Slave Stories

by Bahr, Laura Lee

  The pipers are gearing up for a charge, I can tell, idiot grunts ready to fall for King and Country if it helps bring down a swaggering faggot anarcho-terrorist who’s wreaked royal havoc, I’m proud to say, in the Second City of the Empire today. Today of all days, I can see them thinking as they twitch, inching forward at the corner of my eye. This is our day. This is our big day.

  This is Empire Day.

  They lunge for me, but instead of trying to take them all I backflip, spring-heeled jackboots firing me high over the head of the first to reach me up onto the shoulders of the one behind. I don’t stop there, kangaroo-kicking myself back into the air, but forward this time and into the thick of them, leaping, loping from shoulder to shoulder, piston heels punching me up through the air and them down to the ground behind. I hurdle, somersault and twist this way and that through the gunfire of the militia, headed for the still-smoking rubble of the once-grand entrance to the City Chambers, but with all the directness of a drunken flea.

  <~~O~~>

  With the bastard pipers getting mown down by their blackshirt brethren I could play this game all day, but I’ve got a job to do and the Fox will yap if I don’t do it right, so I snatch a glinting gold baton from a bandleader as I crunch him underfoot, give it a twirl just to annoy them all the more as I set my sights on the goal. Problem is, of course, by now the doors are a kill-zone of cross-fire from inside and out. They know where I’m headed, who I’m headed for—a special visitor for a special day, here to award the winning band with shiny silver trophies and shit. But they don’t have a fucking clue what Jumpin Jack is capable of. I make a high jump, tuck and roll, come down, coiled like a cat for one surprise spring, hit the ground and—

  —hear that imaginary applause as—

  I land on the stone balustrade of the balcony, crouched and grinning like a gargoyle at the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who stands there gawping out at me through the French windows. The Provost is ranting wildly at four Special Support men about, well, I can’t hear his words but I’m guessing that I’ve pissed on his parade. I raise my Curzon-Youngblood in a mirror image of this other Jack’s rising hand, slowly, surely, until we’re both pointing at each other, his finger trembling, my gun-barrel accusation steelcast-steady, chi extending in a straight line from my shoulder to the centre of his forehead.

  I give him a second to feel the fear.

  <~~O~~>

  Let me drop-kick you an update on the dream-state of the nation. We got ID cards and internment, fucking Special Support forces with their lightning bolt insignias. The thought police I’m fighting are in your head, snuggle-bunnies, and it’s time you all woke up to that. The conspiracy is society and every one of you is a fucking sleeper agent of your own worst enemy, the status quo. Scary thought? Scary worldview? As Nietzsche said, all great things must first wear masks of terror in order to engrave themselves upon the hearts of men. You know, I always loved Freddy’s one-liners; man would’ve made a great stand-up. God is dead, badoom tssh. That kills me every time—and makes me stronger too, but then I have a hardy constitution. Others are not so lucky.

  The Foreign Secretary, the Jack Straw that broke this camel’s back, points at me in silence for an exquisitely eternal second, then his mouth is opening, he’s mouthing his horror, and the Provost and the SS men are turning…so I blow him a kiss. And then I blow his fucking brains out.

  That one’s for Puck, motherfucker.

  <~~O~~>

  Charge Sheet for the Arrest of Tamuz Masingiri

  Strathclyde Militia

  Charge sheet

  <~~O~~>

  Defendant’s Copy

  <~~O~~>

  Division: X

  Station Charged: Partick Police Station

  Date of Arrest: 24 April 2006

  <~~O~~>

  Full name: Tamuz Alhazred Masingiri

  Born: 1 April 1984 in Tell-el-Kharnain, Palestine

  Sex: MALE

  Religion: Heathen

  <~~O~~>

  CHARGE(S)

  You are charged with the following offence(s). You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention now something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.

  <~~O~~>

  1 F1900405—refusal to produce ID card on request.

  <~~O~~>

  On 24/04/2006, in Kentigern in the Lanarkshire Region of Caledonia, refused repeated requests to produce identification card, contrary to Section 28, Clause-22 of the Sedition and Security Act (1984)

  <~~O~~>

  Reply: I told him I didn’t have it with me. It’s in my flat.

  <~~O~~>

  Time charged: 16:46

  Date charged: 24/04/2006

  <~~O~~>

  Report of Agent Guy Fox

  The subway station at Calvingrove is busy with commuters and militia at this early hour. The latter in their black shirts and their Day-Glo yellow flak jackets form a gauntlet of security, standing in pairs up at the turnstiles, at the bottom of the escalator, and at various points along the platform, checking ID’S and scrutinising faces. I hand my chipped card over at the bottom of the steps, wait as it’s scanned, then take it back with a polite smile and a tip of my bowler, then stroll out onto the platform just in time for the arriving train. This close to the Rookery—that square mile of ghetto fortress at the heart of Kentigern’s West End—it’s no wonder that security is tight, the Rookery a haven to the dregs and debris of society, the type one really doesn’t want travelling too far beyond their own thieves’ den. Sadly, these blackshirt goons are mostly trained to look for punks or razor mods, common-or-garden crims up to the more banal forms of no good. They’re really not equipped to deal with a master soulsmith like myself, moving in an identity forged from the skinsuit to the credit history. I’ve been Thieves Guild from the age of four and those thirty years have stood me well in my life of subterfuge and subversion. Even the smartpaper nerve-gas pack I’m carrying under my arm is indistinguishable from the newssheet folded round it, by any but the highest range of scanners. The wonders of this modern era: so many gadgets offer so many ways to hide a bomb.

  I get off the underground at St Enoch’s, leaving the newssheet and its contents on the seat, no more conspicuous than the half a dozen Suns and Metros lying scattered around the compartment.

  <~~O~~>

  A short detour through City Central Terminus takes me past a post-box where I despatch the latest batch of anthrax-loaded envelopes addressed to various stars of sports or screens who’ve publicly endorsed the Blair regime. Craven apologists for fascism every one of them, one can only hope they’re shallow enough to open their own fan mail. Outside the front entrance of the wireline station, I climb into a black hack and give the driver a destination that’s halfway to the Rookery, doubling back on my tracks; it never hurts to throw a little randomness into one’s movements.

  I text in a quick bomb threat as the taxi heads up Woodlands Road—using recognised keywords so the authorities will know to take it seriously—then ask the cabby to pull over at a garage for a second. I buy a soft pack of Gitanes and pay with a forged twenty, tapping out a memorized number on the phone and sizing-up the chap behind me in the queue while I wait for my change: a normal-looking fellow in a business suit and cashmere overcoat; it seems a shame to land this on him but needs must when the devil rides. I hit send on the phone and fumble it towards my pocket with a fistful of coins and notes, clumsily bumping into cashmere man as I turn.

  “Sorry,” I say. “All fingers and thumbs today.”

  He mumbles his own apology and steps past me up to the counter, no idea that the phone now sitting in his pocket is not his own, or that in five minutes time he’s going to be standing in a circle of heavily armed militiamen all shouting at him to get down on the ground now. Poor soul.

  <~~O~~>

  Another hack back to City Central Terminus, a quick change of suit in the public toilets (switching the black I�
�m wearing for the pinstripe in my briefcase, the bowler for a fedora), then an airtrain over to the South Side, a third taxi, and I’m walking up to the reception desk at the main entrance of Southern General Hospital, handing over an Imperial passport in the name of Dr Reinhardt Starn. This is a long-term sleeper self I’ve been working on for five years now: a German defector, based in the American Dominions, showing up at conferences around the UK, publishing papers in the journals, corresponding with learned colleagues based in Albion, and awfully eager to at last meet, in the flesh, my fellow expert in the field of biological defence, Dr Shipman who just happens to be giving the Health Secretary, Jack Straw, a tour of his bleeding-edge research facility on this very day that I just happen to be in town.

  “I’ve told him all about your work,” he’d said. “He’d love to meet you.”

  “Well, you know, I’d love that too, Harry,” I’d said.

  I take directions and a clip-on visitor’s pass from the receptionist and, chatting casually with my blackshirt escort, stroll along the corridor to the staff lift, swipe my pass through the electronic lock and, inside, hit the button for Sub-Level 5.

  <~~O~~>

  “So with these nanites in his system,” says Shipman, “a serviceman in Iraq, say, will be able to deal with any of the viral agents or neurotoxins we’re currently using on the field. No more incidents like the Basra Barracks fiasco. I understand your people are working on something similar, Reinhardt?”

  I nod. It’s true, actually; my people are working on nanotech personal defence systems; it’s just that my people are not actually refugees from the Futurist Reich working for the Pentagon, but rather Arturo Guevara and his team, down in the Republic of Venezuela, trying to come up with something that might help the New International Brigades in their struggle for freedom. It’s a pity the Starn identity gets all the glory, really, because Arturo’s work is quite brilliant.

  The Foreign Secretary stands gazing through glass into a quarantine room where cleansuited doctors are injecting all manner of microscopic horrors into a test subject.

  “And when will it be ready?” he asks.

  Not soon enough for you, I think. Arturo’s bitmites, coded to his stolen DNA pattern and transferred with a casual handshake on our meeting, should already be starting to work their wicked ways, replicating through his system, eating Mr. Straw from the inside out. In about six hours’ time he should look like an Ebola X victim, bleeding from every orifice.

  Puck wouldn’t have approved, I know. He’d much rather have had the bitmites rewire Straw’s pleasure centre with an irresistible scatophilia that would have him eating his own shit, time-coded to kick in with maximum compulsion at some public dinner with the Governor Generals of every Dominion and Protectorate in the Empire. That’s what Puck would have wanted.

  But Puck isn’t here.

  <~~O~~>

  Interview with Tamuz Masingiri

  DCG: Interview commences 17:04. Present in the room are DC Powell and myself; Cameron Mackie, solicitor; and Tamuz Masingiri. Right then, Tamuz Masingiri. So why wouldn’t you show me your ID card? It is Masingiri, isn’t it? The fingerprints aren’t going to tell us that your real name’s Mohammed or Moussaoui or something, are they?

  TM: No. That’s—

  DCG: Because you know we can check these things, don’t you? You’re not in the desert now, Tamuz. This is civilisation, son. We do have computers, you know?

  TM: I’m not your son. And, yes, that’s my name. I’m not lying to you.

  DCG: Alright, alright. No need to get stroppy, son. I just want to know that you’re who you say you are. ’Cause if you’re not, you’d be better to tell us now, than have us find out from the records.

  TM: This is stupid. Why would I lie about who I am?

  DCG: I was just asking the question, Tamuz. This is just routine. Just for the record, can you confirm that you are Tamuz Masingiri.

  TM: Yes. I am Tamuz Masingiri. For fuck’s sake—

  CM: DC Griffin, do you have an actual question?

  DCG: All I want to know is why you wouldn’t show me your ID card, Tamuz? You haven’t answered that yet.

  TM: I told you. I didn’t have it with me. I just—

  DCG: And why didn’t you have it with you?

  TM: I forgot it.

  DCG: You are aware of the law, aren’t you? You know you have to carry it? Someone like you, I’d’ve thought you’d know that.

  TM: What do you mean someone like me?

  DCG: Just answer the question, please. You do know you’re legally bound to produce your ID card if requested by a police officer? But, you don’t think the law applies to you? Is that it?

  TM: No.

  DCG: You don’t carry your card for political reasons

  TM: No.

  DCG: because you object to them?

  TM: No.

  DCG: You don’t think you should have to carry an ID card just because the government says so? That’s it, isn’t it, Tamuz?

  TM: I told you. I just forgot it.

  DCG: Where are you from, son? Palestine, right?

  TM: What? Look, I’ve stayed in Scotland since I was four years old. I stay in Glasgow.

  DCG: Scotland? Glasgow?

  CM: Hold on. I’d like to talk to my client in private for a second, DC Griffin.

  DCG: This is Caledonia, son. This is Kentigern. You’ve been hanging around with the wrong sort of people if you’re calling it Glasgow?

  TM: Sorry?

  DCG: Are you a rook, Tamuz?

  TM: What? What are you talking about?

  DCG: You were picked up on the edge of the Rookery. Is that where you live, Tamuz?

  TM: I stay in the Halls of Residence on Southpark Avenue. What’s the Rookery?

  DCG: Oh, pull the other one.

  CM: DC Griffin, I need to talk to my client in private now. Please, stop the tape.

  TM: Just check with the university and they’ll tell you. Take me to my room and I can show you the bloody card.

  CM: DC Griffin.

  DCG: OK, OK. Interview suspended 17:07.

  <~~O~~>

  Report of Agent Joey Narcosis

  Joey clicks the radiovision camera into the tripod stand, flips out the view screen and swivels the fitting with the lever, angles it down to centre the hostages in the frame. They’re all crying. They all know that one of them is going to die.

  Jack and the Fox don’t have the emotional detachment for killing innocents up close and callous. Sure, Jack takes out the odd passenger-laden wireliner now and then, but it’s usually in the heat of battle with a horde of thopters on his tail and militiamen trying to blast his skybike from the air. And, sure, Guy has his schemes of strikes on subways and other such public places, sex-bombs blasting orgone energy through City Central Terminus, prime-time commuters losing their senses to their lust in instant orgies that leave them puking and naked, horrified at the De Sade style excesses perpetrated by their unleashed subconscious; but most of his lethal plans are either carried out at a distance or targeted at the top dogs, the knights and bishops of the Empire rather than the unwitting pawns. When it comes down to it both Jack and Fox need to think their victims deserve what they get, even if it’s just for their complicity in the system. Joey Narcosis has no such sensitivities. His actions selected in accordance with the calculus of survival, Joey’s so deep-chilled that he even files his reports in third person.

  <~~O~~>

  “You can kill Straw,” he’d said, “but they’ll just pull another one out of the vat, burn the meme-pattern into his brain, and bingo-bongo, we’ve got a new Home Secretary just the same as the last one.”

  They’d been sitting in Club Soda, two weeks after Fast Puck’s disappearance, the evening that the word came back to them about a Tamuz Masingiri being picked up on the edge of the Rookery by the blackshirts in a routine street sweeping operation. The boy should have had more sense as far as Joey is concerned, should have been pristine clean and with his skinsui
t airtight to the dotted i’s on the paperwork, but then the fascists might have just been looking for an ethnic to fit-up on a drug bust—easy way to boost the arrest figures for a slow week. Still, Puck knows when to duck and dodge, should have slipped through the sweep like water through a sieve.

  Idiot kid got himself lifted though, and now Jack wants action.

  “So I’ll kill the fucking next one too,” Jack had said. “And the one after that. We just keep fucking killing the bastard until there’s no more of him left.”

  “It won’t bring him back,” Guy had said.

  “But it’ll send a fucking message, a fucking chi-beam text right in the fucking ajna eye.”

  “Assassination is just a Post-it note, mate,” Joey had said. “They’ll look at it for half a second before they bin it. Christ, who gives a fuck about these muppets anymore? There’s always another one to replace the last.”

  “Unless,” Guy had said, “we take them all out.”

  <~~O~~>

  Joey looks at the five hostages huddled on the floor, all dressed in their Guantanamo Bling, as they call it on the street—orange jumpsuits and full body-shackles—wrists locked to the steel belt at the waist, ankles cuffed with a few inches of chain for shuffling. The black hoods are off their heads for now; Joey removed them so he could look into their eyes, figure out which one will give the best performance for the camera, the most frightened. It’ll go out live over the aether and, routed through Don Coyote’s pirate station in the sky, Radio Birdman, the signal should jack every radiovision set in Kentigern. So he wants it to be good, does Joey, in so far as you can say that Joey Narcosis wants anything.

  He scans the line of identikit Straws, looking for the most snivelly and snot-nosed. Frankly they’re all much of a muchness. Vat-grown, crèche-raised, they’re not meant to have individuality; their job is just to eat and shit and sleep until the day comes when they’re called upon to do their duty for King and Country, Edward and Albion. That blank idiocy should make for more impact in the footage, right enough, the terror on the face heightened by incomprehension. With the speed of growth, the clones don’t get to a mental age of more than five in the time it takes their bodies to mature, so Kentigern is going to be watching a retard beg for his life, for his Nursey, for the safety of the Institution. Add to that the fact that the Straws were snatched en route from the crèche to the acceleration tanks to slumber through their breakneck adolescence, and what you have is a retarded child begging for his life.