Stuart MacBride - Halfhead

The pilot looked at him. Opened his mouth. Shut it again. Closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Sir, if we turn off the jammer, every CCTV camera in the place will be able to see us. Any Network ship in the area will get us on sensors. We’ll be screwed.’

He was right.

Ken stared out into the darkness. It was all falling apart. ‘Get those corpses onboard.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The pilot did what he was told. For once.

‘Armstrong,’ Ken clicked his throat-mike, ‘the jammer stays on.’

‘But how am I-’

‘Just get your arse out there and find that Network bastard.’

‘The park’s massive, I can’t-’

‘Do you want to test out the next batch? Do you? That what you fuckin’ want?’

‘Sir, no, sir!’

Assholes, he was surrounded by assholes.

Ken set off towards the bushes, the Whomper up and ready to rock. Just past the outer layer of greenery the place looked as if it had been sheered off at ground level. Some poor bastard was lying in the grass with nothing to put his hat on any more. A second trooper had a dirty big knife sticking out the back of her leg like a handle.

It looked as if someone had been dragged off into the undergrowth-away from the scene. Ken took three steps along the trail before coming to a halt: the woman was in custody, Hunter was at large, and the retrieval team were all accounted for. So who dragged a body out of here?

‘Armstrong,’ he said into his mike, ‘where are you?’

‘Looking for Network Future Boy. Like you said, sir.’

‘You don’t have him with you?’

There was a pause. ‘No, sir, I don’t. If I had him I would have told you. Sir.’

‘Then who the hell else is out here?’

‘Winos? Zippers, Bean-Heads, Tezzers, H-monkeys, perverts, muggers-’

‘Alright! Enough already, I get the picture.’ Ken looked around the devastated clearing, searching for inspiration, but all he could see were the two bodies. ‘Shit.’

‘Sir?’

‘Get your ass over here on the double, Mister.’ He scowled into the green-tinted night. ‘Where the hell are you, Hunter?’

She drops to her knees and peers at his battered face. One eye is already swelling up. His nose is broken and caked with blood, and the left side of his face doesn’t sit right. She reaches out and pokes it, feeling bone move beneath the tips of her fingers.

At least he’s still breathing: she can see his chest rise and fall, see the blood washing away in the rain…

Disappointing. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It was supposed to be perfect. She’s been looking forward to this moment for so long, but now that she’s here-with him all battered and helpless-it just doesn’t feel right. He should be awake and terrified. He needs to know that she’s taken everything from him: his wife, his future, and his life.

He’s meant to suffer.

She sits back and watches the rain falling on his pale skin.

She could reach out, right now, and end it all. Smash her fist into his throat-crush his windpipe and let him choke to death. Or take one of the blades from her pack and slit his throat. Or just take the skinglue, seal up his nose and mouth, and let him suffocate…But what’s the point if he doesn’t know it’s her?

She strokes his cheek, feeling the rasp of stubble beneath her fingers. The people in combat gear have spoiled her revenge. Ruined everything.

She looks off into the park, back along the drag marks, towards the place where she found him about to be Thrummed apart by a fat woman with a knife in her leg.

She recognized the uniform: Special Ops combat gear. The kind of thing the guards wore in Peitai and Kikan’s torture chamber.

‘Peitai…’

There’s no point killing William Hunter, not when he’s like this, and Peitai and Kikan still need to be punished.

She leans forward and kisses Hunter on his bruised and bleeding forehead. There will be plenty of time to torture him when he’s feeling better.

And that’s when the cavalry arrives.

‘Hud it right there!’

She freezes. A Bluecoat sidles around the edge of a big rhododendron bush. Female, carrying a heavy Field Zapper. The weapon’s powered up, rain sizzling against the hot barrel.

Dr Westfield stands. ‘You’ve got to help me!’ Her voice is nearly perfect, just a slight rasp to show she’s not had vocal chords for six years.

The Bluecoat’s Zapper doesn’t waver. ‘I told you tae stand still.’

‘This man’s been attacked!’

‘Aye,’ the officer inches closer, ‘an’ who’s to say you’re no’ the one attacked him?’

Hunter twitches and moans, a small, painful sound, but it’s just enough to take the Bluecoat’s eyes off hers. Westfield leaps at the woman, knocks her to the ground, and runs away into the dark.

‘Sir, we have serious problems!’

‘Jesus, what now?’ Ken turned on the spot, sweeping his Whomper across the undergrowth. The bushes all around him had grown thicker and darker, and the drag marks had run out. He was soaked to the bone, he didn’t have Hunter, and the last thing he needed was more whinging from that slack-assed pilot.

‘We have incoming, sir. Network gunship. Two minutes twenty.’

Ken spat into the rain-tonight just kept on getting better.

‘Options?’

The pilot didn’t even pause. ‘Run for it.’

‘Unacceptable.’

‘We can’t make a stand: this piece of shit isn’t designed to go up against that kind of firepower, sir.’

Ken clenched his teeth; the whole operation was one big cluster-fuck. Even if they did have the Bluecoat, going back without Hunter was as bad as going back empty handed. The old man would kill him.

‘ETA: One minute fifty. We need to go now, sir, or they’ll be right up our arses!’

‘FUCK!’ Ken backed towards the waiting Hopper. ‘We’ve got your bitch, Hunter! You hear me?’ He squeezed off a couple of shots at random, sending up plumes of mud and vegetation. ‘We’ve got her, and if you open your fuckin’ mouth so much as an inch I’ll slice her fuckin’ face off!’

The Hopper’s engines were bellowing full blast as he stepped onto the ramp.

‘One minute thirty seconds.’

‘YOU HEAR ME HUNTER? I’LL SLICE HER FACE RIGHT OFF!’

The ramp wasn’t even fully closed before the ship leapt into the sky. Ken staggered through the Hopper’s hold, lurching as the thing accelerated away, hugging the streets. Getting as far away as its two massive turbines could carry it before all hell broke loose.

The bays lining both sides of the hold were full of dead people. Some had no heads, some had no backs, some had no inside bits. Useless bastards. The two unconscious troopers lolled against their harnesses, swinging back and forth with the ship’s motion. And there, at the far end, was the consol ation prize for this evening’s fiasco: Detective Sergeant Josephine Cameron.

A thin trickle of blood ran down the nape of her neck from where Armstrong had cracked her on the back of the head. Ken grabbed a handful of hair and pulled her head up. She was pretty. Not stunning, but not bad either.

Six dead, two unconscious and one broken jaw.

‘You better be worth it.’

The Dragonfly banked hard to the right and dropped like a roller coaster for suicidal maniacs. More than half the bays were empty, their regular inhabitants being un-contactable at two o’clock on a Tuesday morning. The ones who had shown up lurched with the ship’s motion, clutching their assault weapons, rubbing the sleep from their eyes, and grumbling. Up front, Lieutenant Emily Brand scowled at the monitor, watching a blurry echo disappear from her screen. Probably just interference from the engines, but she could have sworn she’d seen something hiding in the fuzz. She reached for her throat-mike.