Abaddonian Dream

by M. K. Woollard

  “Maybe it was a mistake to pair you with Asha Ishi,” Yun said as he sat back down. “She could be effective, but she was a lunatic.”

  Hammell nodded vigorously, wondering how many times he’d tried to convince Yun of that over the years. Was she though? his mind interjected. The longer time went on, the less he was sure. “She’s been right about a lot of things,” he said.

  “She’s wrong somewhere,” Yun replied as he stared into the fire. “Start with Providence. It was never compromised. It doesn’t work for the Red King.”

  “How do you know?” Hammell asked, perking up.

  “I have my sources too,” Yun said. “Providence was aware of the illegals in the Reserves the whole time. It was just ignoring them.”

  “Why?”

  “That I don’t know, not for sure.”

  “But you have a guess,” Hammell prompted.

  “I don’t like guesses,” Yun said. “That said, I had the sense that Roy Brown was being left alone out there, so maybe things could have stayed that way if only he’d stayed put. But he didn’t. So we had no choice but to…”

  The big man’s voice had become sad, almost bitter as it trailed off. There was something in it that set the wheels in Hammell’s mind spinning. “The explosion,” he said in a sudden moment of insight. “The ecotower.”

  Yun nodded slowly. “They’d taken over the machines of the Restoration. There were hundreds of them, thousands, breaking through the Reservation Line.”

  “We blew it up?” He thought back to all of the bodies he and Asha had found strewn amongst the debris. We did that.

  “The order came from on high,” Yun said. “Like I said - no choice.” Taking a deep swig of his whisky, he sank into reverie.

  “No, there’s more to it than that,” Hammell said, with a shake of his head. “What about the android assassins? What about Providence ignoring Asha’s murder? And Toskan’s?”

  “You don’t know Toskan was murdered,” Yun said. “But I do know there’s no way Providence is helping the Red Hands. If anything, it’s hell-bent on destroying them. If Roy Brown really is sending assassins, then you need not concern yourself. I.T.F. is planning something big. The Red King is about to fall.”

  Hammell glanced over at the mini-bar, wondering how to go about obtaining another drink… Focus! he urged himself. There were still gaps in his understanding, he was certain of it. He still didn’t have the whole picture.

  “What will you do now?” Yun asked.

  Hammell shrugged. “Keep going. I owe it to Toskan. And to Asha. I used to be known as the Rottweiler, but I always thought I was more of a terrier.”

  “I remember,” Yun said with a strange little smile. “That’s why you were the last.” A glint appeared in his eye. “That and because you struggled to take orders.”

  “What about you?” Hammell asked. “Even if you don’t buy any of this, you should get away from here, just to be safe. Those assassins are real…”

  “I planned to,” Yun said, “but then Dawn... you know.”

  Hammell did. Yun’s wife had passed away a couple of years back from some kind of disease; he’d never asked which and Yun had never told anyone at the station.

  “I have a large enough coefficient to keep me going for the rest of my life,” Yun continued, “but I’m sick of it all, Hammell. I’m sick of this city. I have a cabin in the woods on a lake. I’m thinking of going up there for a while, to hunt, to fish.”

  Hammell nodded, feeling unexpectedly disappointed. Deep down, he had wanted Yun to be as devastated at being fired as he was. Secretly he’d been hoping his boss would have the same urge to understand, to know, that he had, but the big man was apparently content to just let things lie.

  “Ok,” Hammell said as he stood up again to leave and Yun didn’t try to stop him this time. Instead he followed Hammell to the hallway and handed over a mac big enough to sleep a scout troop.

  “Take care of yourself, Hammell,” the former Commissioner said as he opened the door.

  “Yeah,” Hammell replied.

  It was dark and raining out. What now? Hammell asked himself. Like the bottle used to say, keep walking. Stepping out into the rain, he caught sight of something in the bushes where he himself had been standing a short time ago. “No,” he whispered as his eyes made out the shape of an android, raindrops bouncing off its jet black head and shoulders. It raised its gun arm and Hammell was rooted to the spot. He glanced left and right but there was no escape. He was trapped in the doorway with only the enclosed hallway behind him. Well, that’s that, then.

  The gun fired and Hammell’s body jerked… but he felt no impact, no pain. Opening his eyes, he looked down and saw no bullet hole either. It missed. Then he heard Yun’s cry.

  Spinning around, Hammell saw the former Commissioner, head bleeding and one ear hanging off, running for the living room. The android advanced frighteningly quickly, barging past Hammell, who instinctively grabbed for its pistol hand, causing the second bullet to stray from its target. It smashed into Yun’s trailing slipper and his toes flew off in all directions. The big man hit the wooden floor with a scream and a huge, wet slap, before scuttling behind his chair beside the fire, leaving a trail of blood behind him. Still hanging from the gun, Hammell attempted to use his weight to break it free as the android dragged him along towards its prey.

  “Out of the way!” Yun growled, but the android had grown tired of Hammell anyway. It swatted him away like a bug and he slammed into the wall. Yun popped up from behind the chair, shotgun in hand, and gave the android the first barrel, clipping the android’s head and knocking it off balance. The second shot was better, hitting it square in the larger of its two eyes, and the assassin sank slowly to its knees, firing off one last parting shot before it smacked face-first into the hard wooden floor.

  Hammell turned back to his former boss to see a thin trail of blood run from a tiny hole in his sternum. The former Commissioner slumped forwards and Hammell scrambled over, but the big man’s eyes were already glazed over. The exit wound covered most of Yun’s considerable back. His organs had exploded out of his ribcage in a bloody, stringy mush stretching out across the floor behind him.

  Hammell slumped down beside the big man and reached out to close his eyes. They’re all gone now. There’s no-one left at all.

  A sudden clanking noise made him look up and his jaw dropped as he saw the android staggering back to its feet, still going even without a head. Raising its gun hand, it popped off a shot, but with its camera eye destroyed and its lidar eye badly damaged, it had no way to direct its smart bullets. The shot missed Hammell, instead taking out a photo of Yun holding a salmon.

  As silently as he could, Hammell plucked the shotgun from Yun’s grasp and crawled over to the open gun cabinet, as another bullet exploded into the mirror above the fireplace. Using the noise of the shattering glass as cover, he broke the gun, catching the spent shells. In the silence that followed he somehow survived sliding new cartridges into the barrels, but he didn’t dare snap the gun shut. Looking up, he saw the android scanning the room, searching for him. Taking a breath, he tossed the used shells across the room and the android span around at the noise and fired. In the same instant, Hammell moved, sprinting in a direct line towards the assassin, snapping the shotgun closed as he went. Stepping inside the turning android’s pistol arm, he blasted it at point blank range in the chest, right where he knew its power supply was located. This android was another in the growing list of models he didn’t know, but it was lightweight and unarmoured for speed and stealth. Its power cell exploded and it crumpled to the floor.

  Hammell felt a grim sense of satisfaction. He’d been wanting to do that for years.

  Returning to the gun cabinet, he filled his pockets with as many of the cartridges as he could find, finding that he could conceal the shotgun easily inside the coat - there were some benefits to wearing such a colossal garment. Opening the back door, he peered out cautiously. The night was
still and silent except for the pitter patter of the rain and the distant sound of a police siren. Nipping out, he made his way across the garden, stopping for a moment to look back to the cottage. Through the side gate he could see the waste disposal vehicle that had come to claim Yun’s body. “Bye, boss,” he said and he set off into the rain, heading for nowhere.

  Chapter 31

  The stain had faded to a light grey with barely any hint of red left. Hammell sat on the floor beside it, propped up against the cream leather sofa. The beige carpet Meera favoured throughout the house was as thick as a cushion - he could sleep comfortably wherever he fell, if only he could sleep. It’s not even the insomnia today. Anyone would struggle to nod off if they knew they were being stalked by relentless android assassins sent by a psychotic underworld boss.

  Instead he watched the news, which wasn’t quite the same in Toskan’s house; his former partner’s anchor of choice was a staid looking middle-aged man with a receding hairline. The display was blocky and unstable without the sexulator; the graphics being processed solely by whatever old tech was left embedded deep in the walls. Scanning the lower rated stories for anything about Commissioner Yun’s murder, or Asha’s, he was unsurprised to find the networks were silent on both counts. If that isn’t a sign something’s seriously wrong… Asha’s theory popped up in his head again. Executing the serving police Commissioner would necessarily draw attention, but if Roy Brown controlled enough systems to engineer his firing first…

  Turning off the skywall, he went to Toskan’s bathroom to dig out one of the bottles he’d stashed when he cleaned the place out. Feeling proud of himself for his foresight, he located a bottle of 25 year old Bunnahabhain and returned to the sofa. “Cheers,” he said as he took a swig and then poured a small measure onto the carpet, watching as the whisky spread out slowly, making the stain dark again…

  He could feel the blues descending, and this time he let them. He sank down with them into the darkness almost gratefully.

  Sometime later, a message popped up on his implant and he sighed as he opened it, finding that Li had gone to feed the cat and had agreed to do so for the next few days, in spite of her vocal hatred of the creature. He hoped the android wasn’t still there, realising that he probably should have mentioned the possibility of an assassin in the apartment. Then again, it was him they wanted and androids were generally good at limiting collateral damage, so there was probably very little risk. I owe her a little scare for removing the knife too. He could just imagine Li’s reaction when she walked in, especially if the sexulator was still running. He smiled as he imagined her buffing around the bullet holes in the mantelpiece and attempting to resurrect the sofa with sheets and throws, muttering to herself all the while. He would miss her if he left.

  Abaddon… He’d always dreamed of it, and now he had no other viable choice but to go. There was nothing left for him here, no reason whatsoever to stay. If he remained, he would be killed.

  But sitting here now with a whisky bottle in his hand beside the spot where his best friend had died, he could be honest with himself: Abaddon was a dream. It had only ever been a dream. The distant planet was no great shining light of a place. The idealized frontier life existed only in his head. He knew, as he’d always known, that he would never leave the city.

  Another idea had been growing in his mind over the past few hours; a stupid one which could never work, but one which was marginally better than drinking himself into a stupor here and being executed in his sleep. The more he drank, the more he was certain he was going to go through with it. Now it was just a matter of saying a final goodbye to his friend.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t catch the son of a bitch for you,” he whispered to Toskan’s ghost, “but I’ll do what I can. It won’t be much, but I’ll do what I can.” Pouring another small shot for his old partner, he said a simple, “See ya, mate,” and then clambered to his feet.

  Heading into the kitchen, he located a roll of aluminium foil. Stripping off Yun’s sail-like shirt, he wrapped the thin metal round and round his stomach and chest, securing it in place with tape. His implant insisted that it wouldn’t disrupt pings, but if Asha Ishi had believed it... Digging through Toskan’s wardrobe, he changed his disguise to male clothes of almost the right size, getting closer by the hour to an acceptable outfit. He opted to retain Yun’s mac, since none of Toskan’s coats could conceal a full-size shotgun.

  On the way out, he collected a second bottle from a sock drawer - an Old Pulteney Navigator; Toskan had had good taste. Leaving the half empty Bunnahabhain on the floor beside the blood stain, he walked out, making no attempt to conceal himself as he hailed a nat. He ordered it to head for the nearest checkpoint and it rose into the sky and flew directly towards the rising sun.

  He’d put a sizeable dent in the second bottle by the time he arrived, but his head was feeling clearer than it had in a long time. Having a single, simple goal to focus on was keeping him sober, giving him a clarity of thought he had rarely experienced. His bleeding nipples may have also had something to do with it; he wished now that he’d skipped the aluminium foil trick. Even with the two small red stains on the front of Toskan’s white shirt, he was feeling strangely happy as the nat approached the Reservation Line. He had to keep reminding himself that there was no way for this to work, that he was almost certainly heading to his death, but still his mood steadfastly refused to darken.

  The checkpoint was well fortified now, looking like a demilitarized zone between old-style nations at war. Two hammerheads manned it, emerging from their guard towers as the nat set Hammell down. He stepped out and began walking towards them.

  “Please stop and state your business,” the one on the left said, but Hammell continued on at the same steady, determined pace.

  “I need to get into the Reserves,” he called out, fingering the shotgun under Yun’s coat. “Open the gates.”

  “Halt immediately,” leftie said but Hammell didn’t.

  Pistols popped out of both androids’ thighs, snapping up into their hands. That was quick, he thought and his forehead broke into a sweat. They still haven’t addressed me by name, he realised. Maybe it was worth a couple of nipples.

  “This area is off-limits to the public,” leftie continued, the more talkative of the two. “Please submit yourself for scanning.”

  Hammell asked himself how they decided which of them would speak. Did they have miniature personalities? Were some more dominant than others? If so, wouldn’t that mean some had other traits too, like maybe some were more aggressive? Wasn’t that a problem considering they were all supposed to be identical? In spite of the constant resetting, they were learning machines and they all had different experiences, so they never could be truly be the same – but surely that was a slippery slope. Didn’t that mean there was no way to keep them from rebelling? That things would inevitably go that way as long as they were treated as servants?

  “Since when?” Hammell asked. “I’m a citizen of the city and I demand to be allowed in.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr Hammell-” leftie said, having finally pinged him, but that was as far as it got. Hammell was close enough now. He swung out the shotgun and fired once and then twice. He was unsteady on his feet and his head was spinning from the alcohol as he moved, but somehow he scored two direct hits, one on each android, bang in the middle of their chests.

  But neither of them dropped. Unlike the assassins, the hammerheads were heavy duty, with thick armour plating covering their key subsystems. Shit. Didn’t think of that.

  The androids advanced rapidly, guns raised, but neither of them fired, even as Hammell scrambled to reload. Glancing at their pistols, he hoped they were firing stun darts. Not so long ago, he would have been certain of it, but now... The guns looked worryingly real.

  “Drop the weapon!” the right-hand android said, finally finding its voice. “You are under arrest!”

  “Fuck,” Hammell said as he fumbled a shotgun shell. It fell to the floor,
bouncing around, and he reached into his pocket with nervous fingers for another. Slipping one and then two shells into the barrel, the androids were almost on him. He snapped gun closed and raised it – and it was snatched from his grasp.

  Raising his hands in the air, he let out a sigh. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He realised he had been so concerned about what would happen once he was in the Reserves that he’d barely thought about how he would actually get in. He’d taken it as a given that he would be allowed to pass. Shooting the androids if they weren’t compliant had seemed like enough of a plan, but clearly that had been a miscalculation.

  The less talkative android moved in to cuff him, taking his hands and yanking them behind his back, hard enough to make his shoulder joint crack painfully. It pulled the plastic cuffs so tight that his fingers instantly started to go numb. Then its head exploded.

  Hammell spun around, looking for the cause. The remaining android had its gun pointed towards the Reserves; he followed its gaze, seeing the muzzle flash from the second shot - it came from the rooftop of a ruined building just across the border. Leftie’s head went off like a party popper.

  Not waiting to check the hammerheads were down, Hammell sprinted for the guard towers, hands still pinned behind his back, looking for a way to open the gates. There was no button or lever that he could see. The androids did it remotely, of course. He sighed, realizing there was nothing else for it but to climb, though he strongly suspected he would struggle given that he would only be able to use his feet and teeth. He ran for the gate anyway – and it conveniently began to open.

  “Must be my lucky day,” he said to himself, right before the taser probes hit him in the forehead.