Gord Zajac - Major Karnage

Could be worse , Karnage thought. At least I don’t got a catheter shoved up my pisshole.

He watched in the mirror as the door behind him opened. A pair of hulking Dabneycops squeezed through the door. Tasers and stun sticks hung from their belts. They were followed by a tiny figure in a Dabneycop uniform, conspicuously lacking a matching helmet to cover his face. He was a thin, pallid man wearing thick glasses and a cowlick. The binder he carried was thicker than his rib cage. He shuffled across the room and sat in the empty chair. His two Dabneycop flunkies stood behind him. He pushed up the frames of his glasses, and cleared his throat. “Hello. I’m… ah, Dr. Huang.”

Karnage let the silence hang in the air, hoping to unsettle Huang. It worked. “You a shrink?”

Huang’s head jerked and bobbed like a trained seal. “Ha! I suppose that you could, ah… put it that way.”

“I ain’t talkin’ to no shrink.”

“That’s rather, um, unfortunate as, ah… you’re sort of stuck with me. Ha!”

“Ha,” Karnage said.

Huang paled. He put his binder on the table and sat down.

“That my file?” Karnage said.

“It’s, ah… your medical records. Which I suppose is your ‘file.’”

“It say anything in there about how many shrinks I put in the hospital?“

Huang jerked back as if he’d been slapped. He stared at Karnage with wide, hurt eyes, then swallowed. He cleared his throat, and opened the binder. “So, ah… let’s get this party started, shall we? Ha!”

“Ha,” Karnage said.

Huang quickly looked away from Karnage and buried his face in his binder. “It says here you’ve spent a lot of time incarcer—ah… impris—ah… rather, I mean… you’ve, ah, spent quite a bit of time under psychiatric—yes! Psychiatric care. Ever since the W—” Huang stopped himself. His face went white.

Karnage felt the blood race to his ears. “Ever since what, Huang?”

The guards reached for their stun sticks. Huang swallowed hard. “Ah…”

Karnage strained at his bonds. “Ever since what?!”

Huang’s eyes darted around the room. “Ever since—ah… hostilities! Hostilities!” Huang grabbed at the word like a drowning man going for a life preserver. “Ever since the hostilities ended. Ha! World peace and all…”

“World peace.” Karnage resisted the urge to spit. “Don’t talk to me about World Peace.”

“You, ah… weren’t happy about that?”

“Not like it did me any good.”

“You would have preferred that the W—hostilities! Hostilities!” Huang repeated the word as if it were a talisman to ward off evil spirits. “You would have preferred that hostilities had continued?”

Karnage wrenched forward. “I would’ve preferred not being locked up like some kinda goddamn animal!”

“AH!” Huang jerked back. His pen flew out of his fingers and went flying across the room. He grinned sheepishly. “Ha! Yes! I can see why you’d feel that way.” Huang pulled another pen from his pocket and clicked it open. “Ah! But, ah… you know it wasn’t, ah… malicious. You were—rather, you are, ah… not exactly ‘well.’”

“You saying I’m nuts?”

“I wouldn’t put it quite like—”

“I’m not crazy!” Karnage barked.

Huang shrank back. “Well, ah… what about the, ah… hospital?”

“What about it?!”

“You don’t think that, ah… blowing it up—”

“Is that what this is about?”

Huang looked at the two-way mirror as if trying to get guidance. He looked back at Karnage. “Well, ah… yes.”

Karnage leaned in and growled. “Get this straight, Chuckles. I didn’t blow up a goddamn thing.”

“No?”

“NO!”

Huang squealed, then tried to laugh it off. “Ha! Is this where the—ah… ‘aliens’ come into play?”

Karnage grit his teeth. “You best lose that patronizing tone, Doc, before I tear it outta your throat and shove it up your—”

Karnage’s neck buzzed. “Warning. Sanity Level upgraded to Citrus Blast. Please refrain from violent behaviour. Thank you.”

“You should, ah… watch that temper, Major. We wouldn’t want you to, ah…”

“Lose my head?”

“Ah. You’ve, ah… heard that one before? I should probably, ah… stick with my day job, then, eh? Ha!”

“Ha,” Karnage said.

Huang shrank back behind his binder. He cleared his throat. “So, ah… is it your contention that these, ah, ‘aliens’ blew up the hospital?”

“It is my contention that you are a royal pain in the ass.”

“Ah!”

“It is also my contention that aliens are gettin’ ready to invade this here dirtball, and you kitty cops need to get the hell outta my way so I can find my troops and we can do our job!”

“So, ah, it is also your, ah… contention that your fellow inma— ah, patients are alive?”

Karnage leaned forward, his voice a low growl. “Lemme tell you something, Doc. I may not have all your fancy degrees or a big thick binder to hide behind, but I can tell you this: you do not declare your buddies dead until you got dog tags or body bags. And right now I got nothing. They are MIA. Missing In Action! You get me, Huang, or do I gotta draw you a goddamn diagram?!”

Huang jumped in his chair. “No, ah… thank you. I believe I, ah… get you.” Huang took a moment to straighten his collar. He shuffled his papers. “Ah… if I may—er, rather, would you be willing to, ah… entertain an alternate theory?”

“Like what?”

Huang cleared his throat. “Well! Ah… perhaps… if you could just, ah… picture for one moment, ah…”

“SPIT IT OUT, HUANG!”

Huang jumped. “Ah! Well, ah… what if these ‘aliens’ as you call them weren’t really, ah… aliens at all?”

“Well, what the hell else could they be?!”

“Ah! Ha-ha! Well, perhaps they are, ah… part of some sort of, ah… hallucination?”

Karnage leaned back. “So that’s how it is, huh? Keep the old mushbrain talkin’ and maybe we can eventually get him to come around to seeing things our way.”

“Ah, does that mean that, ah… you won’t, ah… consider—”

“You can take your goddamn theory and shove it up your ass!”

“Ah! I see.” Huang shut the binder. “Captain Riggs will be very, ah… upset to hear about this.”

Riggs! Karnage’s mind reeled. His ears rang. That single word echoed in his head.

Riggs!

Karnage’s hands balled into tight fists. “What do you know about Riggs?”

Huang nodded eagerly. “He, ah… served you with you during the—ah, during the hostilities. And he was most disappointed to—”

Karnage laughed. Huang cringed at the sound. Karnage glowered at Huang. “Nice try, Huang, but you boys gotta do better research. Sergeant Riggs bought it back in Kandahar. I don’t know who this captain you’re talkin’ about is, but it ain’t him.”

Huang blinked. “But… but I assure you that—”

“You got wax in your ears? Riggs is dead! Don’t think I don’t see what’s goin’ on here. You’re just pushin’ my buttons, hopin’ I’ll crack!”

“But I assure you it’s the same Riggs!” Huang said. “The very same sergeant who served with you during The War—AH!” Huang slapped his hand over his mouth.

The War!

Karnage’s blood boiled. Bullets and flames and death rained down on his psyche.

The War!

Huang staggered up from his chair as the two Dabneycops pulled their stun sticks and charged forward.

The War!

Karnage pulled at his restraints. There was the heavy creak of metal fatigue. A wrist restraint snapped, and his right arm was free.