Stuart MacBride - Halfhead

‘Come on, let’s go see if we can find Cat.’

She breaks an ampoule of halfhead sedative into Kikan’s twitching body. His eyes widen as the chemical takes hold and the shuddering subsides. Now he can’t move, but he can see, and he can hear, and he can feel everything.

Lucky boy.

Hefting Kikan’s limp body over her shoulder is no trouble at all. All those years of hard physical labour have paid off.

It’s a shame she’ll have to leave the Bull Thrummer behind. A lovely toy, but it’s just too big. She can’t carry that and the old man at the same time.

Pity…

Ah well, she’ll just have to buy herself one when she gets to her new home.

She pushes through the door. Outside, Sherman House is a dark silhouette against the sodium-tainted clouds. Doctor Westfield closes the door behind her, then slips away into the rainy night with her new best friend.

She has a lot of fun activities planned for Mr Kikan.

The facility was full of dust. Down in the interrogation room a handful of technicians and plainclothes military types were lying face down on the floor, hands snared behind their backs. Someone had thrown a cloat over Henderson’s headless body, but bits of Lincoln were still stuck to the roof, floor, walls…

‘No sign of her anywhere.’ Sergeant Nairn wiped a hand across his chitin’s breastplate, leaving a clean patch. ‘We found a Bull Thrummer up on the top level, near an exit to the square, but…’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

A familiar voice echoed down the corridor, getting louder all the time. ‘What’s going on here? I want an explanation for all this and I want it now!’

‘Shite, it’s Her Royal Bitchiness!’ Brian spat onto one of the prone figures. ‘Where’s the nearest terminal?’

Nairn pointed through the hole Cat had blasted in the mirrored wall to the observation suite.

‘You’ve no’ seen us, OK?’ Brian grabbed Will by the arm and pulled him into the little darkened room before Director Smith-Hamilton appeared.

The unmistakable sound of power heels on tiles clattered through from the other side of the mirrored wall and they ducked down behind a bank of monitoring equipment, keeping out of sight.

Brian pointed at a terminal and whispered, ‘Hack into the Bluecoat system again and set off Cat’s coffin dodger.’ He dug the tracker out of his pack. ‘We find her fast enough, maybe we all live to see breakfast.’

Will hammered commands into the keyboard, not even bothering to cover his tracks. Fifteen seconds later the tracker in Brian’s hands burst into life.

‘Got her!’ He grinned, then frowned. ‘In the name of the wee man…’ He slapped the tracker and peered at the readout again. ‘It’s no’ workin’ properly.’

Will held out his hand. ‘Let me see it.’

‘It’s buggered. According to this she’s way over the other side of town.’

Will stared at the map flickering on the tracker’s screen. ‘Maybe whoever grabbed her has a hopper?’

‘Aye, that’ll be…Hud oan, she’s no’ movin’. Signal’s stationary.’

‘Right. We need transport.’ Will clicked off the terminal and crept through the door at the back of the observation room.

There was a brand-new Wraith parked in the middle of Monstrosity Square. It was sleek and impressive, the engines idling; ready to bounce away at the slightest sign of trouble. Will and Brian marched straight over to it.

Will knocked on the cockpit window, and when the pilot opened it said, ‘We’re commandeering this vehicle.’

‘Aye,’ she replied, ‘that’ll be shining. This is the Director’s private flyer, I’m no’ goin’ anywhere without her say-so.’

‘You want to call her?’ asked Brian. And when the pilot said she did, he punched her on the nose and dragged her out of the cockpit.

‘Brian!’

She rolled into a ball on the rain-soaked concrete, clutching her face and groaning.

Brain shrugged and threw his Whomper in the back. ‘We’re in a hurry.’

They scrambled aboard and strapped themselves in, then Brian grabbed the controls and the Wraith leapt into the downpour, engines howling as it accelerated away from Sherman House.

‘Where we goin’?’ He tossed the tracker to Will.

Will squinted at the little screen. ‘Kelvingrove Park.’ He frowned. That didn’t make sense…Why would they take Cat back there?

From above, the park was a vast patch of darkness, the only light coming from a thin line of sodiums burning amber in the incessant rain. Brian brought the gleaming ship in low, whipping the bushes with the engines’ wash as he landed.

Will grabbed the Whomper and leapt out into the frigid monsoon. The tracker bleeped at him as he squelched through the mud and bushes, and then, at last, he found her.

It was difficult to equate the battered, naked body at his feet with the Bluecoat they’d stormed Ken’s underground facility with. Her face was smashed beyond recognition: battered so badly there were no features left, her skin pale and waxy.

‘Aw Christ, Cat.’ Brian sank to his knees in the mud next to her. ‘You poor wee kid.’

Will shifted from foot to foot, powering up the Whomper. Something wasn’t right.

‘What the hell’s she doing out here, Brian?’ He swept the weapon across the darkened park. ‘Why’s she been stripped?’

‘Give me the tracker.’ Brian’s voice was low.

‘Brian, something’s wrong ‘

‘Enough! Alright? Enough…’ Brian scowled at him, then looked away. ‘Course somethin’s fuckin’ wrong: she’s dead. We’re too late.’ He took a deep breath and held his hand out. ‘Just gimme the tracker.’

Will handed it over.

Gently, Brian reached out and killed the transmitter embedded in Constable Cat McDonald’s skull. There was nothing else they could do for her.

The rain was turning icy, lashing against Director Smith-Hamilton’s window. Her office was far too warm and Will would have been fighting to keep his eyes open, if she wasn’t in the process of giving him a bollocking.

‘What the hell were you thinking? You had no authority to raid that research lab. You had no sanction to massacre its staff. You shouldn’t have been there at all!’

New skinpaint and skinglue covered one side of Will’s face like a patchwork quilt and he did his best to stand up straight and not answer back.

‘You can consider yourself damned lucky, Mr Hunter,’ she said, picking up a thick folder and shaking it at him, ‘that the Ministry are blaming last night’s little fiasco on the man who ran the Sherman House project. You have a lot to thank Mr Tokumu Kikan for, if we ever find him. If it wasn’t for him you’d be facing a tribunal faster than you can say “Criminal Negligence”.’ She slammed the folder down on the desk. ‘And you can tell Agent Alexander to thank his lucky stars my pilot isn’t pressing charges!’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

She stood and straightened the creases out of her dress uniform. ‘We will discuss your disciplinary hearing once the press conference is out of the way.’ Director Smith-Hamilton glowered at him as she crossed the thick pile carpet to the office door. ‘The Ministry may want to give you a medal, Mr Hunter, but I warn you: one more step out of line and you’ll be swelling the ranks of the unemployed. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

The flat is clean from top to bottom: not a speck of dust or a spot of blood anywhere. Which is quite remarkable considering what’s happened here over the last five days.

Her new guest is nice and quiet, standing in the middle of the lounge where she can fuss over him. There isn’t as much of him as there was when she dragged his limp body through the door on Tuesday morning, but what’s left feels no pain. Now Tokumu Kikan’s face ends at his upper jaw-everything underneath that is gone, hacked away with a boning knife, the spare flaps of skin stuck down with far too much skinglue. But then surgery was never really her forte, not the kind you survived anyway.