Kade

by Christopher Woods

  “Teresa said you’d gone and gotten shot a couple times.”

  “Gettin’ sloppy in my old age.”

  “Did you bust anything open?” Lindsey asked.

  “Nah,” I answered. “Just achy now. It’ll go away soon enough.”

  “That’s what you get for jumping into the middle of a mess like that,” she said. “That’s what we’re here for.”

  “True, Kade,” Michael said. “Teresa will kick both our asses if we let you get all messed up.”

  “I needed to let Gaunt out to play,” I said. “He whines if I don’t.”

  “Gaunt?” she asked.

  “One of the personalities from the database?” Michael asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You can access them?”

  “Most of ‘em,” I said. “The stronger personalities are the easiest to access. Some of the others are vague, but I can draw on their experience.”

  “That’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Was a little rough for the first few years.”

  “I imagine so,” Lindsey said.

  We passed several people as we walked down the tunnels. A pale woman led four children in the opposite direction, and I paused to hand her a small pouch.

  “Somethin’ for the kids,” I muttered and continued down the tunnel. I glanced back as we turned into a branch tunnel and saw her giving the kids pieces of jerky.

  I kept referring to the map of the tunnels. I didn’t look at the physical map; I looked at the one I had mostly memorized. I had studied the local tunnels closely while looking over the map. So far, it seemed to match what was in my head.

  I didn’t like being at the mercy of someone else when it came to where I was located. I’d explored the city to a great extent and knew where we were at the moment.

  “I’d say we’re under Devin,” Michael said. “Possibly under Blechley.”

  “You mean Holden?” Lindsey asked.

  “Well…yeah, now that you mention it,” he said. “I heard Blechley came to a gruesome end. Know anything about that, Kade?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talkin’ about.”

  “I heard something about finding him in many pieces,” Lindsey said.

  “Pinned to a wall,” Michael said.

  “With all of his parts arranged in alphabetical order,” she added.

  “He must have done something pretty bad for someone to do somethin’ like that,” I said.

  “Must have,” he said.

  “Can’t say I feel sorry for the bastard,” Lindsey said. “Maybe he insulted his wife’s cooking one too many times.”

  “I doubt it,” Michael said. “From what I heard, he had excellent cooks.”

  “I bet you snuck over there and ate dinner a few times.”

  “Had to,” Michael said. “There’s only so many peanut butter sandwiches and noodles a man can eat.”

  “What?!”

  “Damn the Farmers and their peanut butter. I hated it long before the Fall, and I almost forgave the ones who dropped the bombs when there was no more of the stuff.”

  “You ate it,” she said.

  “The Kords were over in Wilderman’s…”

  “You son of a…”

  “So, Kade,” Michael interrupted, “what was that jerky? It was spectacular.”

  “The key is in how you cut the meat. If you cut the sinew out and just leave the meat, it makes a tender jerky. Even if it’s rat jerky. I have some pigeon jerky here, too. Wanna try it?”

  I handed him another small sack. He pulled a piece from the sack and bit off a chunk. Lindsey reached in and took a piece.

  “Damn. That’s even better than the other one,” she said.

  He passed the sack back to me, and I nudged Portus. He turned and reached into the sack for a piece.

  “Very good,” he said as he chewed the meat.

  We passed the sack around as we continued down the dim tunnels.

  We heard running water ahead, and Portus rushed forward. We found a pipe with a strong leak around the next bend.

  “Oh, this is not good,” Portus said. “I have to report this. If you will remain here for a few moments, I will report and be right back.”

  “Can you report when we get to where we’re going?” I asked.

  “This is part of the Accords.”

  “Then go,” I said. “We’ll be here.”

  Portus took off at a dead run.

  “Accords?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The Accords were written up about ten years ago. It was an agreement between the Mardins and the Zones above. The Mardins would maintain the water and sewage under the city, and the Zones above would leave the Mardins alone. That’s why some folks don’t know who the Mardins are. And they take the Accords very seriously.”

  “I can see why it is important,” Lindsey said. “If we lose the water up top, there would be utter chaos. No one would be safe. What little order we have would be gone in an instant.”

  “The city would consume itself,” I said. “Many people don’t know it, but we owe the Mardins as much as we owe the Farmers. Without the Farmers, the city would have self-destructed long ago. Same with the Mardins. I hate to say it, but we also owe Dynamo a great deal for keeping the electricity up and running.”

  “Yeah,” Michael said. “He knows it, too. Although, of the three, the electric is the least important. Much of the city gets by without it. The Scrapers have electricity, and it’s created an upper and a lower class.”

  “True,” I said. “The Scrapers aren’t nearly as nice without power.”

  “And Dynamo charges a tax for his services. The Mardins and the Farmers don’t. They just want to be left alone.”

  “Worlds of difference between him and either of the others,” I said. “We try to make our Zones self-sufficient, but, in all honesty, a city can never really be self-sufficient. We’ll always be dependent on someone else.”

  “True,” Michael said. “We’ve got our water towers and solar grids, but they would never support a whole Zone for an extended amount of time.”

  “And there’s just not enough room to grow food for the whole city, which brings us back to the Farmers, the Mardins, and Dynamo.”

  I heard running feet, and Portus came back into view, followed by three other pale-skinned Mardins. He stopped in front of me.

  “We can continue our journey, Mister Kade.”

  I nodded and followed him again toward the west. The pipes along the walls seemed more important than they had before. We take a great deal for granted in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 7

  We continued west under the Zone of Jade, a woman who had been part of a criminal organization before the Fall. She had carved out her own little slice of the city almost immediately after the Fall and had held it, successfully, for twenty years.

  Next to the west was Paris. This Zone had gone through no less than ten Warlords in the last twenty years. I expected Jade to get tired of the chaos and move in, but she never made any advances to expand her territory.

  The tunnels angled to the southwest for a while and crossed under The Saint’s Zone. He called himself Saint, but he was far from a Saint. He was a cold-hearted mercenary. He had trained soldiers under his command and had expanded three times since the Fall. Perhaps he was the reason Jade had left Paris’ Zone alone. It was a sort of buffer Zone between her and The Saint.

  We would almost reach Wilderman’s before arriving at Dunn. The tunnels all looked close to the same, and I could see getting lost in them very easily. My eye was drawn to the pipes running along the tunnels.

  “A lot of patched pipes down here,” I said, motioning toward a six-inch pipe with a clamp around it. “No one knows how close to the edge we really are.”

  “I’ve seen at least ten of those clamps since we left that leak,” Michael said.

  “We are ever vigilant, my friends,” Portus said. “We live by the Accords.”r />
  “I know of the Accords,” I said, “but I never really understood how important that one agreement is.”

  “The life of this city is flowing through these pipes.” He touched one of the pipes, almost reverently. “We protect this life with our own.”

  I nodded to the man.

  “We have reached the edge of Dunn,” he said. “This area is less populated than some of the others, due to a breach in the tunnels into the sewer below.”

  I could smell the difference as we neared our destination.

  “I need you to organize a detailed search of the area,” I said. “If he hit down here, we need to find the scene. I’ll go up and see if he hit up top. According to his pattern, there should be a body in this Zone.”

  “The search is already underway,” Portus said. “We started as soon as you established a pattern.”

  “Good,” I said. “Where’s the nearest surface access?”

  “Right this way.”

  We heard the commotion before we started to climb the ladder. Running feet and several yells.

  “May not need to go up to Dunn, after all,” Michael said. “Sounds like someone found something.”

  A pale-skinned man ran around the corner and skidded to a halt before Portus.

  “We’ve found it, sir,” the man said.

  “Lead the way, Sarto.”

  We followed Sarto deeper into the tunnels. Several twists and turns later, we stood before a door. The stench of the sewer was almost unbearable, but my nose detected more than just the sewer. It was a familiar smell to Gladson.

  Decomp, he said in my mind.

  “It’s in this room,” Sarto said. “We didn’t go in after we opened the door. It was pretty obvious this was what you are looking for.”

  “Alright,” I said. “I’m goin’ in to examine the scene. You guys wait for me to get a good look before comin’ in.”

  I twisted the lever and pushed the door open. The smell of the decomposing body was stronger. Stepping into the room was like stepping into the past life of a homicide detective. Gladson had entered many rooms like this one.

  The torso was in the center of the room in two pieces. I snarled as I saw the blood splattered in several directions. The arms had been ripped off and slung into a corner. You could tell by the blood patterns that the victim, a pale-skinned man, had been alive when they were ripped off. The blood pattern was similar for one leg. The victim had died after the leg. The other leg had been torn off, as well, but the blood spray was different.

  Not many of his victims lived through their legs being torn off, said Gladson in my head. Never understood how they were kept still between acts, though.

  “Some sort of drug, maybe,” I muttered.

  The rest of what had been done to the body occurred after death. The torso had been disemboweled, and the spine had been broken, leaving two halves of the torso. The head had been twisted off and spiked to the wall, directly in front of the door opening, so it would be the first thing anyone saw when the body was found.

  It would have taken enormous strength to do something like this. Possibly an Agent? But what sort of Agent would do this? Gaunt is a psycho, but would he do this?

  Not randomly, Gaunt’s voice echoed in my head. I could do this, but it would be for the shock factor, not just for the kill.

  “This guy isn’t an Agent with any of the personalities in the database,” I muttered, “which probably means he’s not an Agent. Unless a Clown was ordered to do it.”

  “What’s that leave?” I asked myself. “Cyborg?”

  Most of the Cyborgs were gone now. Their technology was so hard to maintain, they died shortly after the Fall.

  I stooped low and looked closely at the abdomen. It looked like an animal had torn it open.

  What if it was a Geno Freak? Gladson asked in my head.

  “They died out years before the Fall,” I muttered.

  The Geno Freaks were a fad that had swept through the youth about ten years before the war. They would do illegal gene splicing with animal DNA to give themselves cats’ eyes, foxes’ ears, and a multitude of other traits. It was illegal because it didn’t work. Sure, you got the eyes or ears or fur-covered body, but you also received a lifespan of about four years. Needless to say, Geno Freaks were a short-lived fad.

  “There aren’t many humans with the strength to do what’s been done here,” I said. “Whatever it is, it’s gonna be a handful when we catch it.”

  “Alright, guys,” I raised my voice. “You can clean it up. I have all I’m gonna get here.”

  Michael and Lindsey were the first to enter the blood-soaked room.

  “Damn,” he muttered.

  “This is pretty gruesome,” she said. “Hard to believe one person did it. Only one set of prints in the blood, though.”

  “A damn big set of prints,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “This guy is big. Probably as big as Wilson Poe.”

  “That’s big,” she said.

  “Stronger than anyone has any right to be,” Michael said, looking at the body. “Ripped the arms and legs off with his hands. Those aren’t cuts.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “Let’s let these guys clean up. We need to head back east. This proves my pattern is correct. There are three possibilities for the next attack. All three are stable Zones near Yarborough.”

  “You have figured out where we can possibly catch him before he kills again?” Portus asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I needed to prove my pattern to be sure.”

  We exited the room and let the rest of the Mardins in to clean up.

  “Where shall we begin?” Portus asked.

  I squatted down and pulled the maps from my coat. Spreading them both on the floor, I pointed at Yarborough.

  “From here, he could go two Zones to the north and stop in Morris. Or he could go straight east to Trew. But, if he’s studied the Zones any, I’d guess he went three Zones south to Plagis.”

  “Why Plagis?” Lindsey asked. “Both of the others are closer.”

  “The next few moves would answer that,” Michael said, pointing at the map. “If he goes to Trew, there aren’t any other stable Zones on that path for about six Zones. If he chooses Morris, his next move is pretty easy. He’d go to Hiller. But after Hiller, he’d have to cross the warzone.”

  “I can see the problem with that one,” she said. “No one wants to cross the warzone.”

  Three Zones were in a perpetual state of war with each other. There were about twelve other Zones that were always in a state of war near these three. It wasn’t a very safe place to cross. Some days, you could cross the area without incident, others, you could end up among a hundred or so warriors battling in the streets. It was a good place to avoid.

  “So, Plagis would be the smartest place for him to set up,” Michael said. “That’s if the man has prior knowledge of the area. He may just be traveling till he hits a stable place.”

  “The path he’s already taken says he has some prior knowledge,” I said. “He’s avoided a couple of bad routes by going the way he’s going. He’s planning his moves well ahead. This city is the perfect hunting ground for someone like him. All the different Warlords and Zones. If he knew how well the Mardins were connected, he never would have picked them as victims. He thinks in upper Zones.”

  “I think you’re right,” Lindsey said.

  “We know a little about the guy,” I said. “He’s a loner. He doesn’t associate with others; they’re just prey to him. If he were social, he’d be someplace like the Circus, where he could do this sort of thing for clients. They do some twisted shit in places like that.”

  “Makes sense,” Michael said. “He’s not one of the rich, or he’d just buy slaves and do his thing where he lived.”

  “He’s a wanderer,” I said. “He may take jobs as a warrior for the Warlords, but he doesn’t stay very long. A month’s pay would keep him fed, and then he’d move on to the next. No one would turn
down someone with his strength if he requested work as a fighter.”

  “He’s also a coward,” Lindsey said.

  “How’s that?” Michael asked.

  “If not, he’d have joined one of the Warlords in the warzone. He could kill as he pleases and get paid for it.”

  “Might have a point there,” I said. “Too much chance of gettin’ killed by some lucky shot during one of their skirmishes.”

  “He’s a psychopath,” Michael said. “He gets his jollies from killing the helpless.”

  “The drugging of his victims backs that,” I said.

  “Drugging?”

  “If you noticed the blood patterns, they show a distinct lack of struggle from the victim. I think he drugs ‘em in some way.”

  “I’m really not liking this guy,” Michael said. “I’m thinking I’m gonna enjoy killing the bastard.”

  “Just remember the strength this guy has,” I said. “It’s not completely human.”

  “What? Like a Cyborg?”

  “Cyborg, Agent, Geno Freak,” I said. “There’s something more to this guy than just bein’ a twisted bastard.”

  “Geno Freak?” Michael asked. “Doubtful. They died out years before the Fall. Cyborgs are gone. Are Agents that strong?”

  He looked at me with eyebrows raised.

  “Yep,” I said. “But none of the templates in the database fit this guy.”

  “An Agent from another Corporation?”

  “Obsidian was the undeniable victor of the wars,” I said. “But it’s possible an Agent of one of the others survived. The problem is this guy was killin’ folks years before the Fall.” I tapped the side of my head. “I got a detective up here who was after him a long time ago. He’s seen this before. The whole scene. This guy was killin’ people and leavin’ ‘em just like the victim in that room back there. It was close to twenty-five years ago. If this guy was an Agent from the other side, he would have been doin’ Corporate business during the war. Not killin’ civilians.”

  “Twenty-five years ago would put him in range of the Geno Freak theory,” Michael said. “But, surely, he wouldn’t still be around now, would he?”

  “It’s possible one survived, but what would he have to be spliced with to live this long?”