The back wasn’t taking as long as the front. She’d practiced, at first, by stitching up the smaller wounds he’d received while doing his sweep of the bars. Those had gone OK, for the most part, and as long as you only saw them out of the corner of your eye and didn’t look directly at them, and the lights were reasonably low, they could pass for a professional job.
After some experimenting on the leg in the chest hole, she’d found a technique that worked pretty well, and the natural curve of Dan’s back was now giving her an easier angle to work from. It was almost starting to look quite neat. Almost.
Yes, it still looked like someone had inexpertly sewn a ragged piece of leg flesh into a chest wound, but quite neat at the same time.
“So,” Ollie said. “How does this work, then?”
“How does what work?”
“You being, you know, dead. That’s not normal, is it?”
“Death is normal,” Dan said. “Coming back from it, not so much.”
“Right.”
She continued sewing. “So how did you? Come back, I mean.”
Dan started to shrug, then remembered the needle in his back, and stopped. “No idea. Stopped thinking about the why, and started taking it for what it was.”
“A miracle?” Ollie guessed.
Dan snorted. “Wasn’t exactly the word I was looking for.”
A few seconds of silence descended. It was a refreshing change, but Dan knew it just meant Ollie was thinking of something else to ask.
“And, so, your name. Deadman. That’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?” she said. “Oh! What if that’s why you came back? What if your name is what brought you back to life?”
“It’s not my real name,” said Dan. “I got a guy who makes ID for… people without ID. Guess he thought it was funny.”
“I suppose it’s a bit funny,” Ollie conceded. “I mean, it’s not hilarious, but it’s kind of… cute.”
Dan scowled back over his shoulder. “Cute?”
“Kind of cute,” Ollie clarified. “A bit.”
She pushed the needle into his flesh again. “So, what’s your real name?”
“Doesn’t matter. It died when I did,” he said, making no effort to hide his growing impatience. “Now, you almost done?”
“Nearly. You’re doing very well.”
Dan closed his eyes and clenched his fists, but resisted the urge to strangle her.
Ollie finished looping the thread around in a knot that could best be described as ‘untraditional’, then cut off the trailing end with the scalpel and stepped back to admire her handiwork.
“Not bad,” she said. “Not bad at all.”
She cocked her head left and right, examining the repair-job in a bit more detail. “I mean, not 'good', exactly, either, but not bad.”
“It's fine,” said Dan, reaching for his shirt.
“Ah, now what do ye say, Deadman?”
Artur returned from the far end of the workshop, grinning from ear to ear. “What's that special word we're all waiting to hear from ye?”
Dan said something, but it was barely audible. Artur touched the back of an ear and pushed it forward. “Sorry? Didn't quite catch that there.”
“Thanks,” Dan grunted, slipping on the shirt and hiding the neat-ish wound.
“Any time, partner!” said Ollie. She punched him lightly on the shoulder, then hastily retreated when he glowered at her. “But seriously. Happy to help. I quite enjoyed it, actually. Is that weird? That’s weird, right? Is it weird?”
“It is a bit, although I've heard a lot weirder,” said Artur. He looked wistfully off into the distance. “Sure, I once knew this one girl. Belspeth Unk, her name was. Lovely girl, but big, y'know? I mean, like big. Anyway, she had this thing she used to love. Drove her crazy it did. She made me this little wetsuit, and loved having me climb up—”
The sound of the study door opening cut the rest of the anecdote short. Nedran emerged with a bundle of paper clutched in his hands. He looked wide awake now. Too awake, if anything, as if sleep might never be a possibility again.
“What is it?” asked Dan, getting up from the operating table. “What did you find?”
“I, uh...” Nedran began, then he looked down at the paper, before hurriedly thrusting the whole lot into Dan's arms and stepping back, as if he couldn't bear to be near it. “See for yourself.”
Dan set the stack down on the padded table, and picked up the top few sheets. “Autopsy report,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else. He raised his eyes to Ned. “Murder cases?”
“Three of them,” Nedran replied. “They were... All three were girls. Six years old. They had been...”
He leaned against the body-parts box and breathed slowly, fighting the urge to vomit.
“For a man who spends his days looking for dead bodies to hack to ribbons, ye seem awfully shaken up,” Artur noted.
Nedran nodded and swallowed. “Those girls, they were... I mean...”
“Mutilated,” said Dan, flicking through the pages and stopping at a series of horrifyingly detailed close-up photographs. “Someone cut them open.”
Ned swallowed again. “Not just that. Damage and misplacement of their organs suggested whoever did it then... I don't know, rummaged inside them.”
“Why would anyone do that?” Ollie asked.
“I don't know,” Dan admitted.
The name on the front page caught his eye. “Wait,” he said. He grabbed at the stack of sheets and flipped through until he found a similar document with the victim details on it. “Oh. Shizz,” he whispered.
The final victim detail sheet was near the bottom of the pile. When Dan found it he stared at it for what felt like an eternity, unmoving, unblinking.
“Ye going to keep us all in suspense, or what?” asked Artur. “I'm on the edge of me seat here. What is it?”
“Her name,” said Dan. “Their name.”
“What about it?”
“It's the same. Nona. Different surnames, but the same first name.”
Ollie frowned. “Nona? But isn't that...?”
“The name of the girl we're looking for,” Dan said. “Same name, same age. They've got to be linked.” He looked up at Nedran. “I mean, they've got to be, right?”
Ned's eyes were darting left to right, as if trying to wipe away everything they'd seen. At first, Dan thought he hadn't heard, but then the old man puffed out his cheeks and shrugged. “It would seem unlikely if they weren't,” he said.
“Exactly,” said Dan. He continued flicking through the sheets. He was accustomed to seeing some pretty harrowing injuries up close, most of them having been inflicted upon him. Even so, he skipped the pages and pages of photographs that revealed the extent of each girl's injuries, unable to bring himself to look.
All three girls, he discovered, had been abducted a few weeks apart. There were some conflicting reports among the witness statements, but they broadly agreed on one thing. Each girl had been snatched by someone on an old-style motorcycle, although the differing descriptions of the abductor suggested there could be at least two different men behind the kidnappings, possibly on two different bikes. That would tie in with the tracks Dan had seen at the school, too.
There was a blurry photograph of one of them, captured from a security camera. From what Dan could make out, he was a big guy with long hair and a beard practically all the way down to his waist. He had something slung over his shoulder. A blaster rifle? Maybe some kind of shock rod. It was impossible to tell.
The bodies of each girl had been found less than twelve hours after they had been taken. Forensic evidence suggested they had been alive for less than four of those hours, and conscious for only a fraction of it.
Small mercies.
“So, I don't get it,” said Artur, once Dan had gone over everything he'd found. “Why would someone be killing lots of girls with the same name? Is he just mental, do we reckon? Or is there something sinister behind it?”
H
e stopped talking, then immediately started again.
“I mean, you know, even more sinister, like. I think we can safely say the whole thing is pretty feckin' sinister, all in all, what with the murdering children, and all that.”
“And why hasn't he cut open and killed the new one?” Ollie asked. She winced. “I realize that kind of sounds like I want that to happen, but that's not what I meant.”
“She has a point,” said Ned. “Those others were found in a matter of hours. How long has the latest been missing for?”
“Couple of days,” said Dan, still flicking slowly through the sheets, scanning for anything that might help.
“And still no body?”
Dan shook his head.
“Well, I suppose that's encouraging,” Ned muttered. He kneaded his temples and slumped down onto a chair. “Although it could be she just hasn't been found yet.”
“I don't think so,” said Dan. “What if this guy, whoever took these girls, what if he was looking for one specific girl? One specific Nona?”
“So, what are ye saying?” asked Artur. “He tracks down a new Nona, grabs her, cuts her open, rummages around in her guts and that, and only then decides he's got the wrong one? What's he doing, checking their kidneys for a name tag or something?”
Dan clenched his jaw a few times, then let it relax. “I don't know,” he admitted. “I don't know why he's doing any of it, but I'm going to find out.”
“How?” asked Ollie.
Dan leaned against the operating table for a few seconds. He seemed to sag, as if the life was leaving him, but then he straightened, gave a decisive nod of his head, and split the tower of paper into three smaller stacks.
“Go through these. Take one each, then swap,” Dan ordered. “Look for anything that could be helpful.”
“Like what, exactly?” asked Artur.
“Anything. I don't know. Clues.”
“Clues?” Artur snorted. “Just go through two thousand pages looking for 'clues'? I'm telling ye now, that's a big old waste of time. If there's clues in here, the Tribunal would have found them.”
“You think the Tribunal cares about these kids?” Dan snapped, spinning on his heels. “You think they put their best men on this case? You think they put any men on this case? Solving this stuff, looking out for the little guy, that's not what they do. It's what they're supposed to do, but it's not what they do.”
He pulled on his coat, then picked up his hat.
“So, what?” asked Artur. “Ye're going to do it?”
Dan snapped up his coat collar and pulled the hat down low on his head. “Someone has to,” he said. “I'm going to see what I can find out. Get going on that paperwork.”
“Fine, fine. Wouldn't be able to sleep, anyway,” said Ned. “But just be careful. OK? Don't go doing anything rash, or shooting up half the city trying to find her.”
“Fonk,” Dan cursed. He gestured to the end of the operating table, where his holster hung from a hook. “Put Mindy on to charge for me, will you? I'll need her later.”
“Ye're going out there without a gun?” said Artur. “Are ye wise?”
“I'm not going to get into trouble,” said Dan. “Won't need one.” He nodded towards the paper stacks. “Now, you sure you can handle it? The case files, I mean? There’s a lot of it.”
“You know your problem, Dan?” Ned asked.
“Where to feckin’ start on that question?” Artur called.
“You underestimate us. And yourself,” Ned said. “We’ll be fine.”
Dan nodded.
“OK. If you say so.”
And with that, he rolled up the door and stepped out into the night.
* * *
Down Here never slept. Not really. It dozed, at best, and even at times like now, with the morning hours away, vehicles still sped along the roads, and pedestrians milled around on the sidewalks. They were a different type of pedestrian to those who moved around during the day, but the actual number of them was only barely diminished.
It was the constant blue glow of the engines, Dan reckoned. The Up There cities filled the sky all around the planet, their engines painting both the relatively small area of land and the vast ocean in a permanent blue hue. It was more noticeable at night, and meant that many parts of Down Here never got all the way dark.
Some parts, though, usually sandwiched down between the taller buildings, were untouched by the light. They seemed to almost revel in their inky darkness, and it was here where the worst of the city’s secrets were kept.
Dan wandered down one such alley, letting the darkness wrap around him like a cloak. He heard voices muttering and cursing. He heard distant screams and far-off blaster fire. He saw shapes moving in the shadows, and felt attentive eyes turn to follow him as he strolled along, trying to straighten things out in his head.
Four girls. Four Nonas. Three dead. One, he hoped, not.
More than ever, he wanted to find her. More than ever, he wanted to bring her home, to save her from the fate that had befallen the others who shared her name.
Ollie had told Paradise that he was doing it for the money, and that suited him fine. He was doing it for the money. He needed that money.
But, like Paradise had said, there were easier ways of making a living.
A woman stepped from the shadows ahead of him, her skin pale and sallow, her eyes ringed with pain. “Hey, mister, you looking for a good—?” she began in a strong off-world accent, then she stopped when she saw his face, and quickly melted back into the darkness without uttering another word.
“Maybe next time,” Dan muttered.
He walked on, past boarded-up windows and shuttered doors, and eventually came to the end of the alleyway. He looked both ways, then continued out onto a wider street. The blue light from on high brought a veneer of civility back to this part of the city, and the people he passed looked flighty and nervous, as opposed to angry and violent.
How long had he been walking now? He couldn’t remember. He was a couple of miles from Ned’s place. He should head back soon, see if they’d had any luck.
He stopped beside a food stand. The front shutter was down, but he could hear someone snoring in there, and he envied them. Sleep, cook, serve, repeat. Not a bad life, he supposed. Better than most.
Dan was about to turn away when he saw the poster. It had been pasted onto the shutter recently, judging by the damp spots of adhesive showing through the cheap paper. He’d passed dozens of identical posters while walking, but it was only now that he paid it any attention.
Death Derby 88 the headline screamed, following it up with at least four too many exclamation points. These things had been growing in popularity over the past few years. They could best be described as a cross between a stunt show, a circus, and a gladiator arena. Members of the public got to try their luck in a variety of ‘games’ against established professional competitors. Winning involved either staying alive for a set amount of time, or killing the pro before they killed you. Most people went along just to watch, but there would always be enough volunteers to make for a packed schedule. Anyone who won against their pro opponent got a share of a prize fund. If no one won, the prize fund rolled over.
Judging by the number printed in a bold yellow typeface on the poster, it had been rolling over for a while now.
It wasn’t the prize money that had caught Dan’s interest, though. It was the man on the poster. He sat astride an old-style motorbike, his long hair and long beard trailing in the wind as he beheaded a fleeing opponent with some kind of long-handled chainsaw-sword weapon.
If Dan’s heart had been beating, it would have quickened its pace.
It was him. It was the man in the case file photograph. The man who had taken Nona. Who had taken all the Nonas.
And Dan now knew just where to find him.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Laaaaaaadieeeeeeees and geeeeeeeentlemeeeeeeen!” boomed a voice from a floating Loudmouth speaker system. “What did we j
ust witness?! Talk about an upset! Long-time Death Derby stalwart, Morsha 'The Castrator' Nuresh, slain by his own scissors! That’s what it’s all about! Am I right?”
Around the arena, the crowd, which had already been going nuts, went nutser.
Calling the place 'an arena' was being generous. Essentially, the organisers of Down Here's eighty-eighth Death Derby had placed a temporary fence around a football field-sized piece of waste ground, and arranged for some drone-lights to hover overhead to ensure maximum visibility of all the blood, guts and gore that audiences had come to expect.
And what an audience it was tonight. There were over a thousand people in attendance - off-worlders, mostly, but the occasional slow-moving native - and they were having the time of their otherwise worthless little lives.
The Castrator had become something of a legend since his first appearance at Death Derby 52. Since then, his scissors had worked their gory magic on well over a dozen foolhardy volunteers, all seeking a share of the increasingly sizeable prize money on offer to anyone who could take down a Derby regular.
And now, finally, someone had taken him out. Cameras flashed as the Castrator's twitching, partially-headless corpse was dragged over to the fence by officials, before it was hoisted onto a meat hook and raised up for all to see.
“And let's hear it for our butt-kicking, throat-ripping, pro-slaying winner!” the Loudmouth speaker decreed, and the cheering increased sharply in both pitch and volume.
In the center of the makeshift stadium, the victorious challenger - a young man who would have been fairly unassuming looking, were it not for the blood that now painted him from head to toe and the expression of demented glee on his face - raised a hand in victory. With the other hand, he did his best to keep his intestines from spilling out through a hole in this stomach and onto the uneven ground.
Sadly, his best wasn't quite good enough, and a ripple of laughter went around the crowd as his insides spewed out like sausages from a sausage machine, and he slumped, face-first, into the resulting bloody mush.
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