Keenan’s head tilted. “No, actually, no questions this time.”
“Tell the guards to shut the door on your way out. Some of us need our beauty sleep.”
“Funny that.” Keenan took another step forward. His face became serene, relaxed, almost... atpeace
.
“There aren’t any guards with me. It’s just me. Me and you; ain’t that nice, Birdy?”
Suddenly, the strangeness of the situation struck Bird. He came fully awake. Fear flared his nostrils. He scrambled back in his bed, his grey flannel prisoner’s smock riding up his legs to expose bare feet and shins.
“Let’s start there, shall we.”
Keenan discharged the Phos-Thrower, and watched with detachment as bright white sprayed over Bird’s shins and feet and immediately began to burn. Bird screamed, rubbing at his feet, and then staring down at his fingers as the white phosphor reacted with his hands.
“What are you doing?” he shrieked.
Keenan spoke slowly, calmly, as he watched Bird burn. “I have a full Can-Chamber of white phosphor, commonly held to be one of the most savage incendiary chemical weapons used in infantry warfare. In fact, there’s still debate as to classification. Some think it should be made illegal. Inhumane,you understand.”
Bird was screaming and thrashing on the bed. He jumped down, collapsed, and dragged himself to the sink. With fingers dripping flesh, he smacked the tap down, and a gush of water started to fill the basin. Bird grabbed handfuls of water, splashing them onto his legs, where the glow of the white phos flared.
“Funny thing about it,” said Keenan, still detached in his manner, “is that it reacts with oxygen.” He smiled, as if remembering a favourite family outing. “Your natural reaction is to cool a burn, so you throw water on it. And the phos reacts even more violently.”
Bird turned tortured eyes on Keenan.
“Make it stop,” he croaked, slumping to the ground. His feet and fingers continued to burn. The cell filled with the stench of cooked chemical flesh. He reached out and pleaded to Keenan for sympathy, and empathy, and compassion.
“I’m sure that’s what Emily said when you raped her.”
“Please, make it stop.”
“And then slit her belly, and her throat.”
Anger rose in Keenan; an anger so pure and hot and violent it totally consumed him. It raged through his veins as nuclear fire. It scorched heart chambers with acid. It bleached his brain as molten rock. The fury burned him to eternity.
Keenan discharged a flurry of white phos over the man, and then stepped from the cell. There was no joy in watching—even the evil—suffer.
Coolly, he cast his gaze around the nameless faceless doorways, each protecting a ripe flesh prize of human degradation. Inside, thought Keenan, are this city’s worst sex offenders: the paedophiles and child rapists, baby killers and the abusers of pregnant women. He smiled a very, very dark smile. His eyes were holes falling through the universe and shining into an evil place. He was no longer Keenan. He had been pushed backwards, into a corner, and felt his humanity stripped away like flesh under a sharp, sharp knife.
Understanding filled him. They were not human. Something had happened to these deviants, turned them into what they were: some alien virus, some genetic malfunction. They had no sorrow, no empathy for their victims. They were focused, entirely, on their own petty sexual desires, enthralled within a cocoon of spiralling depravity.
Keenan walked slowly around the ASM Wing, opening each and every door. “Come out!” he bellowed. “All prisoners onto the Wing, now!” His voice roared with authority, power: a primeval command from some deep place of primitive intuition.
Slowly, like zombies, the prisoners emerged; they gathered in a ragged huddle at the centre of the hallway, numbering perhaps forty. Keenan cast his gaze over the collection of deviants.
“Not human,” he whispered.
“No! Wait!”
The voice was Volt’s. Keenan could sense a heavy armed presence. He checked his watch. “Pretty poor response time, if you ask me.” He did not, could not, turn. His finger rested on a slick layer of sweat, the only thing between him and the trigger.
“Don’t do it, Keenan.” Voice a lullaby. “You burned the one that mattered. You avenged that little girl.”
“But they are all like that,” said Keenan. Understanding flooded him. “The only ones punished are the victims. This isn’t murder, Volt. When a rabid dog kills a child, you destroy it. It’s no longer a dog. This is the same. Can’t you see that?”
“If you do it, they’ll shoot you.”
Keenan heard the rustling of Kevlar. He nodded.
“So be it.”
He pulled the trigger, pulled it hard and watched a spray of white phos spurt over the collection of prisoners. Screams rent the air, high-pitched, like burning pigs.
A shot sounded, then another. His Kevlar absorbed the intrusion. A bullet smashed into the back of his shoulder and he stumbled forward, but still agent poured from the fizzing nozzle in his hands, and the throng of squirming scorched prisoners writhed on the ground like something unreal. A blood red veil washed over Keenan’s eyes, and the trigger was finally wrenched from spastic-taut hands. He smiled, a cold smile, thinking how ironic it was; in burning, these sexual heteroclites were parodying the one act they had enforced on innocents.
Behind him, Volt turned and was briefly sick. The rest of the armed police stood by, grim-faced and uneasy... and watched the helpless writhe.
Emerald released Keenan’s grip. He was sweating heavily. He looked up into her eyes.
“I realise I was wrong. I should not have killed those men.”
“I am not here to judge you.”
“I was sentenced to life imprisonment. I served two years, and then Combat K came for me. General K. Steinhauer held out a hand of friendship, a lifeline, a way for me to turn my abilities to some good,a way for me to seek... forgiveness? Aye, that, or some bastard form of the same emotion.” He laughed, and rubbed tired eyes.
Emerald’s gaze swept all three members of Combat K.
“You were running away,” she said, her voice incredibly soft. Her eyes were lit with understanding, empathy. “You all needed a place to hide, to think, to compose yourselves. And Combat K gave you a Home, a Family, a Unity. Yes, you were instructed to kill for the military, but the ultimate aim was a good one: to end the Helix War. That was a noble objective. I believe you have atoned for your pasts.”
“Steinhauer recruited the psychos,” said Pippa savagely, “and there was only one reason for that; we were fucking expendable.” She laughed a bitter laugh. “You talk of nobility and atonement; that’s a crock of shit, Em. Personally, there can never be atonement for the things I did. I made my choices, and I don’t need no alien speaking on my behalf. I know what I did, and I live with it. I’ll live with it until I die. I don’t need your fucking permission, and I don’t need to be patronised.” She stood, burning with fury, and left the cockpit.
“Don’t mind her,” said Franco, settling back into his seat. “She’s always hot-headed. She’ll calm down. You’ll see. She’ll be cooking us a fine beef pie in the next half hour, and right tasty it’ll be. Yummy in my tummy.”
Emerald nodded. “One thing is for sure,” she said. Her eyes glittered like jewels.
“What’s that?” asked Keenan. His face was haunted by images of a distant past; events he had forced himself—until now—to forget. He had not just taken the key; he had purposefully dropped it down a bottomless well.
Keenan took a deep breath.
Emerald smiled with sincerity.
“You’re the right people to make sure I die,” she said.
Chapter 15
Black Planet
It was cramped and unbearably hot inside Mr. Max’s Interceptor. The ship slammed up from Ket and, as one sun gleamed through the port window, Betezh turned and watched an idle sparkling array of fire dance across his vision. Greens, blues, oranges, yellows, all merged and coalesced, fanning out, before fading from view as Mr. Max accelerated at a phenomenal rate.
“Where are we going?”
“Classified.”
“When will we get there?”
“Classified.”
“What kind of ship is this?”
“Classified.”
“This is going to be a real long journey, Max, if all you can say is ‘classified’.”
Mr. Max turned and smiled a smile full of teeth. “I didn’t pick you up for your companionship, Betezh. I picked you up because General Kotinevitch thinks you are valuable to the War Effort. I, however, have serious reservations.” He looked Betezh up and down, as one would a particularly mangy cat.
“You’re quite an un-likeable fellow, really,” said Betezh.
“I’m not here to be liked. I’m here to get the job done.”
“Still, there are certain protocols regarding manners that allow a person to act as a simple human being.”
“Who said I was interested in being a human being?”
Betezh shrugged and settled back. He was red and sweating, and could feel trickles running down inside his clothing, which aggravated his sunburn. This did not put him in a mood for bantering with—in his opinion—a retard, or at least, retarded in the sense of one who could not control his actions, or tongue.
The Interceptor
hummed.
It cruised fast at illegal speeds and proximities. Mr. Max did not care. His middle name was “illegal”
.
To Mr. Max, rules were for somebody else to obey.
“This is an Interceptor, right?” said Betezh eventually.
Mr. Max gave him a foul look. “Your point is?”
“They’re military, classified, as you said earlier.”
“Your point?”
Betezh sighed. “Ahh, mate, I’d always heard rumours about you; I’d heard you were a skull-fucking, arse-sucking, mind-bending, anti-human, shit-filled son of a bitch.”
Betezh stared down the barrel of a gun. He had not seen Mr. Max move. However, the weapon was there, a 9mm bore directed straight at his brain. Betezh swallowed. He laughed woodenly, without humour.
“Of course, they were views I never subscribed to myself. Just stuff I heard, y’know? In the canteen, by other people.” He gritted his teeth in a non-smile, “Other people who were, you know, ignorant to your finer salient points and obvious sensitive nature.”
Mr. Max removed the gun smoothly.
“Keep your mouth shut. Or I’ll knock out your teeth.”
“Fine, fine.”
“And don’t think I’m being unreasonable,” said Mr. Max. “I saw the torture you put Franco Haggis through at the Mount Pleasant Institute. You had your moments of sadism, Betezh
.
Now keep it shut while I navigate this worm-field; I don’t want to find the ship covered in fucking SPAWS
.
Or we’ll both end up dead. And, I don’t want to end up dead, because Iam Mr. Max.”
“General Kotinevitch.”
“Mr. Max.” Her voice was cool, controlled, in command. “Did you manage to locate Betezh?”
“I found him. He’s here. Unfortunately, he survived.”
“Very droll. Are things going to plan?”
“With a sweet precision,” said Mr. Max, “although I have altered a few timings.”
“Why?”
“There were some random factors introduced to my timeline. The Fractured Emerald reacted as we predicted, unfortunately, and has helped Combat K to escape from Ket. I could not get there in time to halt integration.”
“So you have not yet killed Combat K?”
“No.”
“But you will do so.” It was not a question.
“Yes, when we land on Teller’s World.”
“Isn’t that cutting it close to the bone?”
Mr. Max shrugged. He enjoyed listening to Vitch’s voice; it gave him some glimmer of sexual arousal; although he had to admit, of late, even that basic desire was fading. Age was encroaching; it was a feeling he did not relish.
“The job will not be difficult. Even should I fail, I have a little helper who will get the job done.”
The camera tilted to Vitch, and zoomed in on a small, black metal casing. It had several panels removed, showing a massively intricate interior. Lights flickered across the shell, mostly red.
“Is that his PopBot?”
“Yes, a basic security device. It calls itself Cam.” Mr. Max laughed. “Seems to think it’s alive.”
“You will booby-trap it?”
“Of course.”
“What with?”
“StrangleTox.”
“Nasty.”
“When I want them dead, I want them dead.”
“Will Emerald intervene? After all, she will be growing in power as she closes on to The Factory.”
Mr. Max’s eyes gleamed. “No, Emerald will be a good little girl.”
“Betezh, are you there?”
“Yes, lady.”
“Don’t do anything foolish, and do not—I repeat—do not aggravate Mr. Max. I need you alive, at least for now. Accompany him to Teller’s World; do anything he asks.”
“Teller’s World?” Betezh’s voice quavered and he hated himself for it. He did not want to die. “Nobody ever leaves,” he hissed. “It is a Forbidden Place.”