Angels and the Bad Man

by M. K. Gibson

  But many sinful things were done for a greater good.

  Was it for the greater good that a boy grew into a freak of a man? One that aged so slowly, he was nigh immortal? Was it fair that the same boy had to suffer so much pain only to heal as if the pain had never been, so he could be freshly injured over and over?

  Isaac placed his hand back on the tube. When Abraham cast his stern glare back over his shoulder, Isaac met the look with an equal one of his own. The two men stared at one another in the love, and seething hate, that only a father and a son can have for one another.

  The elevator opened and the underground research and development bunker opened before them.

  “Bring her,” Abraham said, and Isaac obeyed.

  The work was done. Abraham McMillan had completed the setup and the testing. Everything was operational. The computer simulation and modeling was complete. Abraham looked at his son, who watched the computer monitor with glistening eyes.

  “Isaac,” Abraham began, looking for the right words and not finding them. He stared at his son, who had lit a cigarette in frustration. Abraham took the smoke from his son’s mouth.

  “These will kill you, you know.”

  “Not really, Dad. You saw to that.”

  “Yeah, I guess I did,” Abraham replied and took a drag off the smoke.

  “You still smoke?”

  “From time to time. It wasn’t something I advertised. Co-CEO for Kurasawa-McMillan and Lead for R&D didn’t leave me time to enjoy a good smoke. Mmm . . . Salems. My favorite.”

  “Like Granddad used to smoke,” Isaac noted, and Abraham nodded.

  “Yeah, dad did like his Salems.” Abraham took another puff and handed the cigarette back to his son.

  Abraham took a moment to look his son over, to find the words. “I’m sorry for what I said, son. It wasn’t your fault. Never blame yourself,” Abraham said, his voice cracking.

  “Dad—” Isaac said, but Abraham cut him off, closing the distance between them, and grabbed his son in a tight hug. For a moment, he felt as if he could never let the boy go. Isaac returned the embrace and the two of them shared a special moment. They wept and held each other.

  Another moment of the embrace and then Abraham broke the hug.

  “It’s time, boy.”

  “Time?” Isaac asked.

  “You have to kill me now.”

  ********

  A bolt of lightning went through me.

  //HOST - AWAKEN//

  What the hell?

  //HOST - YOU AND YOUR YOUNG COMPANION ARE IN MORTAL DANGER - YOU MUST AWAKEN – YOU ARE CURRENTLY IN A MENTAL OVERCLOCK - YOUR SYSTEMS HAVE BEEN ACCELERATED TO ALLOW FOR DISCOURSE//

  What was that shock?

  //ELECTRICAL CURRENT COMBINED WITH ADRENALINE ADMINISTERED TO YOUR BRAIN AND HEART SIMULTANEOUSLY//

  Why?

  //TO COUNTER THE EFFECTS OF THE TOXINS YOU INGESTED DURING YOUR MEAL//

  I was drugged?

  //CORRECT//

  Jesus! I don’t have time to be drugged! Why didn’t you wake me sooner?

  //COLLECTIVE DID NOT SEE MORTAL DANGER AT THE TIME AND HOST REQUIRED SUSTENANCE AND REST - DIRECT CONTACT PROTOCOL HAD NOT YET BEEN MET//

  But . . . damn it. OK, fine. What’s changed?

  //HOST’S WOULD-BE DOMICILE MATRON CONTACTED UNKNOWN HOSTILES WHO ARE CURRENTLY CARRYING HOST INTO PROCESSING PLANT BENEATH FIRST HEAVEN’S WHITE STONE KEEP//

  Processing plant? Processed into what?

  //FERTILIZER//

  Were going to be ground up into fertilizer?!

  //NEGATIVE - LIQUIFIED - CHEMICALLY DISSOLVED INTO BASE MATERIALS FOR FERTILIZER//

  That bitch!

  //INDEED//

  How did you find out?

  //COLLECTIVE OVERHEARD CONSPIRATORS DETAIL THEIR PLANS - QUERY: COLLECTIVE ASSUMES THRESHOLD FOR MORTAL DANGER DIRECT CONTACT PROTOCOL HAS BEEN REACHED//

  Hell yes! Good job. Are the drugs out of my system?

  //ALMOST - COLLECTIVE WILL ADMINISTER ANOTHER ADRENALINE CHARGE - HOST WILL EXPERIENCE EXTREME DISCOMFORT NOW THAT HOST IS CONSCIOUS//

  I had a few things to take care of. First, I was going to have to assess which of these bastards had my weapons, which they no doubt took. Second, I would have to see how many of them there were. Third, establish where I was. Fourth, see what condition TJ was in, and fifth, kick the living shit out of said bastards and save TJ.

  OK, Collective, hit me.

  //UNDERSTOOD - AGONY COMING//

  Got it. Just do it.

  Lighting hit me again. It coursed through me in rolling waves of perpetual pain. The body’s natural reaction is either to go into shock or to pass out. Neither option was available to me. I had to ride the wave of pain. To embrace it. Make it part of my very being. My eyelids opened incredibly slowly and it seemed like it took minutes.

  Once my eyes came into focus, I saw them. Our assailants.

  The soon-to-be-dead men.

  From my position I knew I was lying down and that I was on a flatbed mag-lift hover mover. There was a powerful stink in the air, like sulfur mixed with a slaughterhouse. Considering where The Collective said we were going, I probably wasn’t far off the mark.

  We were moving down a long, circular, white stone hallway maybe eight feet across and lit by overhead lamps. We were in a lined procession. There was one guard, a female guard in combat fatigues, pushing an unconscious TJ on a mag-lift, with two more walking ahead of them. They were all armed with conventional sub-machine guns that I couldn’t tell the make of from where I was lying. But it looked like none of them had my blasters.

  I couldn’t turn my head to look around and see how many were behind me, else they would know I was awake. So, I just listened.

  Within close range of us, I counted eight, including my own and TJ’s. Six guards to deal with. There were three ahead of me, one pushing my mag-lift, which left two more. The ones behind me had to be dealt with first. They were the unknown quantity. After that, I had to take out the other three guards.

  With the flimsiest of battle plans formed, I was ready to fight six men and women, possibly killing them.

  Damn it.

  But they didn’t leave me much choice. While trying to kill me sucks, that I could live with. But they wanted to dissolve me and a child, turning us into liquid poo-goo. Food for plants. So I counted that as reason enough to waste them.

  Freaking poo-goo-juice. My life blows sometimes.

  Biding my time, I remained motionless. If I got into a fight in here, then any gunfire could turn a tight hallway into a deathtrap. A ricochet could take out a hostile while my personal shield kept me safe. But TJ had none of that, and I couldn’t risk it. So I remained on the mag-lev sled, periodically cracking my eyes open to see where we were going.

  We moved though the hallway into some sort of large, open processing lab. Stainless steel tables of various shapes and sizes were everywhere. Surgical tools could be seen on steel gurneys, and the room had a strong scent of blood. Massive stainless steel cylinders lined the room with piping coming in and out of them, going to various destinations above.

  There was a recession in the floor leading to a circular contraption in the center. It was about twenty feet in diameter and it was covered with what looked like a slide-away iron plate. Despite being covered, I could smell something caustic.

  If my guess was correct, the tables were where any required dissection was performed. The remnants were tossed into the covered acidic pit. From there, whatever was dissolved was filtered, processed, stored, and distributed through the stainless steel cylinders as the base chemicals First Heaven needed to keep year-round growth.

  You know, I think I’d call the whole thing efficient and cool, in a macabre way. That is, if TJ and I weren’t about to be dissolved.

  “Put them over here,” one of the guards said. “Strip them down first.”

  “I know my job, Randall,” a female voice said.

  “Then do it.”


  “Are they going in whole, or are we chopping them up first?” a different male voice asked.

  “Boss said to make it painless for them,” Randall said.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, ask him.”

  “What’s the difference?” a different female voice asked. “Dead’s dead.”

  Randall sighed. “You remember those native folks we had in here while back? When the drugs wore off once they were in?

  “Oh hell, I remember,” the first female said. “We had to hear them scream for several minutes until they were dissolved.”

  “Exactly,” Randall said. “So if boss wants it to be merciful, we do it right. Slit their throats and let them bleed out first.”

  “You got it. Dibs on the kid,” one of the men said.

  “What, you have a fetish?”

  “No, bad back. Kid weighs less and once he’s bled, he won’t be an issue.”

  Something inside me broke, hearing these fuckers talk about our murder, TJ’s murder, with a casual tone. Each one of them had to die.

  I had no idea where we were, or where we had to go yet. But anyone who butchered people–-children—like this deserved nothing short of my hands around their throats until their eyes bulged, they kicked, coughed, shit, and died.

  My eyes snapped open.

  “No!” I roared, jumping to my feet. “Not today, motherfuckers!”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Fragments and Fluid

  I jumped off the mag-lift with amazing speed right at the guard behind me, roaring like a goddamn lion!

  And promptly got punched in the face by the guard pushing the lift.

  See, the only problem with the surprise guttural roar is that it elicits the fight-or-flight instinct in people. Usually people freeze or run. But once in a while you come across someone who reacts with a hard straight-right that breaks your nose.

  “Oh, goddammit!” I yelled as I felt my nose break.

  I lurched for the guard who punched me in the face, who followed up his punch with a clubbing left hook. I threw my right arm, blocking it while throwing a hard jab to his windpipe with my left. He gasped and hit the ground coughing, trying to breathe. Fastest way to take somebody out of a fight was really simple. Remove their sight or ability to breathe.

  Three guards turned, fumbling for their weapons. I had no time. So I just moved forward to the next guard who had been behind my mag-lift. A tough-looking female also in combat fatigues, who raised a snub-nosed compact machine pistol. Grabbing the guard I hit in the throat, I dodged as best as I could as she fired a short, controlled burst.

  I mentally applauded her combat reflexes, as she only fired a measured burst in a sudden combat situation instead of employing a video game kid’s spray ’n’ pray technique. But at the same time, she had piss-poor battlespace awareness: You NEVER fire your weapon unless you are one hundred ten percent sure you are going to hit your target. Otherwise, your allies might come down with a nasty case of friendly fire.

  My human shield absorbed the attack as I let go and rolled across the floor, knocking over several of the steel tables with a crash of surgical instruments. I peeked my head around my makeshift barricade to get my bearing. Each of the remaining five guards had weapons drawn. Well, shit.

  “Give up!” I heard Randall call out.

  I almost rolled my eyes. “No! Why the shit would I do that?” I called out from behind cover. Peeking around as low to the ground as I could, I could see the feet of three of the guards standing in the cluster. I couldn’t see the other two from this position, but if they were smart, they were moving into flanking positions. I needed a damn weapon, and fast.

  Rolling across the floor low, I fired nano-filament line from my tech bracer. The micro harpoon pierced the ankle of a female guard standing in the cluster.

  She screamed.

  I yanked hard, pulling her feet out from under her. She fell flat on her back, firing a burst from her weapon. Rolling again through another table for cover, I pulled harder on the line, dragging her towards me. As I’d hoped, she flailed and grabbed onto table legs and anything else she could. The motion and noise was enough of a distraction. I commanded the actuator to disengage and the line zipped back into my bracer.

  “Vera! Vera, are you all right?”

  “No! Shoot him!”

  “Where is he?”

  “How the hell do I know?!”

  “Hold on, we’re coming.”

  “Where the shit am I going to go?” Vera winced, gripping her ankle.

  I moved around the outskirts of the lab on all fours, trying to keep distance between me and the troops. I dared to peek my head up for a second. Three of the guards were performing a slow sweep through the tables looking for me. The fifth, the one with the bad back, was standing over TJ.

  I had to get to the kid. I had to wake him up. I had to get us out of here.

  Peering around, I saw the guards get to Vera. Two of them had to sling their weapons to help her while the third stood guard with his weapon drawn. I had to make a move. God, I hope this worked.

  I picked up one of the large steel tables with a heave. With another roar, I hurled it at the group. The table crashed into them with a clang of steel and a spray of gunfire. Turning, I sprinted at the trooper standing guard over TJ. He saw me coming and aimed his weapon.

  But not at me.

  “Stop! Or I swear I’ll kill him!” the bastard sneered, aiming the gun at TJ.

  If I stopped, they’d kill us both regardless. If didn’t, TJ might get shot. Damn it. I only had a split second to make a decision.

  I stopped, throwing my hands up. I just couldn’t risk it.

  At that range, if he got a lucky shot off, TJ would have no chance. Maybe this way, I could think of something or bide my time. From behind me, I heard the others pushing the table off them and drawing their weapons.

  “Well, that was stupid,” the guard said.

  Then he shot TJ in the stomach.

  “NO!” I screamed.

  TJ’s eyes flashed open. The boy’s mouth was open as he tried to scream, but the pain prevented him from drawing breath. His young face was a mask of wordless agony.

  Something . . . broke, inside me. There was no thought. No reason.

  Only a target.

  I fired my left nano-line into the guard’s throat. Once I felt it engage, I pulled hard, jerking the guard directly towards me. I fired up the mass inducer and energy shield in my right bracer. The stumbling guard fell face-first into the hardest overhand right of my life. Human flesh and bone collided with the technological equivalent of a two-hundred-pound sledgehammer.

  The man’s head broke, collapsing inward, fracturing along the skull’s fusion plate. He dropped to the ground dead, but I kept hitting him anyway.

  “HE . . . WAS JUST . . . A BOY!” I yelled, striking the guard over and over until there wasn’t anything left of his head but fragments and fluid.

  The first burst of gunfire hit me in the back. Through the shield The Collective threw up, and my fury, I barely felt it. The next burst was more like being hit by hail. The third was like being kicked by a mule.

  The firing stopped briefly, and what was left of my rational brain reasoned they were reloading.

  TJ, I thought. I have to protect him.

  My shield came down just long enough for me to take a few staggering steps towards the boy. I could hear him crying. Tears of pain and fear rolled down his face. I didn’t know what to say, or what to do. I had no idea how much ammo they had. But I did know I had to hold out until they were empty.

  I scooped TJ off the table and quickly curled up with him on the ground, doing my best to shield him with my own body. I felt for a pulse, and it was there, rapid and thready. His body was going into shock. I ripped his shirt open to evaluate the wound as best as I could.

  The burst had hit TJ in the lower stomach, to the right of his navel, probably perforating his intestines and appendix. The gunfire wasn’t
going to kill him. It would be the blood loss, shock, bile, and potential sepsis that did him in.

  Unsat.

  No.

  This kid was going to live.

  I heard the snap-and-clack of the guards reloading and cocking their weapons. Curling around TJ, I waited. The barrage of bullets began striking my back, head, and legs. My shield deflected the actual bullets, preventing them from penetrating me. But little could be done about the kinetic impact.

  The Collective did its best, pumping adrenaline into me and performing triage. But the only things I could do was lie there and shield TJ as hundreds of rounds slammed into me, over and over. The pain nearly caused me to black out, and it was only because of the scared, crying boy beside me that I clung to consciousness.

  “It . . . hurts,” TJ croaked between bursts.

  “I know . . . I, ngg, know,” I grunted back. “Just . . . hang on.”

  “Am I . . . dying?”

  “No, no of course not.”

  “I’m . . . cold.”

  There was a puddle of blood beginning to form under us and TJ was getting pale. Shit shit shit SHIT!

  When the bullets stopped for the next reload, I commanded the shield down and looked over my shoulder. My head swam with double vision. No doubt the bullets to the head had given me a slight concussion. I spotted the dead guard’s weapon and reached my right leg back, pulling on the tac-sling with the toe of my boot.

  Grabbing the gun, I aimed as best as I could, firing a burst of rounds. I hit one of the four, but my eyesight was garbage. The remaining three began to scatter. Desperation kicked in. I tuned over, putting my back to TJ and throwing my legs open wide, stabilizing my base.

  Concentrating as best I could, I took aim before the next round of fire came in. I willed The Collective into an overclock. Everything slowed, including me, but I needed the time to process the targets and any incoming fire.

  There were three targets. The wounded guard, Vera, was diving for cover. The other two were holding their ground to my right, taking aim. Tracking their movements, I ended the overclock and the world returned to normal speed.