This Machine Kills

by Steve Liszka

  Jacob left his words hang in the air.

  “What action?” Taylor said, taking the bait.

  “The car bomb that nearly killed Milton. That was her doing.”

  “The poisoning too?” Taylor added.

  “Ah, you heard about that one did you? How he survived that I’ll never know.”

  “So what happened, why did she give up? Why didn’t she keep trying to kill him?”

  Jacob shrugged, “It’s hard to say. After the Uprising… After this,” he pointed at his disfigured face, “it was much harder to contact her. I can only guess why she didn’t finish the job.”

  Taylor adjusted his grip on the pistol, “You say it like you want to tell me what that guess is.”

  Jacob sat up in his seat, “Well since you’re asking, I think she started to care for him. The more she got to know Milton, the harder she found it to kill him.”

  “Do you think she loved him?”

  Jacob shrugged again, “Who can say? All I know is that after a while, we lost contact with her. It was only when the wall started to go up did she contact us again. She said it was time to take action.”

  “And that’s when she decided she needed my help,” Taylor acknowledged.

  “Take it as a compliment,” Jacob answered, recognising the pain in his voice, “of all the people she came across, you were the only one she ever believed in.”

  Taylor thought about how many other men she had tested out before him, and wondered if she had been sleeping with Dyer too.

  “She knew you were more than up to the task,” Jacob said, “you were brave and resourceful and had more than enough experience in the field. The one problem was, she felt that you lacked motivation. She was worried that if she tried to bring you in, you’d say no. That’s why she did it. She arranged her own death, setting it up to make it look like Milton killed her. She knew it was the only way you would get involved.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Taylor snapped, “Charlotte would never have killed herself.”

  “Just think about it,” Jacob said calmly, “how else could someone have got into her bedroom. She provided us with everything; a runner’s pass to get one of our people into the City, security codes to the building, a SecForce uniform for our man to fool her guards. How do you think someone managed to get into the room without you hearing it? Don’t you think she would have screamed? Charlotte planned her own death like a military operation.”

  Taylor was silent for some time.

  “But why?” he finally said quietly, “I would have helped her if she’d asked. I would have done anything for her.”

  “Would you? She didn’t seem to think so.”

  When he spoke again, Taylor’s voice was without emotion, “All I want to know is who did it. Who killed Charlotte?”

  “I’ve already explained that to you,” Jacob answered, “she gave her own life.”

  Taylor shook his head, “That’s not what I mean. Who killed her? Whose hands choked the life out of her? Tell me now Jacob.”

  He was answered by Jacob’s eyes darting towards the door of the room. Whether it was an unintentional move or a signal to him, Taylor wasn’t sure, but as he turned to follow Jacob’s line of sight, he heard a sudden commotion as Christopher wrestled with Doyle and his rifle in an attempt to get past him and out of the room.

  At first they were too close together for Taylor to get a clear shot, but then, using a sudden ripping movement, Doyle wrenched the rifle from Christopher’s grip. Just as quickly, he brought the stock of the weapon back up into the smaller man’s face, lifting him off his feet and onto the floor with a thud. Before he could move, Taylor was already standing over him, aiming his pistol at Christopher’s head.

  “That’s right Taylor, I did it,” Christopher snarled as blood poured from his nose,

  “And do you want to know the best bit?”

  As he smiled, Taylor saw that one of his front teeth had been knocked out,

  “Just before I killed her, she begged me not to. She said that you were going to quit your job and that she was sure she could convince you to help us.”

  Christopher started to laugh, spitting globules of blood over the steel floor,

  “But I did it anyway because I knew how much of a pussy you are. I knew you didn’t have the guts to do it without a push. You haven’t got what it takes.”

  Christopher’s laugh was interrupted by the bullet shattering his kneecap. High pitched screams quickly followed as Taylor aimed the pistol at the bleeding man’s head.

  “You were wrong,” he said, “this is the best bit.”

  Another shot from the gun permanently silenced the screams.

  Taylor turned to Jacob, who despite his burns, couldn’t hide the terror on his face.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, lowering the pistol, “I’m not going to kill you. Just make sure none of your men do anything stupid when we leave.”

  “Leave?” Jacob’s voice crackled at the idea, “You can’t leave, this is just the beginning.”

  “Not for me it isn’t.”

  Jacob painfully dragged himself to his feet,

  “Don’t you see? Once we’ve wiped away the memory of Milton and ClearSkies, we’ll make this city great once more. And once we’ve finished here, we’ll move on to the next one, and the next after that until we’ve completely destroyed his legacy.”

  Taylor shook his head, “You’re wrong. The future doesn’t lie in the cities. Even Milton realised that in the end. The cities won’t last much longer. They don’t need you to bring them down, they’re doing a good enough job of destroying themselves on their own.”

  “No,” Jacob argued, “we just need to cleanse them of the filth that lurks within their walls. That’s what I was put on Earth to do, I realised this when I was trapped in that building. God wants retribution, I can’t rest until he gets it.”

  Taylor shook his head, “Jesus Christ.”

  “Exactly,” Jacob replied, “It’s time for the Lord to return to these people’s lives once more.”

  All Taylor could do was laugh, “Do the rest of them know that you’ve turned this thing into a religious crusade?”

  “Are you really so surprised? You do know that in the Bible, Jacob was a shepherd don’t you?”

  Taylor gave him a mocking smile, “And I thought you said I was the Shepherd.”

  “Oh yes,” Jacob said, only just holding back the smile of his own, “so I did.”

  Taylor let out a tired sigh, “You know something, you’re no different to Milton. He really believed in the bullshit he used to spout too.”

  He turned to Doyle, not allowing Jacob the chance to respond, “Are you ready to get out of this place?”

  Doyle nodded, “Damn right.”

  “You can’t go,” Jacob said, taking a step closer to Taylor, “Charlotte gave her life for you to join us. You can’t turn your back on her now.”

  Taylor stared at the shell of a man that faced him before speaking,

  “I may not have known Charlotte as well as I thought, but there is one thing I know about her. She wouldn’t have wanted this, at least not the way you’re doing it… I am sure of that much.”

  “Where will you go?” Jacob asked following the prolonged pause.

  Taylor avoided the question and turned towards the door. Before going through it, he looked at Jacob for one last time.

  “If you really do believe in that God of yours,” he said, “you better start praying to him for a miracle… That’s the only thing that’s going to save this place.”

  As they exited the room, Jacob’s private army looked to him for guidance on what they should do with the men who had just rejected them. He responded with a slight shake of the head.

  “Let them go,” he said, looking to the memory file on the desk, “we’ve got work to do.”

  They left the City the way they had come in, via the southern gates. The stage where Captain Mason had put up his heroic final stand was nothing
but a burnt out skeleton of timber. It looked like the slightest contact would cause the whole thing to collapse into a pile of ashes. The heat from the conflagration had radiated to the firework store, causing the incendiaries to self-ignite. The two men were now the only audience for the brilliant display of blues, greens and yellows that filled the night sky.

  Once outside the gates, the tiredness that struck Taylor suddenly became overwhelming. He sat with his back against the concrete wall that had divided his two worlds and when he looked at his shoulder, saw that the dressing was saturated with blood.

  “So where are we going?” Doyle asked.

  Struggling to focus on the darkening world around him, Taylor thought of the image on the postcard. Suddenly, instead of straining to see in the darkness, his eyes squinted from the sun’s rays that beamed down on him. As he walked along the beach, he could feel the grains of sand between his toes; taste and smell the salt water in the air. Charlotte was standing ahead with her arms outstretched, ready to embrace him. She had a smile on her face that made him think she wasn’t unhappy with the things he had done.

  “I’ve always wanted to see the ocean,” he answered, “maybe we should go there.”

  He rested his head against the wall and breathed in the sea spray, “Just let me rest here a minute first.”

  The End

  Acknowledgements

  Chris Scholes for editing the book, creating my website and helping me do all the techy stuff that was essential in getting it printed. Cheers pal, you’re a star.

  Jez Webb at Studiowebb, for his awesome cover design. Nice work fella.

  Danny Bowman for sharing his publishing expertise with me. I’m looking forward to seeing what rises from the ashes of the excellent Pulp Press.

  Catriona Watson, for typesetting the book and making it look more professional than it actually is.

  Jim Holgate for lowering his literary standards and reading the book for me.

  My parents; need I say any more?

  My very patient wife Angela for proofreading the book, the teacher in her delighted in correcting my many grammatical errors.

  Steve Eke for introducing me to the world of Woody Guthrie, and to Woody himself whose words not only provided me with the title of my novel, but were also a source of inspiration.