Authors: Gavin Smith
‘They come for us, yes?’ the one who had rescued me asked. I nodded. He was covered head to foot in ichor. ‘What I don’t like about them is there is nothing to eat.’ He picked at his armour. ‘What is this? Liquid. I want to taste flesh.’ He reached down and ruffled the hair of one of the fearsome-looking dogs. ‘I am Vladimir!’ he suddenly shouted. I think I may have jumped. I was wound pretty tight. He swept his hands over his assembled troops. ‘These are my Vucari!’
‘Wild Boys,’ I managed to say and then sat down hard as Brownie crouched next to me opening his med kit
.
It felt like a throbbing white-hot knife had been shoved into my skull, and now there were people near. It was still dark. I could hear the whine from a number of small hover vehicles and whinnying from a horse.
I rapidly assembled the compound bow I’d bought in Dundee. It had been made on the Rigs by a one-armed Royal Engineers vet out of salvaged plastic and metal. She was a superb craftswoman. I’d always been impressed by her stuff but never able to afford any of it. The pull on the bow had been adjusted to take into account my boosted strength. Overkill for the deer I was planning on hunting, but I’d need it if I pissed off a bear. I strapped the case of arrows to my belt. The arrows had been machined by the Engineers’ vet from carbon fibre and steel, with plastic flights.
I headed out of the tent and headed rapidly at a right angle from the direction of the vehicles and horse, keeping low as I moved through the woods. I could hear people talking now but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
I wanted eyes-on. I lay down in the wet undergrowth and slowly and what I hoped was quietly began crawling towards the edge of the woods. I reached the treeline and looked down the slope of the hill. There were six of them. The lowlight capability of my eyes amplified the ambient light and gave my vision a green tinge. I zoomed in. Five of them were sitting on upmarket civilian versions of the scout hovers favoured by Mudge on Sirius. The sixth guy was on a horse, holding the reins of another saddled horse missing its rider. I looked around but saw no one.
The four on the hover bikes seemed excited about something judging by their animated conversation. They wore what looked like expensive outdoor gear that hadn’t seen much of the outdoors. All of them were either holding some kind of expensive shotgun or hunting rifle or had similar weapons in sheaths attached to their scout hovers. If they had implants I couldn’t tell, which probably meant they were wealthy and could afford the sort of cybernetics that didn’t look like cybernetics. They all had either gymnasium-toned builds or were getting plump, which was a distinct sign of wealth. I wondered what they were out hunting. Me?
The one on the horse was different. He was quiet for a start. His outdoor gear was expensive but practical and well used. There was no sign of implants but his face was quite badly scarred and even by the way he shifted in his saddle and scanned the area I could tell he was a veteran. He was weather-beaten and had a hard look to him. He was also older than the others. He looked to be in his fifties, which again suggested money.
‘Jakob Douglas!’ the one on the horse shouted.
How’d they know? Of course. My talk with God – all they had to do was ask. I suppressed a groan.
‘I’m Calum Laird. This is my land,’ he continued. ‘Come out. We’d just like to talk.’ At these words there was laughter from the other five. They were beginning to look like a drunk lynch party to me.
Fuck it, might as well meet the neighbours. I stood up and stepped out of the treeline, bow drawn taught, arrow notched.
‘What do you want?’ I called.
Everyone jumped bar the guy on the horse. They either reached for their weapons or started to bring the ones they were holding to bear on me. I loosed an arrow at the fastest one. It hit the side of the scout hover close to his leg and penetrated deep into the vehicle’s engine block. I was impressed with the bow and my accidental accuracy. The man yelped and the scout hover slowly sank to the ground. I had another arrow notched.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ I warned. The guy on the horse still hadn’t moved. ‘I just want to be left in peace.’
‘You’re squatting, you filth!’ the chubby guy on the recently murdered scout hover said.
‘Alasdair, that’s enough,’ Calum said, then to me: ‘I just want to run my land without trespassers moving in. So I guess we don’t always get what we want.’ It wasn’t a Highland accent – he came from further south – but I couldn’t place it. His tone was even and there was no trace of the upper-class accent of his companions.
‘Looks like you’ve got a lot of room here. You’ll barely notice I’m here and I’ll only hunt when I have to.’
‘It’s his land, you piece of terrorist scum!’ Alasdair practically squealed. There was muttered assent from the other four riders. So it seemed Alasdair had an opinion on the events at the Atlantis Spoke.
‘Alasdair, is it?’ Alasdair didn’t respond. ‘You open your mouth to me again and I’ll spit your piggy head with an arrow. Do you understand me?’
I didn’t want to kill but this guy was really rubbing me the wrong way. Alasdair started to open his mouth and I wondered if I could hit a testicle with the bow.
‘Shut up, Alasdair,’ Laird said quietly. This was a man used to giving orders. ‘I know who you are: 5 Para Pathfinders, SAS, mutineer, dishonourably discharged, Atlantis, what little we know about what went on in the Dog’s Teeth. Impressive record but you sound like a lot of trouble.’
‘That’s all behind me. Like I say, I just want to be left alone.’
‘I’m not so sure it’s that easy, your cavalier attitude to rights of ownership aside …’
‘I lived in an eight-by-eight plastic cube with no fucking windows. How much room do you need?’
‘Hey, I worked for this, pal!’ Now he seemed to be getting angry. There was obviously a bit of street in him.
‘If you’ve read my record then you know I’ve worked for a living.’
There was a snort of derision. ‘Look, I respect your record, but that aside, I let you live here, where does it stop? People are already trying to break out of the cities and move onto land they have no right to.’
‘You shouldn’t use the cities as prisons then. Maybe give everyone an equal chance at the good life.’
‘Where do you think I come from?’ he demanded.
I wasn’t sure so I didn’t answer. ‘So where do you want to go from here?’ I asked instead. ‘Because I’m pretty sure I can get all six of you.’ Though the other horse was bothering me.
‘I’m pretty sure you can’t get any of us, otherwise I wouldn’t have come up here.’ He seemed pretty sure of himself. Now that horse was really beginning to bug me. ‘Though I’ve a better idea. Instead of you getting dead, why don’t we go back to the house, have a dram and talk this over.’
Alasdair opened his mouth to protest.
‘I will fucking shoot you, Alasdair,’ I warned him. His mouth closed with an audible click of teeth on teeth. ‘That seems reasonable as long as the conversation ends with me staying here and being left alone.’
‘We’ll see. Kenny?’ Kenny seemed to rise out of the ground behind me. Kenny was wearing a gillie suit and pointing an old but perfectly serviceable hunting rifle with a big enough calibre to make a mess of even someone as augmented as I was. He had black plastic lenses for eyes and was obviously a vet. I lowered the bow. Kenny lowered the hunting rifle.
‘Right you are, Mr Laird,’ Kenny said. His West Highland accent marked him as a local.
Laird lived in a fucking castle! So this was how the other half lived. I’d come to the conclusion that I’d been bored. Maybe I’d wanted to get caught. Maybe I wanted the drama. They’d heard the trumpet and thought it was an animal. What they called a crypto-zoological specimen. With Them living inside me I guess I was to an extent.
We were in the cellar, except I don’t think it’s called a cellar if it’s under a castle. Dungeon? It was basically a large underground room of ancient-looking stone with a vaulted ceiling and sand on the floor. It was filled with a lot of Laird’s friends and associates, many of whom were cheering or else shouting and screaming. I was half the reason; the other half was trying to kick me in the face. I was loving it. Pit fighting in Lochee was never like this. Of course, I was some kind of hybrid now.
I leaned back out of the way of the roundhouse kick, putting my left hand down on the sand as his leg spun over me. I pushed myself back upright and jabbed him twice in the side of the head. He tried to spin away but instead turned into a hook that picked him up off his feet and sent him crashing to the ground.
I felt fucking great. I felt faster, stronger. I was grinning as I spat blood out. Stripped to the waist and holding my arms up like a champion as the crowd cheered more enthusiastically than they ever had at Doogie’s Pit Fighting Emporium.
People came up to congratulate me. I was handed a very generous dram of Glenmorangie as they pounded my back. I took a mouthful, blood and whisky mingling in the glass, the whisky stinging the cuts in my mouth. I towelled off the blood and the sweat from my body. Calum smiled at me from where he was standing. I grinned back and spat some more blood out onto the sand.
It seemed the other half lived just like us, only more enthusiastically and in more style and comfort. It seemed nobody got tired of watching otherwise healthy grown adults beat the shit out of each other. And I was feeling no pain tonight.
Laird was all right for a rich guy. I’d checked with God. He’d grown up in Stirling, like Gregor had, though he was much older. He’d been an NCO with the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders and fought on Sirius before I’d got there and later on the freezing wastes of Proxima Prime, where he’d received a battlefield commission. He’d traded on the commission for education and contacts, and after he’d served his term gone into business for himself.
His education had been in law and now he went looking for clever projects that the corporations did not already own. He’d found a new way of moulding ceramics for use in missiles and components for remotes designed for vacuum. He’d gone into business with the young genius who had developed the application and stopped her from being completely exploited by the corporations. This had basically meant navigating a dangerous labyrinth of trade and contract law. They had diversified and he had not looked back since. His wealth allowed him a spectacle like this and the ability to play lord of the manor.
The next fighter flew through the air at me. I rolled forward under his flying kick. This guy was the favourite. This was the fighter Alasdair had been grooming.
I rolled back up onto my feet and spun round just in time to block some of a flurry of kicks aimed at my body and head. Even the blocked ones caused me to stagger back. The kid was fast, not as strong as me but obviously skilled. His style seemed mainly some form of Kung Fu with bits and pieces pulled from other forms to help with the practicalities of fighting in this kind of arena.
He threw a fast kick at my head. I spun out of the way and kicked his supporting leg. He went with the blow and threw himself into a full reverse spinning kick, apparently not learning his lesson. I ducked low and threw my own spinning kick under his guard. The length of my leg smacked into the top of his body and my foot caught him on the chin. It knocked him back, but the crowd cheered as he turned the retreat into a showy backflip. How come I’m winning and he’s being cheered?
Deciding the long game wasn’t for him, he tried to close with me. I lifted my knees to block a flurry of low, sharp, fast kicks and used my arms to protect my head from an equally rapid flurry of hand strikes. I then side-kicked him repeatedly in the chest and elbowed him in the face hard enough to knock him to the ground.
I was bringing my fist back to deliver the coup de grâce when he kicked me in the side of the head from the ground. I staggered away and he flipped back up onto his feet. More cheering from the crowd. Still, the kid was young, had been good-looking and was probably not as augmented as I was. I should have been feeling like a bully but this was the most fun I’d had kickboxing since I use to train with my mum.
He moved into a graceful stance, and I raised my fists into a much less graceful boxer’s stance. He smiled at me through the blood and I nodded, smiling back. Good kid, good fighter. Again this sort of thing was missing from the desperation of the Dundee pits. Time to destroy him.
His kick was fast, powerful, well aimed and beautifully executed. Mine was a short, brutal, front kick delivered with no finesse whatsoever but with a lot of power. The energy of his kick was broken on my elbows, though it hurt. I felt something give as my foot hit him in the waist area and drove him back.
He tried another kick. I just kicked again with the other foot. Booing. Who gives a fuck? So I’m the villain? This time, after I knocked him back, I was up in the air and hit him on the crown of his head with a flying elbow. Again he fell back. I did not relent. I threw myself into the air again. My knee caught him under the chin. His head flew back in a spray of blood. I had all the time in the world to deliver the reverse spinning kick to his face. Somehow he was still standing after that so I delivered another and then spun low and swept his legs out from underneath him. The kid hit the sand a mess.
‘Yes!’ I was roaring holding my arms up. I felt like there was a feral expression on my face. There was as much booing as there was cheering. The kid was carried off. I noticed that Alasdair was glaring at me. Fuck him. What was he going to do?