Castling

by Jack McGlynn

  Lancet reckoned the resulting moan of displeasure was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard. Greedy, he repeated the tactic, driving his knee up and Rook’s head down.

  The second attempt was markedly less successful.

  Rook plunged his elbow into the rising knee.

  Lancet screamed.

  His other swept in and pounded the ribcage.

  Deflated, Lancet stopped screaming.

  Straightening, Rook acquired for himself two fistfuls of expensive Italian shirt and rammed his forehead unto the bridge of Lancet’s nose.

  Even as tears welled in his opponent’s eyes, Rook was winching him up. He shoved the dazed man bodily into the nearest supporting wall, half demolishing it with the effort.

  “Ok, I was wrong,” Lancet choked, braced against an unstable wall, held aloft by crushing arms, “there’s definitely a brain in there. Only it’s made of granite.”

  Taking the bait, Rook smiled, conceding “It’s a relatively common misco-AH!”

  Lancet had used the last of his strength to trap Rook’s right arm rigid. He then struck hard, below the elbow. The joint hyper-extended. Rook dropped his arms immediately, cradling the injured limb against his side.

  Lancet finally had a point to focus on, an injury to exploit. He just had to stay alive long enough to make with the exploiting.

  Rook made plain his disapproval by punting his target’s torso so hard, it converted the half demolished wall into a thoroughly demolished wall.

  Lancet landed amid a mound of debris, plaster and gristle. Winded, he rolled over a shoulder and onto his back. Rook was advancing again. He had expected to see fury in the man’s face. Irritation at the very least.

  But Rook’s grin had grown wider.

  He’s actually thriving on this.

  Cool terror trickled down Lancet’s spine. He’d fought worse. Surely, there had been stronger, deadlier, crueller foes over the years. But their rage had ever given him the edge.

  Rook was smart, skilled and smiling. Lancet had no idea what to do with that last one...

  “So, how much are they offering for me, these days?” He stalled, retreating into a deep stance, “Just out of professional curio-ah“

  Squatting, Rook launched a cross low into the bladder.

  Lancet palmed it off course and deflected a second from his face with an intercepting forearm. He returned with a blinding one-two of his own.

  Rook swatted the first aside, grabbed the other at the elbow and pulled in. Lancet was jerked forward, off balance. An intercepting blow broke his cheekbone, catapulting him. Lancet flew, jerking his hips off a jutting doorframe as he fell.

  Rook advanced.

  His mark swore, and launched a salvo of frenzied blows.

  Rook’s shin stopped an attack to his thigh. His naturally rounded shoulders met the subsequent high roundhouse without yielding an inch. He ducked a haymaker, covered his ribs from an uppercut. A third, lazy fist headed his way.

  Rook head-butted it. The wrist sprained, its gears and cogs deformed.

  Screaming his frustration, Lancet was reduced to swinging feral arms, each of which Rook smashed down with well placed elbows to the biceps and joints.

  Rook caught a final, last-gasp blow inches from his gut in an iron grip. Simultaneously, his chop tore down into Lancet’s neck like an axe, almost snapping the bones beneath.

  Lancet wavered unsteady in Rook’s grasp. Trembling, aching, his swollen jaws made to speak, but only ragged breath escaped. Steadying himself a moment, the battered mercenary tried again.

  Rook looked on with cool indifference as his mark’s lips struggled to mutter a single word.

  “Gotcha!”

  A compartment withdrew on the prosthetic held in Rook’s grip. A long, spring-loaded blade plunged forward, deep into his side.

  Lancet maintained there was very little point in owning ceramic limbs without literally having a trick up your sleeve.

  *

  “Ow.” Rook worded, gazing down at the ceramic knife sunk four inches into his abdomen. The weapon was housed in Lancet’s forearm, a slight lip on the back of his hand the only seam between knife and limb.

  It took Rook a long moment to react. It had been almost ten years since he’d last had a knife in him. Eventually his spare hand responded, clumsily reaching for the dagger.

  It twisted. Rook inhaled sharply.

  “Ow.” He repeated, and meant it this time.

  Lancet advanced, forcing his stuck enemy back. The bowed figure retreating hastily, not dreadfully keen on the idea of the blade slipping deeper.

  “You know,” he breathed in shallow huffs, perspiration seeping from his brow, “there’s a quip in here somewhere...” Rook’s sweaty hands fumbled the offending forearm, “something about a sticking point...!”

  The blade twisted again.

  “Or not!” Rook spat between gritted teeth. Anxious, he shot an arm out. Catching Lancet under the chin, he frantically pushed the head away.

  Unconcerned, Lancet simply batted aside the half hearted attack, and flung a sharp slap into Rook’s jaw. Opponent jarred, he clasped the hair of Rook’s scalp and closed the distance between them with a step. Unable to pull away or evade, the ceramic blade cut two inches deeper.

  Two inches.

  Two inches was a lot, especially when it came to knives nicking his intestines. But Rook had paid higher prices to get his enemies in on top of him.

  “Okay, okay, I have a better one!”

  His thumb found its way into Lancet’s eye-socket. It gouged at the organ within. A heartbeat later, his knee introduced itself to his adversary’s crotch. Rook was almost surprised to find it defenceless, unprotected by Kevlar plates or robotic contraptions.

  His target momentarily phased, Rook dragged the blade clear of his gut and twisted the wrist (and dagger point) away from him.

  “It’s all punch line, mind...”

  Before the knife wielding assailant could respond, Rook dropped Lancet to one knee by snapping a boot into his other.

  Then he dropped an elbow onto Lancet’s face.

  And a second.

  And a third.

  Before the fourth could land, something flashed. Crimson spurted from Rook’s jaw, splashing the floor behind. He’d almost bent over backwards to avoid getting his neck opened by a second hidden blade.

  Having narrowly dodged another ceramic scalpel, Rook returned his attentions to the first. Vice-like, he clamped the wrist as his free palm slapped hard at the flat of the blade. The thin dagger bowed and snapped, its business end whirling harmlessly across the room.

  But Lancet was already swinging.

  The second blade had popped clear of its housing forearm, already gripped in the older man’s hand. Its dark edge sliced the sinew of Rook’s damaged elbow, even as he hopped clear. Lancet pursued, his knife lancing, slashing, tracing figures of eight - too neat for his opponent to close.

  Side impaled, jaw nicked, elbow hacked, Rook had no intention of being tagged again. So he retreated into the debris field that was once a kitchen, palming away any opportunistic lunge Lancet chanced.

  Feinting left, Lancet pounced in for the exposed neck. Parrying the wrist, Rook redirected the attack, riposting with an elbow up into the armpit. With the crack of ribs, the older combatant backed off.

  They closed again. Rook’s thigh was opened with a long cut. Lancet’s face hit the wood floor, calves hammered by a hard sweep.

  Lancet slashed wildly as he spun to his feet. His first swipe barely caught an evading shoulder. The second was halted by a hammering blow to the arm. The third narrowly missed spilling the contents of Rook’s insides.

  Body swimming in painkillers, it was Lancet’s fear, not pain, that caused him to tremble.

  A final reckless charge was seized at the wrist and its dagger re-circulated. Rook’s brute strength overcame the mechanical arm. It bent, and suddenly the razor tip was inches from Lancet’s face. The old killer was powerless to resist as
the blade edged closer to his right eye, the darkened dagger casting an ominous shadow.

  “You’re really... urggh”

  Lancet’s prosthetics had not been cheap. Extremely potent, durable and sturdy, his limbs remained the very best money could buy. But the virus coursing through Rook’s veins was not available for purchase. And it made Lancet look positively underprivileged by comparison.

  “... after your money’s worth, eh?!”

  Lancet gulped down a deep breath. An unlikely click and low hissing (that Rook really didn’t like the sound of) emanated from the back of his throat. A heartbeat later Lancet spewed a jet of Tear Gas right into Rook’s face.

  Rook pitched backward, eyes streaming, chest racked with splutters. His footing lost on the demolished marble detritus, he crashed shoulder first into the ground. He growled, clawing at the poison harassing his corneal nerves.

  His record for besting Tear Gas this severe was seventeen seconds. But as he imagined Lancet advancing, twirling the blade in his hand, he suspected he’d have to do better.

  Three.

  He nipped up to his feet and threw a hard, blind roundhouse, hoping it would be accurate enough to knock the blade from Lancet’s hand. A scything whir implied the knife spun across the room. A reverberating thunk suggested it lodged in a nearby doorframe.

  Ha! Someone up there likes me Rook mused, arms deciding to guard his head.

  A hard kick caught him in the groin.

  Obviously not too much... he groaned, dropping to one knee, wanting to cry.

  Rook felt himself dragged up by his scarlet harness. Something hard bounced off his teeth. Gums bleeding, he felt his injured elbow jerked straight. The same hard something bounced off the wounded joint.

  Eight.

  Fighting blind, stalling for time, Rook followed a left hook with a whipping back heel. Unfortunately Lancet had regained his composure. An outstretched arm deftly stopped the hook, his torso weaved under the spinning kick. His riposte was to hop, spin and force the heel of his right foot into Rook’s sternum.

  Sailing backwards into the living room, Rook clocked the back of his head off a table corner.

  Eleven.

  Tears streaming down his cheeks, he struggled to his feet. A hard cross to the jaw sent him back down. Rolling, he sent two of his own chasing his unseen attacker. The first was struck down by a deadening block. The second, incidentally his injured right, was caught underarm and wrenched.

  Drooling, Rook felt the agonizing tug as his wounded limb was lifted high. Lancet’s back slammed into Rook’s front. Driven backwards, he found himself pinned to the far wall.

  Oh pants.

  Lancet jack-knifed the elbow, slamming the already hyper-extended joint onto his shoulder. Rook’s elbow popped, just as his body burned through the last of the Tear Gas.

  Ha! Fifteen: New P.B.

  His mark was already smiling. Another victory, yet another notoriously tough meta-human systematically picked apart. Basking in his own genius, Lancet was caught wholly unawares as a thick arm reached around and coiled itself about his throat. Airway constricted, he could barely shriek as Rook whispered softly in his ear,

  “Did you just give me your back, Sean?”

  Out in his peripheral vision, he saw Rook’s mangled arm cock back, fingers extended.

  Lancet’s blue eyes grew wide in terror.

  Iron-rigid fingers tore into his vertebrae with a sickening crunch.

  *

  Sean dropped, sensation below his hips seeping away. He bounced off the living room carpet, his legs unresponsive. Hyperventilating, he scrambled forward on his elbows, away from the sadist who’d just maimed him. With no small effort, he turned himself, back lying on the rough fabric, flaccid legs askew.

  Horrified, he propped himself up on his hands,

  “What? What did you do?” he demanded, breathless, slapping at his limbs, urgently willing them to move. When they refused, his fear swelled.

  “Well, Sean...” Rook responded, looming above. A sudden vigour doused the man. His yellow eyes shined, vibrant. His wounds had calmed. Injuries to the abdomen and face no longer wept. Closed, the blood about them already ebbed.

  And that persistent smile, cold, calculating, cruel, beamed down at him still,

  “... let’s just say you won’t be hiking through the Alps again in a hurry.”

  As if to punctuate, Rook’s wrestled his dislocated elbow, repositioning it with an ugly snap.

  Testing the wriggling digits of his right hand, Rook strolled toward his freshly paralyzed target. He gave the limp appendages a cautionary tap with the toe of his boot, making sure of his work. Sean whimpered, not from pain but from the frightening lack of it.

  “In case you’ve yet to notice,” Rook announced, peering down at his mark over folded arms, “I am here to deliver a message.”

  Sean set his jaw. He had been “delivering messages” long enough to realise his life was at an end. Teeth chattering, he stared up at his relentless attacker and spat,

  “Do it then.”

  Rook’s sharp nose scrunched at that.

  “Um... I already did. Have you not worked it out yet?” he kicked the sagging, sinewy limbs once more, “It wasn’t exactly subtle.”

  Sean was turning white, as much a product of his growing dread as the signal loss between his brain and the half dozen implants in his lower half. Rook clarified,

  “You’re being left intact, dummy.”

  Sean’s eyes narrowed, his temper temporarily offsetting his anxiety,

  “Intact? Intact?! Are you trying to be funny?!” he spat, dark bile spewing from dry lips.

  Without his regularly scheduled secretion of treatments, Sean’s body was already beginning to reject his augmentations. These and other similarly important signals were typically carried through the spine.

  Which in turn, typically wasn’t severed.

  “Pipe down! You’re still technically in one piece.”

  Back still arched, racked by the occasional spasm, Sean inhaled deeply and locked eyes with his attacker,

  “You should have killed me. It was a mistake not to because now I plan on putting all my not inconsiderable resources, and attention, into you. And those you work for.

  I’ll come for you, Rook. I’ll stroll right into your home. And when I do, you are going to wish you had the intelligence to end me when you had the chan-“

  Sean’s rant was cut short as the sole of Rook’s boot casually depressed the man’s windpipe. He flailed, thrashing underfoot, gargling a final breath of bile and phlegm.

  Rook didn’t say anything. He struggled to vocalise threats convincingly, too often coming across as disingenuous or ironic. Luckily, his frame was much more adept at getting the message across. He twisted the ball of his foot on the older man’s throat, as if stamping out a discarded cigarette. It seemed to do the trick.

  Considering he lay in a pool of his own blood and excrement, in his own home, outsmarted and half crippled by a fighter who had now quite obviously been restraining himself, Sean could safely attest to never having been as scared in his life.

  “Why?” the broken convict asked. Shivering, an expression of resignation fell over his choking features.

  “Now he asks me! It’s actually just as you said; it all comes down to reputation.

  Specifically yours.

  You did something as simple, as trivial as slipping a scalpel into Cracker’s eye-socket and you became an instant legend. Your rates quadrupled. You jumped to the number one slot on every most wanted list. As I understand it, cadets are still told horror stories about the man who finally took down one of The Siblings.

  As you said, you’re kind of a big deal Sean. You weren’t lying.

  So, why batter the notorious Lancet? Why cripple one of the planet’s most feared individuals in his own home? Why step on his neck and chuckle while he writhes and messes himself?!

  Take a sodding guess, Sean!

  I don’t need you to r
un to your friends, tail between your legs and tell everyone how scary and handsome I am. You know cameras these days; always someone watching.

  It’s out. You have been beaten. And I’m letting you walk away... figuratively.

  Test me and next time I will turn you into a dead person. And that’s me at my most literal, Sean.

  But for now at least, and until I arbitrarily decide otherwise... congratulations, you’re off the hook.”

  Message delivered, hostilities ceased, Rook removed his foot from the windpipe. Air filled hungry lungs. As Sean clawed for oxygen, eventually rolling onto his front, Rook strolled deeper into the only room that had escaped complete annihilation.

  He swiped a few tissues from a box on the mantelpiece and sauntered back to his suffering mark. Rook crouched, handing the tissues to his former associate.

  “Clean yourself up, man. You’re a mess.” He chided as Sean dabbed the dark fluid staining his cracked lips and swollen chin. Visibly shaken, supported on a propping elbow, Lancet gestured to the younger man, flapping soiled tissue as he did so,

  “No arguments here. But for the record, I’d like to remind you that the overwhelming majority of that, is actually yours!”

  Rook tilted his head and considered for a moment the deep stab wound in his side, the swelling at his recently relocated elbow joint, the gash across his thigh and the assortment of minor, closed lacerations about his face.

  “You’re absolutely right.” Rook concurred.

  And remembering the warning Molly had issued, he threw a friendly thump into Sean’s prone shoulder, adding,

  “I’m just going to jump in the shower.”

  Incredulous, Sean’s jaw swung open.

  *

  Torcher typically left performance reviews until breakfast, when the mind was fresh. Her lieutenants’ reports were typically thorough enough to hold ‘til the morning. Additionally, they both had the sense (and stones) to wake her should the sky start falling.

  But for a firsthand account of how her consultant, her tactician kindled the first real embers of her society’s infamy; she was willing to let her bed wait her a few hours more.

  The Smartglass of her desk tolled 2:07am precisely as she edged forward in her chair. Fingertips meeting in an arch, she asked,