A Town Called Discovery

by R. R. Haywood

  Everyone in the room snaps their heads over to see Thomas grinning at them from the end of the corridor. ‘Death charge, bitches…’ he flicks a finger up and steps aside for Bear to sprint past who thumbs the hammer back on his Webley revolver to pull the trigger to send the bullet that flies down the corridor into the first operative who falls back with his skull blowing out.

  A thing to see and a sight that will stay with Helmut, Marco and Allie forever because in that second, in the heat and smoke with flames licking the walls, they watch as every attacker seems to move in perfect synchronicity. All of them twisting on the spot to aim into the corridor as another attacker drops with a blown-out skull. Then another after that.

  ‘SHOOT HIM!’ Beatrice screams the order. Bear fires his last shot and throws the gun and before her brain can send the signal to duck it slams into her mouth and she drops while spitting teeth and blood once more.

  ‘GET ‘EM, BEAR!’ Zara yells out from the end of the corridor as Bear slams into the first attacker. Wrenching him off his feet to pin in front, using him as a shield as the other Freedom operatives fire their sub-machines guns. Sending rounds into their own mate who screams out from the rounds striking his body.

  Bear strides in to launch the now dead guy at another attacker. The weight of the impact sending the two bodies through a blown-out window. They drop fast and land hard with a crunch of bones, only to be shot by the rounds coming from the team in the reception area.

  ‘SHIT!’ the Freedom team leader shouts out as his unit stops firing.

  ‘Shit!’ Pete says, coming to a stop with the rest of the Discovery operatives as they look from the two bodies in the street up to the blown-out window.

  ‘What the…’ the Freedom team leader says.

  ‘What the…’ Pete says.

  ‘GO ON, BEAR,’ Zara’s voice screaming out. ‘KILL ‘EM ALL!’

  And the Old Lady finally releases the breath she held. Gasping it out as her eyes glint in the fire burning in the hearth while in the planning office, Bear grabs an attacker and turns him about to fire his automatic weapon into the others.

  Chaos ensues. Noise and motion everywhere. The red lasers suddenly dazzling their own eyes as Bear goes deep into the thick of them. Snapping a knee joint with a foot to the back of a leg. Grabbing a neck to twist and break. Grabbing a rifle from a sling that he slams into a nose before twisting and launching the body out of the same blown-out window.

  He’s back in that zone. In the mindset drilled into him by Roshi who took a man with no name who fell from the sky and groomed him. She tortured him. She made him beg and weep. She watched as he shit himself through fear and pain. She stood over him without mercy. Goading him. Taunting him. Berating his weakness. Cruel and heartless. A terrible thing to do. A most awful thing to do to another person.

  See me now.

  She whispered the words in the mansion. She made him see her.

  ‘Tell me who I am,’ he begged and pleaded.

  ‘Make me.’

  He tried to attack her, but he was slow and weak. She had a knife. She stabbed him and told him to move faster. He tried again. She killed him over and over and still he begged. Still he pleaded, but there was no mercy to be given. No apology either. She needed him to be strong. ‘This is no place for the weak.’

  He didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand. He had only what she told him. What she made him believe.

  Death to life. Life to death. Over and over. Repeating it until the pain became a part of his existence. Until the pain became somehow less.

  ‘Fight me,’ she said. He refused. He wouldn’t do it. ‘Look at me…you have to fight me…do it…’

  He remembers those words. The way her eyes glared into him. Those hazel eyes flecked with green. The passion in her voice. The need for him to fight and be strong. He said no. She shouted at him. He died again, but when he came back, he did so with rage and fury and that was the spark she needed. That was the spark she was trying to ignite all along. That thing inside.

  ‘That’s it, tiger... Attaboy!’

  Those words repeat in his head now as he moves in to grip an arm that he twists and breaks before flipping the body over to boot away into another attacker. The savage violence born in the masquerade room erupts again as he takes a knife from a belt and slices it across a throat. As he steps back and stabs the point into a gut then throws the blade into a head. As he kicks. As he punches. As he breaks limbs and sends bodies through the blown-out window.

  But the masquerade room was just the first part. That was just them. That was just learning to deal with pain. The real training came after. When he woke in a room with seven-sides. When seven men came in with sticks. When he learnt to use the space around him and the momentum of those coming against him. A shift of a foot to slide away. A palm to a nose, sending bones up into the brain. A fist to a rib, sending shards into lungs. A foot to a knee joint. An elbow to a throat. There is no pain. He is not here. This is not real.

  She groomed him.

  She tortured him.

  She did those things. But she did it to weaponise him, and as he throws the next body through the blown-out window, as the flames roar and the heat grows, as the violence erupts to a sickening level, so Beatrice tries crawling away only to be stopped by a boot stepping on her hand. She looks up. Toothless and bleeding once more into the face of Zara aiming a pistol. ‘I won’t let this go. Say hi to Robert.’

  The gun fires. The death charge resumes and the Discovery operatives swarm to the bodies thrown out into the street. Snatching up sub-machine guns strapped to bodies and pistols from holsters.

  ‘Oh, fuck…oh, fuck…OH, FUCK!’ the Freedom team leader cries out as the rounds start coming back.

  ‘DEATH CHARGE!’ Pete yells out, the words taken up again.

  ‘DEATH CHARGE!’ Helmut screams out in the planning office, running into the fray with Marco and Allie as Bear storms from the room and out into the corridor. Into the stairwell. Hitting and hurting. Breaking and busting. Biting. Gouging. Slicing and killing.

  ‘DEATH CHARGE!’ Zara yells out with Thomas and Prisha. All of them charging into the mayhem. Into the battle. Into the heat and smoke, and in the grand colonial house, at the end of the tree lined avenue, the Old Lady smiles wryly and sips once more from her glass of sherry.

  32

  The dawn comes. The sky growing lighter as he trudges past the houses with white picket fences.

  ‘If you have a family and work to a decent position, you’ll maybe one day get a house down there.’

  He thinks of those words every time he passes by. The first day he met Allie. The first day they were here in the town.

  Into the bend and up the steep hill. Into the lanes and avenues running between the little hobbit houses. A place now quiet and seemingly devoid of life. A place now empty with everyone down in the town. Drawn to the noise and commotion. Drawn to help and douse fires. To organise food and water. To do what’s needed after such a thing.

  A long night has passed. A long day before that. Bear doesn’t know exactly what happened. Only that his team’s missions were targeted. He doesn’t know why Freedom did that.

  What he does know is that they were tracked. Zara said that. Prisha too. They said Freedom wanted Bear out of the way so they could attack Discovery. They saw what Bear can do in Carpe Diem restaurant in New York.

  Martha was there by then. She was outside with the others when they death charged. She said they’ll need to review the way they operate and how they store weapons. That was while everyone was standing in the ruined planning offices staring about at the carnage.

  ‘And can someone tell me why the hell there is a first world war medic treating our injured,’ Martha then said, staring over at Corporal Simmonds wrapping a dressing about Allie’s arm.

  ‘Um,’ Thomas said before offering a wan smile as they all looked at him. ‘I shot a plane down…woohoo. Go team!’

  ‘We can’t send him back now,’ Za
ra said, staring at Simmonds. ‘They’ll shoot him for desertion.’

  ‘Well, we can’t bloody keep him here,’ Martha snapped, at which point Bear slipped away. Keeping his head down. Out into Main Street where the debris was being swept aside. Where the people of Discovery were gathered. The people that fell silent as he walked through.

  ‘Bear,’ Marco called out. Bear stopped to look back. Seeing the man now fully healed after being shot by Lars so he could reset. The town fell silent. Everyone looked over. Even the people in the planning offices fell quiet as they stared down onto Main Street through the holes in the walls. Marco paused. Swallowing once as he looked about then back to Bear. ‘That was good. What you did. Thank you.’

  Bear nodded. ‘Anytime.’

  That was it and he walked on as a few more people said thank you. As a few more said his name. People that had hated him for what he had done in Carpe Diem. People that wouldn’t accept him because he was a monster. That’s what they said. They said Roshi had made a monster. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be allowed to be here.

  ‘Interesting times,’ Martha said quietly, watching Bear walk away. ‘Now, what the hell are we doing with that medic?’

  Now Bear walks through the empty lanes to the last house at the end. The one closest to the forest. The pots of roses outside. His pull up bar fixed to the ground.

  When he goes in, he does so to a place unchanged since the first night he stayed here. The same colours. The same furniture and if he closes his eyes and inhales deeply, he imagines he can still smell her cherry blossom scent. It’s dark though. The dawn not yet strong enough to get light through the drawn curtains.

  Into his bedroom. Aiming for the bathroom. Needing to wash. Needing to be clean. Needing to rest and think but he sees the hand coming from the depth of the shadows, and in the split second it takes to react, to position, to block, to catch the wrist and turn it to snatch the blade free so he scents the air that is filled with the aura of Roshi and the scent of cherry blossom.

  ‘What’s up, buttercup…’

  His heart lurches. Too many emotions inside. Relief. Denial. Anger. Joy. Too many things happening. Too many thoughts but he moves in. Ready to do it all again. Ready to fall for it all once more. Ready to be groomed and tortured for eternity, but she pulls back at the last second. Her eyes fixing on his. A look of pain within them. A show of emotion. Of feeling. He frowns, unsure of why, unsure of what it means.

  ‘Why the fuck is Lucy’s sports bra in your bathroom?’

  ‘Oh, shit…’

  And in the grand colonial house at the end of the tree-lined avenue, the Old Lady lies down in her bed. Not that she needs to sleep. She’s an AI.

  But it feels nice to get into bed. She understands why humans like it so much. The softness underneath. The weight of the covers. The symbolism of sleep.

  Not that Bear will be getting much sleep. Not with that one to explain and even the Old Lady wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of Roshi’s wrath, and as she closes her eyes, so she smiles once more as Bear’s front door explodes in shards from Bear slamming through it. Scrabbling up to his feet as Roshi storms out.

  ‘YOU FUCKED LUCY!’

  ‘SIX MONTHS, ROSHI.’

  ‘I SAID TO WAIT. I SAID THAT.’

  ‘FOR SIX FUCKING MONTHS? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?’

  ‘Dear me,’ the Old Lady says, tutting gently as Roshi steams into Bear, trying to hit his head and body as Bear blocks and they start fighting once more. For anyone else, that would be a terrible thing, but perhaps they need to get it out of their system. It is how they formed a bond after all. However, it would not be good for everyone to see them fighting. Not good at all. Especially with just how violent those two can be.

  No. It would be best all round if they had some privacy.

  ‘Six months, Roshi!’ Bear shouts out, backing away as Roshi charges at him. ‘You could have left me a sign!’

  ‘I did! I left my necklace on your pillow you fucking fuck!’ she charges fast. Like a wolf ready to fight or fuck. Ready to kill or mate as Bear stops going back and charges towards her. Ready to fight or fuck. Ready to kill or mate and the ground drops out. Simply not there. Only ocean below as they fall through the sky towards the rolling waves. Both glancing at each other. Both knowing exactly what just happened and both knowing they are already too late to try and position to glide to get the angle to dive.

  They hit the water. Things break. Things hurt. Saltwater is sucked in. Death comes.

  33

  COUPLES THERAPY

  Death to life. Darkness to light. From the void of nothing to opening his eyes at the same time as his mind starts running and his senses kick in. Giving depth to his vision and range to his hearing.

  Softness underneath him and he sits up to see he’s naked on a single bed. An old-fashioned wrought iron thing with curved metal ends. He gets up and moves to the door, looking about and thinking this feels like the top floor of the mansion house. The beams above his head. The old style windows. The bare floorboards. Wooden doors to rooms on his left and right and a kitchen area in front of him. A simple table. Two chairs. Two pistols on the table. Both black.

  A noise to his left. A door opens and Roshi rushes out then stops dead on seeing him. Both of them naked. Both staring at the other until they turn their heads to the table holding the two pistols. A big sheet of paper propped against a vase next to the pistols. Words on the sheet. Handwritten in a flowing script.

  I STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU RESOLVE YOUR ISSUES BEFORE YOU RETURN TO MY TOWN X

  ‘That’s fucked up,’ Roshi says as Bear nods at her, agreeing wholly that this is, indeed, very fucked up. But then everything here is fucked up. Like all of it. The whole of it. Every bit of it.

  ‘Six fucking months,’ he says.

  ‘You fucked Lucy!’

  They glare again. Both naked. Both filling with anger. Two pistols. Both black. They run for it. Both reaching at the same time. Both snatching them up to turn and fire with rounds hitting heads that blow out as they fall dead.

  Death to life. Darkness to light and Bear vaults from the single bed to stagger out through the door as Roshi bursts from hers. Their dead bodies still on the floor leaking brains and blood. The pistols back on the table. A new note on the top.

  BEST TO THRASH THESE THINGS OUT WHILE THEY ARE FRESH.

  Death to life. On his back in the bedroom and he vaults up, running out and not blinking at the sight of two dead Bear’s, one dead Roshi and one living Roshi aiming the gun at him.

  He charges and she fires, getting him in the chest, but he gained enough momentum to charge and land on her, both screaming out as they fight and bite before she gets the gun aimed and fires again, killing him outright then a second later she fires again, shooting herself through the temple.

  From death to life and they both wake in their rooms to vault up and charge out. Bear grabs the table to throw but she dodges and grabs the kettle, swinging it hard to clang into the side of his head, spilling hot water over her hands. She grabs his leg and sinks her teeth into his naked thigh. A knee to his groin and he flies off. She rises, grabbing the handle of a drawer and yanks the whole thing out that spills blades and kitchen utensils across the corpse littered floor.

  ‘Shit,’ she curses as he looks over. A second’s worth of eye-contact where either could say hey, hang on, let’s stop now, but neither do and they lunge to grab whatever they can reach.

  She stabs him with a corkscrew while he slaps her head with an egg slice.

  Reset and they both wake to rush out. ‘Just give in…’ she calls over her shoulder. ‘Go and fuck Lucy again.’

  He goes to say something mean and awful and terrible and sucks air. ‘FUCK YOU,’ he shouts instead.

  ‘Try working on your vocabulary,’ she says, reaching down to throw a severed arm at him.

  He dances back, slapping the arm away then grabbing it as he chases her into the masquerade room to see her wrenching the gun fr
om the servant and moving back behind the sofa as he advances while holding the severed arm like a club.

  ‘Put that down…Bear, you put that down…that’s gross. Seriously, there’s a line.’

  He screams a gargled yell and runs at her as she lowers the gun and shoots his dick.

  ‘Stop going for my dick,’ he yells, clutching at his bleeding privates.

  ‘Put the arm down then.’

  ‘Fuck you!’

  Death to Life. Both running from their temporary reset rooms allocated to them for use during their couples’ therapy. Another chase. Another explosion of violence, but then this is how they bonded. Pain is secondary. Death is not what it was, and although violence can never be the right way to communicate, it seems to work for them. Especially when they find a room filled with guns and explosives. And especially when Roshi pulls the pin from a grenade and launches herself at Bear, wrapping her legs about his body with the grenade held between them. ‘I missed you,’ she shouts.

  ‘I missed you too,’ he yells back, and the grenade explodes.

  A short while later, on the veranda outside the mansion house, the Old Lady looks mildly at the blown out French doors and the explosion marks caused by multiple grenades detonating, and steps over the dead bodies of Bear and Roshi, carefully treading between chunks of gore and flesh.

  More bodies inside. Bullet holes in every wall and in every door. Bodies shot down and, in the lobby, the Old Lady finds another dead Bear skewered on a sword on top of another dead Roshi and more dead Bears and more dead Roshis.

  Fire in the gun room with flames licking the walls, and the stench of many weapons being fired many times. Bullet casings everywhere.

  She tuts mildly and walks towards the stairs, marvelling at the door to the masquerade room hanging off the hinges with thick smoke billowing out and several of the laughing mask wearing people now on fire.

  Up the stairs. More bodies. To the landing and over yet more bodies then into the corridor to see them lying side by side. Hands entwined. Heads touching. Knives in both of their bellies.