Tham Cheng-E - Surrogate Protocol

Her fingers squirm over the weapon she’d got when John made the switch. It carries the Neut on its hand-grip, and is armed with useless blanks. She can hit Marco with it. A well-placed blow will dislodge the jaw, send him into a traumatic shock. Then she can take his gun and blast his head open. There will be consequences—the Coterie will see to that. But she’ll risk it if it means getting Marco out of Landon’s way also.

I’ve got him within reach, she tells herself. With a little distraction I might just—

A burst of searing whiteness tears out of her abdomen. There is the same report and shockwave, and the stench of ozone and scorched flesh pervades the air. She slides to the ground clutching the terrible wound. Marco kicks the gun out of her hand and sends it skittering across the tarmac.

“In case you’re wondering,” Marco proudly waves his smoking gun. “It’s a Syntec P-5 that fires plasma pulses at an eighty-watt range. Serum-tech. Totally cool stuff.”

Landon gawks and his mind spins, suddenly unable to comprehend speech.

“It’s coming together so beautifully,” Marco orates to the heights above them. He addresses Hannah: “Don’t forget it was I who convinced the Seers of your worth. And it was I who got you out of Torment and back into service.”

Hannah doesn’t look at him. She raises herself on an elbow and goes on gasping as a ghastly, partially-cauterized wound slowly bleeds out in a small pool around her.

“Kill me,” Landon says.

Marco turns sharply to him.

“Kill me,” Landon says again, “and appease yourself.”

Marco flies into wild, brutish laughter. “Being alive is going to be a hell lot tougher than death, my long-living friend.”

While he is speaking, Landon lunges, his arms clawing at Marco. But the seasoned Agent makes short work of the gallant attempt by side-stepping and plunging his fist into Landon’s spleen, slamming the breath out of him. Marco’s glass eye falls out at the sudden movement and rolls away.

Marco hauls Landon to his feet and presses his face close. Their eyes lock, and Landon defiantly holds his stare upon the cavernous rawness of the empty eye socket.

“You will live and suffer for my pleasure, you spineless little squirt!” Marco’s spittle flies into Landon’s face. “You’re the pesky fly that’s been buzzing in my head for the last eighty years and now I’m leashing you up and plucking your little legs off one by one.”

He drops Landon with another blow and paces around his victims, inspecting them, savouring their agony with a sadistic glitter in his remaining eye. He crouches beside Hannah and points at a writhing Landon with his pistol. “Maybe you could get him to kill you,” he tells her. “It’d be an easy cover for the Inquisition. A botched mission of a Tracker: killed while trying to kill.”

He turns to Landon. “Bust out her brains quick and painless,” he says, jabbing the pistol mockingly into his own temple. “I’ve mashed up her guts so she won’t live very long. Used her up a thousand times over.” He puts a fresh cigarette between his lips. “She’s all yours now.” He flicks a lighter and holds it to the tip.

Landon, bruised and defeated, painfully draws up his knees.

Marco returns to his GTR, opens the door and drops into the seat with a gratifying grunt. “This is only the beginning of your pain, Arthur Lock,” he says in a coarse drawl. “And when you’re through with it I’ll return to dish out more.”

The GTR gives a beastly rumble and reverses; its blazing headlights exposing the stricken bodies that lie in the cone of its illumination. Once Marco speeds out of sight Landon hobbles over to Hannah and finds her breaths in flutters.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t know…” she croaks.

“I’ll get you to a hospital.”

“They won’t let us.” Hannah winces and points to her wound. “Press here.”

Landon does as he is told. A lump of emotion chokes him up and smothers his speech. He bites his lip, grieving at the touch of Hannah’s torn body.

Despite everything Hannah smiles and pulls him close. “You got the tenderness of a simpleton—and a good heart,” she says. “Yes, a good heart.”

“No I don’t.” Landon squeezes her hand. “I’ve been a wimp many lifetimes over. In the years between us I don’t even know your real name.”

“Do you have to?”

“Don’t tell me if you can’t.”

“Ning Yan,” says Hannah. A wan, anaemic smile accompanies her reply. “I was born in 1712, Hubei. Grew up on the plains. We had a river there.”

The reply overwhelms Landon. He finds it ineffably astounding— the centuries of her existence, the mystery of her origins, the delicate ring of that lovely name. There is so much to share and yet time is draining away between them so quickly, so cruelly.

“What’s yours?” Hannah asks in a laboured exhalation.

“Aldred.”

“So you remembered.”

“My journals—” he says.

“You don’t look like an Aldred.” She chuckles weakly. “Sounds like an old man.”

“Yes, it does.” Landon laughs with her and withdraws briefly into himself. “John said he’s got back-up. Maybe we could wait it out and—”

She shakes her head. “Help me with something, Arthur.”

He snuffles and swipes his hand across his nose.

“Take care of that old man for me.” She cradles his arm. “Bed 8-C, Loewen Lodge. He’s the only truth left of the lies I’ve lived. I moved him there so we could make contact.”

“Who is he?”

“Why ask what you already know?”

“I want to know if it’s true.”

“Why does it matter now?” Hannah looks wearily away. “Quit asking and hold me. It’s getting very cold.”

Landon pulls her to him, and in his arms she feels fragile and ethereal, like a wisp of vapour that could vanish in a blink of an eye. The lustre in her beautiful eyes dims as life goes on ebbing from her body despite the pressure he keeps on the wound.

“Nice of you to offer yourself to Khun.” She smiles. “He might have just shot you.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Always a darling.” She touches his cheek. “And a fool.”

Landon’s eyes burn and glaze up. “Fool?” He snuffles. “Who’s the one bleeding out?”

Hannah convulses painfully in laughter. “I’m finished, you airhead.” She closes her arms over his. “You know, that Transfusion thing could be worth a try.”

“No, we should live on and find a way to fix this together. We can, we got plenty of time if we keep the Serum inside us.”

“They’ll be here soon.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

In an unexpected gesture of affection Hannah pulls Landon down to her and plants a soft, lingering kiss on his lips. Overwhelmed, he holds it for no more than a couple of seconds before a torrent of emotions assails him and breaks him down into a weeping wreck.

Mustering all her strength Hannah lumbers to her feet, her wound dripping, and shuffles a few yards ahead to retrieve her own weapon and Landon’s pistol. Landon rushes forth to render assistance. He takes one of the guns and carefully lowers her against a stack of damp plywood sheets nearby and sits down on the spot of ground in front of her.

She nods at the pistol in his hand. “Ever used one of those?”

Landon drops it as if the metal burns. “Don’t. I know what you’re thinking.”

“It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

“No, we can work something out.”

Painfully, Hannah retrieves the pistol. She puts it into Landon’s hand and positions its barrel over the spot between her eyes. Landon tries to jerk it back but her arm holds firm and unyielding as a rod of steel. She clasps her hand over his and locks it in place over the pistol’s hand-grip. He attempts a savage twist but still he fails to dislodge the weapon.