Simon Spurrier - The Culled

Maybe the boost made them sloppy. Like a spider invading a rabbit-warren, I was deep inside the labyrinth of sleeping chambers, food-stores, scav-holds and moonshine stills before the so-called 'guards' even became a problem. At a thickset corridor intersection Gulls stood posted at regular intervals (they might as well have pinned-up a sign saying 'you're near something important'), and for all the adrenal shivers and subconscious hunger for violence I was forced to consider something a little more subtle.

So I put my head down and walked past them, confident as you like.

Just another scav.

For the record, this sort of scam works more often than you'd think. Trust me on this. Afghanistan, Peru, even once in North Korea… You put you head down and walk like you're supposed to be there. Doesn't matter what you look like, where you're going.

Note that it doesn't work all the time.

Like for example when you're just passing the last red-feather-wearing wanker in the row, stepping out into the sweaty cavern at the heart of the rickety palace, and some despicable little piece of shit somewhere starts shouting about the south entrance being unguarded.

And then, a beat later, about poor old Crocksy lying with his windpipe torn all to shit.

Situation like that, suddenly everyone's hefting a gun. Suddenly everyone's wondering who the guy that just walked past actually was. Suddenly everyone's on edge, and shouting, and running up and down, and the whole fucking place is shaking from the noise.

The shutters came down in my head.

The old brain took over.

I stepped into the cavern and cut a hole in the face of the guy shouting at me.

Didn't stop. Heard him screaming on the floor. Moved on.

Another guy running my way, pistol gripped tight, calling for help. Stabbed him in the stomach, lifted upwards under the ribs.

The way to a man's heart…

His pistol-arm stuck out under my shoulder, already going limp, so I hooked a finger under the trigger-guard, beside his own, and took out the next suicidal motherfucker in line. Forehead splatter. Red froth on the air. Singed gull-feathers.

Something inside me, howling in joy.

I helped myself to the gun, letting its owner empty out his guts on my shoes. Echoes still flapping in the air. Shocked faces and sprinting legs. Stop for a situation recon.

Know everything

Cover the angles.

It was an audience chamber, like a medieval throne-room. Hordes of scavs and favoured women rushing out by other exits, hooting and spronking. Up the steps of a raised dais stood a succession of lieutenants and ranking Klansmen, each one in colours more gaudy than the next. Feathers, beads, bare skin with crimson tattoos, gull-feet headdresses and hands heavy with Uzis, AKs, machetes.

At the top sat a big fucking guy in a chair. He looked sort of startled.

I smiled at him.

First step. Ducked under a messy punch designed to slow me down whilst the other goons got themselves loaded-up. Used the numbers against them; kept the greasy little shit with the knuckleduster between us.

Told him: "Scuse me." Put a knife through his ribs (felt the blade notch – shit) and spat pistol fire over his collarbone, taking out the obese sod with a Kalash' two steps up. Then turned and kicked – boot to the throat of the punk behind. Scamper three steps higher in the muddle of limbs and shouts. No one wants to risk a shot. Too many bodies packed together.

No one but me.

Shot a lanky youngster holding a. 44. Probably would have broken his wrist anyway.

The ranking Klanners moved in, boxing me off from the honcho on the throne, shoving and snarling, letting space open-up for weapons to bear.

I let the knife play random patterns, spun behind the guard of a dog-faced woman with a fucking sword in her hand (amateur!) and hit step number four.

Shot out the knees of the biggest feather-wearing arsehole of the lot. Wasted another two rounds on his ham-hands when he smirked at the pain in his legs and tried to open up with his cute machine pistols anyway.

Time ticking by.

Ammo all gone. Bitch with a sword hacking at air.

Space blurring.

I shifted tack, rushing the downed giant and using my momentum; stamping on his shoulder to vault up (bloody Hollywood antics – amateurish! Pathetic!), and pushed him down the slope on the rebound, toppling like a bowling ball towards the indignant youngsters at my back.

Satisfying shouts of alarm and pain as the steps cleared behind me.

I came down on top of the last goon, the last guard, the right hand man. Small but fast, wiry as shit. My landing was messy; knocking us both down, tangling and tussling on the floor with knives pressed together. I felt a blade-tip kiss my cheek and angle up towards my eye. Ignored it. Pressed in towards his sides; a slow squeeze against the resistance of his arm, forcing him back, knife entering like a slow-mo javelin.

I stamped on him as I stood, and blinked the blood out of my eye.

And there was the boss. Seated. Eyeing me.

Impassive, the cool motherfucker.

"Who," he said, and everyone else had gone still, and nobody wanted to shoot me because they'd hit him, and everything stopped, and the silence was thicker than the noise had ever been. "The fuck. Do you think. You are?"

So I slapped him playfully on his big forehead, and shouted: "Tag!"

Fun for the whole family and all part of the plan.

The Tag went back a year or four.

The Tag was one of those little things the Clergy put in place as soon as it was obvious no other motherfucker was ever going to big enough to kick them off the top spot. The Tag was… a tradition. A ritual, if you want. A way for the robe-wearing arseholes to take charge of every dispute, every promotion, every powerplay.

Above and beyond all other things, The Tag was entertainment.

The way Nate had explained it to me, sitting in the dark outside the United Nations was:

"You're a chicken. You spent your whole goddamn life afraid of the wolves. What you want right now is freedom. Get away from the meat eating shitheads. Spend some quality time without carnivore assholes watching your back.

"But you know what? What you want so much more than that, is to have a go at being a wolf too.

"Tag's how you do it."

The Tag was a pretty simple concept, all things considered. A tough sort of justice: survival of the fittest with a lopsided twist to favour the overdog. I guess when you're living in a pit, the rules need to be as nasty as everything else, which is scant comfort for the underdog.

That'd be me.

In a nutshell:

One man, or woman, challenged another. Rules varied from here to there on the nature of the challenge, but generally you're looking at punching, slapping, kicking, hair-pulling, whatever. Something publicly humiliating; an affront to the challengee's dignity. He or she was permitted to defend themselves by any means – as if in self-defence – up to and including muscle-bound lieutenants with machetes, machineguns and magnums.

Heh. For all the good it did.

But as soon as the challenge was made, everything stopped. No more violence allowed. Break the rules and the Clergy Adjudicators would be down like a ton of bricks.

The challenger was escorted away, told a place and time, and left to prepare whilst the disgruntled VIP who'd been tagged set about assembling a hunting party.

Five people. Any weapons, vehicles or gadgets they wanted, which amounted to whatever stuff they could get their hands on.

Five people, drugged to the gills, with territorial knowledge on their side and not a scruple in sight.

At the allotted time the challenger and the hunting party were placed in position, normally beneath the gaze of a thunderous crowd. In a world without TV, this was the Superbowl.