Authors: Stuart Keane
“Shit! Fuck! Argh!”
Iain raised the pistol and aimed it at the hand, then directed it along the forearm, afraid of inadvertently blowing a hole in Kathryn’s head.
“
Let go or I'll blow your fucking hand off!
” he yelled.
The hand didn’t release. It gripped tighter and continued to pull. Kathryn spun in its grip, trying to break free. Iain thumbed the gun’s hammer back, his finger resting on the trigger. “Kathryn, cover your ears,
do it now!
” he shouted.
Realising what he was doing, she did so. The fist, freed from her clutching fingers, gripped even tighter for a few seconds. Iain covered his left ear with his free hand. Then he pulled the trigger.
BAM!
Iain felt his eardrum rupture as the gunfire noise rocked the small space. The gun’s recoil knocked his hand back into his chest, and he dropped it, so that it bounced to the floor with a thud. He fell back against the wall, having watched the man’s forearm erupt into a huge cloud of red blood and bone. A flap of muscle floated free from the arm, still attached at one end. Kathryn had her eyes closed and her ears covered but her face was now a mask of blood and sinew. She fell to the ground as the hand released her hair. Her rucksack bounced against her back. She inched backwards on her bottom, getting further into the lift’s space.
Muffled screams erupted from outside the lift as what was left of the hand retreated. With the blood-covered appendage finally gone, the door closed. And the lift started to ascend. Kathryn opened her eyes. She wiped the blood from her face. Iain was leaning against the mirrored interior wall. Blood was dripping from his right ear. Kathryn pushed herself to her feet and checked on him. He looked at her, dazed. Her ears still ringing with the blast of the gunshot, Kathryn looked at the buttons on the panel and saw the indicator flash to four.
“We have to go,” she yelled at him. “We only have a few minutes. Are you ready?”
Iain nodded. He held his head. As he stood up, the lift smoothed to a stop.
DING.
Kathryn bent down and scooped up the pistol, slipping it behind her belt buckle. She gripped Iain’s arm and pulled him out of the lift, and then darted left. There was a double door in front of her. She pushed against it with her shoulder and, despite meeting a lot of resistance at first, she managed to barge through, dragging Iain behind her.
They emerged in a meeting room. Rows of desks were arranged neatly within the space, and there were no computers. The desks were unoccupied, and there were windows in all the walls. The room was in darkness until the lights flickered to life. She turned around and spotted the fire exit. It was a crude door at the end of a wall, beside the windows. It looked as if this room had been unoccupied for some time, judging by the thin sheen of dust that lay on the desktops. Iain leaned against one, sending dust bunnies up into the air.
Kathryn strode up to the fire exit and pushed at the door, but it wouldn’t open. She then tried knocking down the emergency exit bar, but still there was no movement. Finally she kicked the door hard, and at last it flung backwards, clattering against the fire escape railing behind it, as the cold night air rushed into the room. The refreshing breeze felt good, and she paused for a moment to suck in a few mouthfuls. Kathryn stepped outside, and found that the fire escape held her weight. She beckoned to Iain to follow her.
She noticed a ladder leading upwards to the left that was positioned in front of the windows, at the end of a tiny fire escape. Kathryn doubted more than one person at a time could squeeze onto it. Her feet made metallic tapping noises as she walked. “Iain, get up there,” she called to him. “When you reach the top, wait. If you have to, hide.”
Iain nodded. He went past her, leapt up the ladder and disappeared over the edge of the roof. Kathryn put her foot on the bottom rung. She positioned her rucksack on her back and closed the fire exit door behind her.
Seconds later, looking through the window into the room they’d just left, she saw the door burst open and Sputnik stepped into view. He was holding an assault rifle in front of him. Kathryn’s eyes grew wide as she stepped away and sprung up the ladder. As her feet cleared the windows, they shattered in a cacophony of glass, bullets and screaming voices. Kathryn rolled onto the roof, and Iain stared at her in awe. “What the fuck was that noise?”
“Sputnik's right behind us. He looks pissed,” she snapped.
“That’s no surprise, after all, we did kill his little brother.”
Kathryn couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “Boyd was his brother?”
“Yep. He was quite protective of him, if I remember rightly. Never mind, eh?”
“Thanks for the heads up on that.” Kathryn climbed to her feet and surveyed the roof, realising that she hadn’t been up on the roof before, so had no knowledge of its geography to use in this facsimile building. She saw a walkway in the distance, and there were a few generators fixed onto the roof’s surface. Turning around, she noticed a small doorway, further behind, clearly another access entry to the roof. Maybe a maintenance entrance?
The fire escape treads started to make a squeaking noise, advertising that someone was using them. Sputnik was on his way. His footsteps were slow. For a man of his size, if he was smart, he would take his time. Kathryn realised they didn’t have long to make their move.
Beyond the door she could see more buildings on the horizon, but the darkness meant that only vague outlines could be seen. She could see the theatre building. It was angled to the right of the walkway that led off the roof. The theatre’s neon lights cast a shallow beacon of pink and yellow into the black sky. Although she wasn’t familiar with this roof, she knew that the walkway led across to the next building, where it was possible to go down a fire escape to the street. Beforehand she had a sneaking suspicion that this was the case, and now it was confirmed. The walkway was about fifty metres away.
The sound of the footsteps on the access ladder ceased. Then they started again, however this time they were different. Was it a second set of feet? Kathryn heard muttering, and the footsteps halted. There was silence for a moment. Then the ladder started to shake once more. Was Sputnik testing its strength? At that moment, Kathryn wished that her foes had been idiots, unable to foresee difficulties. Time was ebbing away. A plan was required.
Iain was crouched by one of the generators, holding his head in his hands. Kathryn cupped his face next to hers and looked into his eyes. “Can you hear me?” she shouted. Iain nodded in silence. Blood was still ebbing from his ear. Kathryn hoped that by covering his other ear with his hand, he’d avoided damage to both of them. If he could hear her, she realised, that was a good sign.
Keeping an eye on the ladder, Kathryn opened her rucksack and pulled out a shirt, and used it to wipe the blood from Iain’s ear. She pulled out a small first aid kit she had recovered and placed some pills into Iain’s palm. “Take these for the pain, and here,” Kathryn gave him a can of Coke to wash them down. Iain smiled, placed the pills on his tongue and swallowed a mouthful of the drink.
“Thanks. My whole head is throbbing.”
Kathryn nodded. “Well, you probably just ruptured your eardrum.”
Iain drank some more Coke and handed the can to Kathryn, who took a mouthful herself. After she’d finished she placed the can on the ground. Footsteps could be heard on the ladder rungs now. One, then two, then three.
BOOM!
The maintenance door on the other side of the roof shattered and burst open. It swung on one hinge then fell to the ground in pieces. Specks of wood floated in the air. Genghis squeezed through the door. He was carrying a pump-action shotgun. Iain’s eyes widened.
“Shotgun! GET DOWN!”
Kathryn and Iain ducked behind a generator. Genghis stepped onto the roof, his chest wrapped in fresh white bandages, and his dark skin shiny with sweat. Iain realised that shooting him hadn’t done as much damage as he’d hoped. The steroids in the man’s system had probably reduced the pain. Genghis waited, he was clearly going to take his time. He clasped the gun and thrust it into the air, the dreaded noise of the shotgun reloading in the night air.
SNIK SNAK
Sputnik climbed onto the roof and stood beside him. His machine gun was hanging off his back in a sling. The third man was nowhere to be seen. Kathryn didn’t expect to see Boyd any time soon.
One down, three to go.
Kathryn calculated that the metal generator casing would be enough to protect them from a full frontal attack. She could hear fans whirring inside the device. She raised her pistol and took aim. Iain shuffled behind her, disorientated from his injury, something that Kathryn was grimly aware of. Something dawned on her.
She was in charge now.
Sputnik approached Genghis and patted him on the shoulder. Genghis showed no pain in his face. Sputnik swivelled towards where Kathryn and Iain were hiding.
“Kappa, I
am
disappointed,” he called out. “We used to be friends.”
Iain grimaced. “We were never friends. There are no friends within The Company.”
Sputnik laughed. “Too true. At least you remember the rules and regulations. Maybe you were born to be in The Game. You should play it more often. I could use a recruit like you.”
“The Game is history, Sputnik. The Game is no more. The Chronicle,
your Chronicle
is dead. You have no mentor. What you are doing here is pointless.”
Sputnik laughed again. “You’re right, it was pointless. I was willing to organise a truce. Until you killed my retard brother. You of all people know what he was like. Five tools short of a shed, you might say. You know how I held that fool close to my heart.”
“Your brother was a freak, as well as a danger to himself and everyone around him. He needed putting out of his misery.”
Kathryn regarded Iain warily.
Was he intentionally trying to piss off Sputnik
?
“Ha, yes, maybe that's true. As the old saying goes though. An eye for an eye. . .”
Iain said nothing. Kathryn looked at him.
Sputnik whistled. “Well, as far as I can see, we have a machine gun, a shotgun and plenty of ammo. You have a pistol, and a long roof to escape from. I bet you’ll end up on the losing side. Yes, I'll take that bet. I reckon we could pick you off before you even get off this roof. Care to run and prove me wrong?”
Iain cringed. Again he said nothing.
Kathryn flexed her fingers, gripping the pistol tightly. It took all of her resistance to resist just cracking off some shots in hope of hitting them. But she knew they didn’t have much ammunition, so she couldn’t afford to waste it.
“Sputnik?” she called out. “It wasn’t Iain that killed your brother. It was me. This situation isn’t his fault.”
“Well, well…the lady speaks. Finally. I wondered if you were a mute or a retard like my brother,” the gunman replied. “Never fear, now I know you can talk, I'll have the pleasure of hearing you scream my name. In torture, or in pleasure, I'm unsure which yet. Maybe both.”
Kathryn swallowed, unsure if she should continue to antagonise her enemies further. “You
are
very confident. What makes you so sure you will catch me?”
Sputnik laughed. “Oh don’t worry, I have all the time in the world. You aren’t going anywhere in a hurry, and we seem to have an impasse here. We won’t come and get you, no no no, waiting for you to come out will be much more fun. You see, we all ate a hearty meal an hour ago, before we ran into you. I’m betting you haven’t eaten properly in a day. All you’ve had is crap food from the vending machines below us. Am I right?”
Kathryn said nothing.
Iain winced in pain before talking too: “What if you were wrong, Sputnik? We could have gone to the canteen in the basement.”
Sputnik laughed. “If you had done, you would have known that the chef was dead, shafted with a baseball bat. That was Boyd’s doing. I was proud of my brother for that. The chef was actually sitting upright with the bat sticking out from his gaping maw. Pretty. We took all of the food three days ago. All you would have found would have been a rotting body and empty crisp packets. Now stop bullshitting us. We know you haven’t eaten. And we're willing to wait you out, isn’t that right, Genghis?”
Genghis nodded. “Indeed it is.”
Kathryn looked at Iain. It looked as if they had some time. Not much time, and with Iain’s injury, time when he urgently needed medical help was slowly ticking away.
“That truce you mentioned,” she called out. “You never had any intention of keeping it, did you?”
“Nope. See, I live by the rules of The Game. There are no truces, no backsies, no friends, and no colleagues, except for my posse here. It’s very black and white. I find it a remarkable way of living. Easy, no strings. It makes decisions very simple. I just talked about a truce to poke fun at you.”
Kathryn bit her lip. “So you are a liar as well as a psychopath?”
Sputnik frowned. “You could say that. I’m not a liar so much as a creative person who likes to pose scenarios – like politicians or your family doctor – I never tell the truth but I don’t actually tell lies.”
Kathryn said nothing. Iain winced again.