Stuart MacBride - Halfhead

The barricade he was hiding behind rocked under another onslaught. Chips of smoking concrete rained down all around him. The noise was deafening. Over in the distance, through the fog of skin and bone, he could just make out Jo’s outline, hiding behind the wreckage of a school bus. The vehicle looked as if it had been put through a mangle, and Jo didn’t look much better. Her jumpsuit was stained and scorched, the middle section slashed almost in half, exposing swollen, burnt flesh.

She looked back at him, their eyes meeting over the barrel of her Crackling Gun. For a moment Will just crouched there, not moving, then the man standing next to him exploded.

The gun in Jo’s hands howled.

They were running out of time.

He vaulted the barricade, and sprinted across the war-torn street, trying not to get his head blown off. The pavement buckled beneath his feet as he ran towards the dark-red troop carrier, chunks of concrete shattering all around as the gunners tried to kill him.

Jo’s Crackling Gun howled again, her siege weapon carving bite-sized chunks of metal out of the carrier’s hull. Will slithered to a halt, skidding on a patch of someone as he drew level with the craft. He snatched up his Whomper and turned the driver’s head into a green-grey stain on the vehicle’s roof.

The passenger snatched up something shiny and pointed, like an electric squid, lights twinkling along its length. Will didn’t wait to see what it did, just turned the Whomper on him and thumbed the trigger, spreading him all over the inside of the cab. He didn’t even have time to scream.

Comlab’s computer-generated fantasies always made Will feel vaguely uncomfortable. Here it was OK to kill anything you liked and, as he jumped about the game ring like a lunatic, he couldn’t escape the feeling that it was all just a little bit too real. As if the boundaries between what was, and what wasn’t, didn’t apply here. But that didn’t stop him playing.

Will leaned back against the dispenser, totally knackered. Sweat ran down his back and pooled in his unders; he never wore the right thing to play in the game rings. Jo was a lot more sensible: she’d ditched her day clothes and slipped into an all-in-one that clung like a second skin. Her hair was plastered to her forehead, a thick red line marking where the headset had sat. But she was smiling.

He ran a hand over his face, then wiped his damp hands on his trousers. ‘How did we do?’

Jo gulped her plastic of fizzy down. ‘Not bad,’ she said, suppressing a belch. ‘Not the highest score ever, but we kicked some serious Martian arse.’

‘Glad you came?’

She rubbed at her forehead. ‘Been years since I had to wear a headset. Forgot how much it throws you off. Full immersion is a hell of a lot easier. Less sweaty too.’ Jo looked at him for a moment. ‘You really don’t have a jack point? On an Assistant Director’s salary?’

‘Yeah…Sorry about that.’

‘Nah, it was fun. Kinda nostalgic.’ She reached up and touched his cheek, then grimaced. ‘Urgh…You’re sopping!’ She backed off towards the female locker rooms. ‘I’m going to shower and change. If you weren’t such a mincehead, Mr “Outside Clothes Will Be Fine”, you could do the same.’

‘Blah, blah, blah. I’ll see you in the cafeteria, OK?’

‘Try not to stink the place out.’ She stepped closer and for a moment Will though she was going to kiss him. Then something happened and she changed the movement into a smile instead, turned, and disappeared through the locker-room door.

They’d been like that all afternoon; as if last night had never happened and they were back to acting like nervous teenagers. It was driving him mad.

Slinging his new jacket over his damp shoulder Will went for a stroll through the gaming hall to cool down a bit. The place was mobbed, as usual: the last shift of gamers milling around, talking over their latest adventure, even though they’d only finished playing it five minutes ago; the next shift plugged in and ready to go. As he walked around he watched them logging on. It was one of the funniest bits for him, over a thousand people, standing in wide, elevated rings eight feet across, doing the hand jive: hitting buttons only they could see. Loading up pre-saved characters and scenarios so they could get on with the violence and the sex.

Slowly the noise level began to rise as the games got underway; the players staggering around the game rings waving invisible swords/rocket launchers/Whompers/dildos. Each ring had a little viewing screen hooked up next to the command ports and Will paused from time to time, looking in to see what was going on. You could tell when people were playing ‘pink disks’ because the screens were blank while the people in the middle of the ring got on with whatever filth took their fancy.

‘You like to watch?’

The fake mid-Atlantic accent made Will freeze. He took a second to plaster a smile on his face, then turned to see Ken Peitai standing behind him, leaning back against a game ring. He was dressed in one of those lounging robes they wore in the deep-immersion suites, where you didn’t need a headset to experience the best in Virtual Reality, you just stuck a wire in the back of your head.

‘Ken, good to see you.’ That was a lie.

How did the sinister little turd know he was…The homing beacons, that’s how-buried under Will’s skin. Out of sight and out of mind.

Ken smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling as if he actually meant it. He swept a hand around, indicating the room full of gamers. ‘One of my few vices: I like to save the world every now and then. What about you?’

‘Just finished: Red Conquest.’

‘Great stuff. How did you do?’ The smile got bigger. Look at me, I’m so friendly and approachable…For a murdering bastard.

‘Not bad. We saved Aberdeen, but Dundee’s a write-off.’

Ken sighed. ‘Too bad, I kinda like all the casinos. All that razzmatazz, yeah?’

There was an awkward silence.

‘You know, Will…I can call you Will can’t I?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, just took Will by the arm and began to walk. ‘Great. I know you were interested in what we were doing at Sherman House-’

‘Excellent project.’ Will laid it on thick. ‘I can’t think of anything more important than preventing another round of Virtual Riots.’

‘Thanks. We’ve gotta keep it all so hush-hush, no one ever gets any good feedback. I’ll tell the team you said that, though.’ He flashed the same smile again. ‘They’re gonna be thrilled. Anyway, Will, I told you all about the project, but you never told us anything about yourself.’

‘No. I was a bit tied up at the time.’

Ken laughed a lot harder than was strictly necessary. ‘“Tied up at the time.” I like it! “Tied up.” Ha!…But seriously, what are you guys in the Network up to these days?’

The greasy little bastard was actually trying to weasel information out of him. ‘Well, you know what it’s like at Network HQ: there’s always so much going on.’

‘Yeah, all those guys and gals, running round, keeping us all safe. What about you, though? You working on anything juicy?’

‘Just having a couple of days off.’

‘Right, right. I heard on the grapevine that you’d caught someone for that hole in the head thing. Good work. Fast. You gotta be proud of your people for getting the guy that quick.’

‘Yes.’ Will was finding it more and more difficult to smile back. Colin Mitchell had been caught less than twenty-four hours ago, and Ken Peitai already knew about it.

‘Can I be frank, Will? Can I? Good.’ Ken stopped. They were by the west exit. Outside the double glass doors the rain hammered against the concrete forecourt, sparkling in the spotlights as it leapt back into the air.