Fletcher (23 page)

“Please, K. They are not a part of this.”

I lost it. “I’m sorry!” I screamed. “I couldn’t hear you over the sound of this fucking! beautiful! bonfire!”

I threw the phone into the back of the truck. It bounced off her head. She yelped, and I pulled a box of matches from my coat pocket.

There’s probably a long, wonderful German word for what I’m feeling right now.

I kept filming until the shrieks stopped completely.

#0004

“It has been too long. The girl with the green eyes, she brought far too much heat down on my area. Her father was some big-shot politician, for god’s sake. Rookie error, K, seriously rookie. Keep this up and you’ll be dead in a year.

“I’ve decided that I don’t like guns as much. I killed two tonight. Waited for them to approach me at the park. One of them held a knife to me, and I shot him in the face. His partner ran and I got him in the back. The rush was still there, still strong, but it felt...distanced. It felt wrong. There was no screaming struggle, no bitter fight for life. Point and squeeze.

“They were scum. They will not be missed.”

26: Recruitment

It didn’t matter who had drawn first blood; Strauch now bled profusely. His hurt spilled from his veins and splattered the gutterage in black-red RailTech insignia. Roaming squads were visible through the day and the night. I holed up in small crawlspaces (smawlspaces?) during the day and flitted about at night. I watched as the Midnight Hour was rigorously searched. No gunshots were fired. Tonight, the patrons were peaceful.

I waited until the two 429 squads departed. I thought of tracking them down and hunting them from the shadows, but I had more important work to do. I had to pull together an army of my own. War had reared its napalm-scented head and waved its crimson spines in the air. The monster perched high above the city, and waited.

I knocked on the walls at the club entrance three times with a meat hook. Dante made eye contact. The effect was immediate and pronounced. The music stopped and the lights flicked on. All eyes turned to me.

I looked up at the Wasp Gallery, then back down to the dance floor. My gaze met Clarice. It was unexpected, and I blinked. A bruise radiated from the broken skin on her forehead. She waved with a dainty hand and cracked a smile. I was jolted with a strange feeling.

Dante had received my message, clearly. He moved over and gave me a microphone. I paused, and coughed. The feedback burned through the speakers. I stepped backwards and the whine died down. I scratched my ear.

“This isn’t what I do.” I almost felt awkward under the staring eyes.

“This is not what I do.”

Try again.

“A lot of you know me. Maybe not by name, but probably by legend. Or whatever it is you’d call it. Myth. And I, well, I know a lot of you. You know that this is not what I do. You know that I’m the one who smiles and winks, I’m the one who brushes you off with a toss of my head. You know I’m the one who moves in for the close without saying anything. I do not convince people with my words alone.

“This is not what I do.”

I felt as if I was on the edge of a cliff. It wasn’t just public speaking. It was asking people for help. Not demanding it, not threatening for it. I had to be candid.

I looked at Clarice again. She looked beautiful tonight, resplendent in a light blue material. It matched her eyes. A smile flickered and she nodded her head to encourage me.

“This is not… Okay. I’ve made that clear. This is not me talking to you tonight. This is not the Fletcher… the K you know and love.”

Someone chuckled derisively, but it was meant in good sport.

“I’m here because of Valerie.”

There was an almost-audible feeling as the tension cranked up. Valerie might have had her flaws: morbidly whimsical and a bit too keen on the scalpels and morphine, to name a few. These aside, she was the Midnight Hour. Alongside Dante, she was the life-beat of the club. It was more than a club; it was a union, a community, a cult of those that 2012 had forgotten or discarded. They owed her.

“Some of you may blame me for what happened. For those of you who aren’t aware, RailTech was here because of me. I had Valerie look at something, something of theirs, and they came to take it back. They came to destroy the evidence. They came because of me, and Valerie died because of it.

“I’m not going to lie to you all. Normally, I would. Normally I’d do whatever I could, but that’s not what I need right now. That’s not what you need right now. I’m not sorry. I never have been. I wish I was sorry. I lost a friend and a companion that night, and god knows those are few and far between these days. I lost one of the few people I could trust, wholly and completely. She died because of me, by my hand. I killed my best friend.”

I lowered the microphone by a fraction. Something writhed in my chest, twisting and almost nervous.

“RailTech took something from me, from all of us. I suggest we even the score.”

Clarice nodded again. Murmurs starts to flit around the club. The restlessness rumbled and rose.

“RailTech didn’t just take something from us. They gave us something, we were all just too preoccupied to notice. RailTech gassed us with
angel-rage
that night. Every single one of us.”

Gasps.

“The
hypno
addicts didn’t notice, but they were having seizures. The rage we all felt? That desire to just leap into the fray, leap into the writhing pit of bodies and grinning flesh?

“
Angel-rage
. Don’t tell me none of you felt it. And because of that, because of the rage that flourished, RailTech could retaliate without fear of consequences. They baited us into violence and then checked us on their level. They played us. They played us with our own poisons.”

There were a lot of angry expressions now. Clarice was wide-eyed. Dante whispered something in my ear, some form of “Are you sure?”

I nodded and continued. “So. Who wants to fight?”

The noise cut over the chatter and pulled it down to a hush. I repeated myself.

“Who wants to fight?”

The club was silent. Every eye was on me. The future teetered precariously.

Dante raised his hand.

Clarice raised her hand.

A woman in her late thirties with blue hair raised her hand. A young man with a goatee raised his hand. The angry-looking woman to his left raised her hand.

The effect rippled outwards. In a matter of seconds the entire club had raised their arms in silent assent. I found myself grinning, broadly.

I had an army.

***

Later that night, once the plans were set, I approached Clarice. She waved her drink at me and winked.

“Impressive. You didn’t even need to throw anyone to the floor.”

Fwow him to the fwoor!

For some reason the Monty Python skit stuck in my brain. I cracked a broad smile and raised my drink in response.

“I’m not going to apologise.”

“It’s okay. I understand now. Should have just asked.”

“I just went over this. It’s not me.”

“I know.”

Her smile was coy. I had to ask a question, but I phrased it as a statement.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you here, actually.”

The smile stretched out further and she gave me a sly glance.

“You’re not as scary as you think you are, K.”

“Oh, yes I am.”

“Right. You are. But what I actually wanted to say, was that your fear isn’t as devastating as you think it might be. Maybe not to me, at least.”

I cocked my head. “You lost me.”

“I thought I was going to die that night. Twenty-twelve affected everyone, some more than others. I lost everyone that year. Not in the looting. Not in the violence. I lost my family to the Red Masque. They were in South Africa at the time, Cape Town. I watched my father fall into bloody convulsions over a goddamn Skype call. Everything went belly-up, but I was dead inside. I was dead.

“Then, you came along. Not at the Midnight Hour, no. You were fun, but that wasn’t enough. You arrived at my house and bashed my head into my mirror, and I thought I was going to die. I thought that was it. And when I was confronted with that grim reality, I realised I didn’t want to die. You kicked the deadness inside, K. You went full Lazarus on me. Strange as it seems, I owe you, even if it kills me.”

I smiled and responded. For a second I felt fully authentic, just like when I addressed the club. “Thank you, I guess. I’ll take all the help I can get.”

***

I stood on the very edge of the gutterage, looking down into the sanitised city below. Behind me flocked a crew of Midnighters, armed to the teeth, following my gaze intently.

We were all high out of our minds.

My jaws worked tirelessly on a small piece of gum. I didn’t even know where it came from. I think it was releasing
angel-rage
into my system, but I don’t know for sure.

Chew, chew, chew.

We were waiting for the signal from Clarice, who had been tasked with distracting the patrolling team while we could close in. I fidgeted with my knives. Behind me, the grinning flesh fidgeted too.

This would be our night. The city would not rise as it did today, but would instead wake in blood and fear. RailTech, the armed forces—they would learn the error of their ways. They would learn not to poke the sleeping psychopath.

A reckoning.

Clarice was taking her time. She had staggered into the street almost an hour ago, clothes torn, with the left side of her face slicked with red. The perfect bait. It helped that most of the patrols knew her from her time as a volunteer worker. Once the patrols were out, we could move forward and into the city. Eat it from within, like wasp larvae.

The silent radio in my right hand hissed into life. A dead voice spoke through the interference.

“Be ready.”

I started descending the stairs, nervous energy taking them two at a time, followed wordlessly by the others. As I reached the streets, I heard a single, muffled shot. I broke into a dash.

Chew, chew, chew.

I spun into an alleyway onto three figures. One was dead, a red smile across the neck, while the other was thrashing meekly.

Clarice sat on his chest, blood seeping from a wound in her side. The guard was not so lucky; his jaw had been dislocated and I saw the roll of knuckles through his throat as Clarice flexed her fingers. She turned, and I could see that every capillary in her eye had blown.

“I can see the appeal.”

Her voice was flat; I’ve heard more warmth in a death sentence. The struggles of her prisoner ceased, face purple and eyes bulging. I was a big fan of the Clarice-Lazarus (Clazarus?).

Chew, chew, chew.

She withdrew her hand and began absent-mindedly picking flecks from under her fingernails. A dusky laugh rippled among us.

“Ready?”

What little presence of mind I had left compelled me to check her wound. It was clean, and despite the blood nothing major had been hit. She would be fine. The designer drugs carried her forwards.

“Ready.”

Chew, chew, chew.

We crossed over the streets, into the city. The bodies would be discovered soon, but not soon enough. More and more of us gathered, waiting in shadowy wings, until our number was well over fifty. The fidgeting was getting unbearable now, and I saw Dante working a knife into his forearm.

“Go.”

From the silence, there came a baleful whooping, and our throng divided through the city. I struck out towards the next patrol, accompanied by those in search of a challenge. I could already feel the cogs falling into place, mobilising and readying themselves for the inevitable torrent of spanners.

Chew, chew, chew.

It wasn’t long before we slashed into the first inner city patrol. Where they had automatic weapons, we had surprise and fear; they never stood a chance. Three were gunned down as they came into sight, forcing the rest behind cover and allowing us to close in.

I recall Clarice falling out of the darkness, onto the back of one of the survivors. She twisted his head around and kissed him fully and lustily.

Shock, pain and fear flashed across his eyes. She stole his heart and—thanks to her teeth—most of his face. The other guards were dumbstruck as we closed those crucial final metres.

Chew, chew, chew.

We ran through three other patrols before I made it to the city centre. Clarice and Dante were still with me, alongside a gaunt set of twins. As we arrived, a shockwave ripped through us, forcing us to our knees. The explosion had come from the barracks; a flare had been crying for help from their position for the past few minutes. I assumed we had broken through to their armoury and pulled the pin on the entire operation.

Thunderous heartbeats carried adrenaline and
angel-rage
through my system with an ever-increasing tempo, lifting me back into a sprint.

RailTech
. The glass monolith dominated my field of vision as we ran closer, fire-flickered panes shimmering until a grenade—or was that a missile?—from the twins burrowed a savage hole in its flank. I leaped through the opening, laughing, and the howling rage consumed my actions and my memory.

Chew, chew, crunch?

Awareness returned to me in a bloody rush. Redshirt-viscera splattered the walls, the doors, even the ceiling. There was no longer a piece of gum in my mouth. I loosened my jaw to let the body drop and the jugular spurt freely. I regretted it immediately, and the void was rapidly filled with the gristlebone of fingers. I burst into a room, stared into terrified eyes, and released a vile banshee wail.

“Surprise punch!” I screamed, before shooting him in the face. That was the surprise.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

We rode the vertical bloodwave, ascending through throes of passion in a crimson elevator. The door pinged. Clarice, Dante and I spilled out like so many innards before the chill air shocked me into disengaging. A snap of clarity sucked the colour from the red and transferred it to the rest of the spectrum; the air around me suddenly tingled with life.