him, but he didn’t mind. Because during the training, his father did not once take Blitzo.
Zax smiled to himself, at the memory of what happened to the group of Laster boys who had assaulted him about a week after his final ‘training’ session. After that encounter the word got out. There were a couple of times after that when a few of the local toughs, who didn’t believe the stories decided to ‘teach him a lesson’, but when seven out of the nine attackers ended up with various broken bones or their own makeshift weapons lodged in various non-lethal parts of their collective anatomies, the assaults ceased.
Pausing to remove his tool belt, Zax headed for to the charging station where he kept his personal floater. Floaters were simple platforms with a contragrav unit installed in their base, along with an electromagnetic field pulse generator for propulsion. The cheaper ones ran on stored up electrical energy, rather than the more expensive replaceable energy cells and had to be periodically recharged via either induction field or via a retractable cord. Unplugging it from the wall, he glanced at its charge. It was fully charged and if he was careful about his speed, it had just enough power to get him back to his home in Last Town. Reaching behind the unit to activate the floater, he paused and stretched for a moment, as his back began to spasm. With a heavy groan, he deactivated the contragrav field and tried to stretch the kinks out. Finally, he decided that he was too weary to navigate the floater home. Instead, he would take one of the hourly municipal ground effect vehicles that ran from the space docks to various locations in Littleton.
Checking his wristcom, Zax realized if he hurried, he would be just in time to catch the shuttle that would take him to the edge of Littleton, closest to Last Town. The trams were not a gesture by the city to make life any easier for the space yard employees, it was just far more expedient to have a relatively low-cost method for the underpaid workers to get to and from work. Their interiors were marked and defaced by overlapping graffiti, three quarters of the seats were either torn or down to a bare frame, but they were serviceable. While these shuttles ran through most of Littleton, none ventured past the city limits into Last Town. The closest they came were two kilometers from the settlement. From there the passenger had one of three options to get home: to find a local gypsy taxi, use their own conveyance, or cover the distance on foot.
On the way out of the yard, he bared the back of his hand and waived it across the employee scanner. There was a flash of laser lines that read his tattoo and the work chip imbedded beneath his skin. Tapping the control panel just below the scanner, he got a readout of his work hours then sucked his teeth in disgust. True to his word Lagasse, the fat slug, had clocked his time in at a one-quarter pay, and to add insult to injury, he had deducted a ‘charging’ fee for his floater. This meant that he had worked the entire night for practically nothing. Cursing, Zax collapsed the floater down to its minimal configuration, hoisted it over his shoulder and headed off in a trot towards the lower Littleton shuttle station.
Off in the shadows, the man in the blend suit took out his communicator and spoke rapidly in hushed tones. Putting the device back into the pocket of his suit, he turned, boarded the small nondescript flitter hovering next to him and proceeded to follow Zax, at a discreet distance, down the tarmac and onto the pot-holed filled road that led towards the Littleton shuttles.
Exhausted, Zax reached the shuttle station just as the bus was pulling away from the station. Ten minutes later, he stretched out on the back seat of the nearly empty shuttle and drifted off to sleep. He wasn’t worried about missing his stop since it was the last one on the line before the shuttle automatically emptied out the compartments, sprayed the interior with a caustic mist, (this more to keep out sleeping vagrant than to sanitize the car) and headed back to the spaceport station.
Approximately thirty minutes into the ride, Zax was abruptly jarred a
wake by an unexpected radical shift in the shuttle’s progression. It had veered off to the side of the byway and was rapidly decreasing speed. In the distance, Zax could hear the strident, warbling, high- pitched sound of emergency sirens coming up from behind him. Quickly sitting up in his seat, he pressed his face against the grime covered, cracked, plasticine windows to see what was happening.
To his surprise, not one, but several emergency contragrav vehicles rocketed past. Two fire rafts, along with several police skimmers and even an ambulance, passed him on a heading that took them right through Littleton and straight on to Last Town. The fire rafts sported the insignia of the spaceport authority, while the police skimmers were all the way from Centennial City. What the hell were they doing all the way out here? Zax wondered.
After they had passed, the shuttle’s autopilot automatically pulled back onto the road, resumed its preset course as it trudged doggedly on, to the outskirts of Littleton. Minutes later, it came to another unscheduled halt and a voice came out of its overhead speakers.
“Attention passengers! Due to a police emergency this shuttle is now ‘out of service’. Please disembark immediately…Decontamination will proceed in five minutes… Attention passengers! Due to a police emergency…”
The announcement was repeated several times as the exit doors were automatically opened, and the interior seats began to fold back into the sides of the car. Zax hurriedly gathered his floater and duffle, and left through the rear door. The transport, sensing the absence of passengers, sealed its doors as a fine mist engulfed its interior. It immediately reversed its course and headed back down the empty streets to the depot. Zax hardly noticed the shuttle’s departure, because off in the distance directly ahead of him, he could see the flashing yellow and green lights of a police roadblock.