Slow Burn Dark

by A. B. Keuser

  Still, everyone knew what was coming.

  They were both fighters. The dirt under their nails and the sprout caught in one’s tightly curled hair couldn’t disguise it.

  He didn’t hear what was said that turned the ACOOR man’s face to stone, but he saw the first fist fly.

  Saw a blade flick open.

  Henri muttered a curse beside him and they both looked toward the empty peace officer’s station.

  “Do something.” Her command stung like a viper strike. Or maybe that was the nail of the finger she’d shoved into his ribs.

  “What makes you think I can do anything?”

  “No one’s going to hire you to stand around and look pretty, it’s those muscles that get you jobs.” She glanced down and scowled. “And the gun you continually forget to wear, despite fighting tooth and nail for the permit.”

  “You have people you pay for this. I’m not getting stabbed for free.”

  She glared at him and stepped forward, but he caught her shoulder before her boot touched the dusty street.

  “Figure out my brother’s budget issues, and I’ll go work on not getting stabbed for you.”

  Eyes narrowed, she nodded. “Deal.”

  He pulled the wallet from his back pocket and tossed it and his work gloves to Putty. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

  The men had gotten a few hits in on each other. If he stopped them now, it might be enough to sate their anger. For a while, anyway. By the time it wasn’t enough anymore, they’d be back on their respective farms and not his problem anymore.

  No one else waded in to help.

  Being in the muck of any battle was a blur. It didn’t matter if there were three or three hundred. When your opponent was that close, it was all fists, elbows... knees. Even that solitary blade wasn’t as big a concern as the eight appendages he had no control over. Especially as the RTF man focused his slashes and stabs on the one in the ACOOR jumpsuit.

  “That’s enough.” Flynn dodged a fist and stepped out of the arc of the RTF man’s arm.

  He smelled the blood a moment before he felt it. Saw it a half second after he heard the scream.

  The ACOOR man was on the ground, clutching at his head.

  His ear was on the dusty bricks between them

  Clutching the RTF man’s hand—fingers locked around his yellow cuff—before he could throw the knife, Flynn twisted his arm behind his back and squeezed it until the blade dropped. He shoved him back to the group of others in his uniform. “I said, enough.”

  “He started it.” The man’s eyes flicked toward the knife half buried in the dirt between the stones.

  “And you sound like you’re five years old.” Flynn shoved him again when he started toward the man on the ground. “Get your crap and go back where you belong.”

  The man didn’t look at Flynn; his glare was firmly fixed on the earless terrafarmer wailing on the ground. “He gets to stay?”

  Flynn looked down at the man, mouth half open to demand he get out of town too. But his skin was ashen, and dark blood shaded the space beneath his hand—dribbled down his wrist, into the sleeve of his red jumpsuit.

  “As soon as someone reattaches his ear, he’s gone too.”

  A woman in the RTF olive green ran up and, without looking at anyone else, shoved her coworker back. He’d walked away from the altercation with nothing more than a bruised cheek and bloody knuckles. In another part of his life, Flynn would have had to fight the man over keeping the ear as a trophy.

  He thanked the Great Mother those days were over.

  Flynn didn’t turn away until every last RTF employee was loaded into their transport and headed out of town. They took the shortest route through the streets and soon, a billowing cloud of red dust high in the air was the only mark of their passage.

  The ACOOR group stood by their rig, shifting nervously. They watched him, not the retreating cloud.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said to them collectively and turned back to the man on the ground.

  He’d picked up his ear and was staring at it with the dazed look Flynn had seen a hundred times before.

  Limbs had been bad enough. He never again wanted to see a person looking at the lower half of their body sitting a foot away from them. It didn’t matter that they went quickly after that. The moment of understanding etched on their face… that was a memory he’d never be able to remove from his mind.

  It made him queasy now. Over an ear.

  Shaking his head clear, he focused on the items Putty handed back to him instead.

  “Get him up.” Henri barked the order to no one in particular.

  The man started to thank her—something akin to a smile displaying a broken, jagged tooth—started to thank Flynn, but Henri didn’t let him finish.

  “Shut up, Bosco. You don’t get to say a damned word.” Henri glared down at the man until he was on his feet, then she glared up.

  Flynn held him steady on his feet as he tensed, but he kept his mouth shut this time around.

  “Get him to the doctor, get him put back together, and then get him out of my town.” She turned from Flynn back to him. “I don’t want to see you inside the city limits for a month.”

  “Yes ma’am.” The words were barely a whisper, all but drown out by the vigorous wagging of his head. The movement sent more blood dripping down his neck.

  He relaxed as she turned away, only to tense again when Flynn steered him with a squeeze and a twist of his arm.

  Putty walked with them. “If we could super glue that back on, I’d offer to do it myself. But I imagine you’ll want it to work, not rot off in a week.”

  The man made a noise Flynn assumed was fear and went with him meekly.

  They crossed the street and dodged into the back alleys, taking shortcuts to a building Flynn had seen on a dozen other planets.

  The medical unit was a tidy cube that had settled into the grit of the Redlands like a pearl in oyster slosh. It had been dropped from low orbit by the Colarium decades before.

  Emblazoned with sunbleached propaganda posters, in this case, ones of hope and good will. They were deposited on every planet they’d claimed protection over… even ones like Sukiyaki.

  The road ran to the cube’s front door and then broke around it like a river the planet was sorely missing.

  “Is the doctor in?” Putty called out as the doors slid open in front of them.

  “That depends,” Chad said from somewhere in the back, his voice muffled. “If you’re seeking actual medical assistance, or are here to harass my trainee.”

  Putty smiled and Flynn knew he was thinking of ways to perform the latter.

  Flynn wanted the man in their custody gone as soon as possible. “We need the skills of a seamstress, but the only tailor I know is pissed off at your patient.”

  Chad rolled backward, sliding into view with the clatter of casters. “Ah.”

  Flynn didn’t have to say anymore. The doctor pushed to his feet—his chair spinning off to knock against a cabinet before it stopped—and crossed the spotless floor to them.

  “What,” he studied the hand the man cupped against his face, “happened here?”

  “This delinquent decided brawling fist to knife was a good idea, and is now here to pay for damages received.” Flynn pushed him forward.

  With a scowl, Chad held out a small sterile tray for the ear and pulled the man’s hand away from where the fleshy piece of cartilage had once been.

  “This should be easy enough, but I can guarantee you’re going to want to be very sure you never lose another one. It might be the most painful thing that has ever happened to you.” He nodded toward the diagnostic room. “You work for ACOOR? What’s your name?”

  “Bosco,” he said, his voice thin, and the name registered on the comp typing out Chad’s dictation. His full file flicked onto the screen, and the processors scrolled through to the information on allergies and past conditions.

  Chad grimac
ed, but went to work immediately and Flynn heard the man beg for traditional stitches instead of a skin welder.

  Even Flynn knew welders weren’t used above the shoulders… not unless you were willing to risk brain damage.

  Chadrick probably could have knocked his patient out, but he didn’t. Whether to keep the man’s bill down, or because he thought Bosco deserved a little pain in punishment for his part in the brawl, Flynn couldn’t guess.

  He tracked Chad in his periphery as the doctor pulled a micro suture kit from the locked cabinet in the back and returned to reconnect the man’s ear.

  Attention divided, Flynn only caught part of Putty’s distant argument over pingball.

  Chad’s trainee was still on Caireaux. He’d no doubt observed reattachments before.

  Quick, delicate fingers worked, first to clean the wound, then to apply the genetic gel that would allow the blood vessels and skin to grow back together mostly on their own.

  He did watch as Chad pulled a pair of glasses down over his eyes—magnifying them to comic proportions—and set to the task of reattachment.

  His patient was preternaturally still, eyes screwed shut, mouth a sharp line.

  And then it was over.

  The sutures were in, and the glue line—which Flynn knew stung like crazy—would let the man walk away without the railroad scars of previous techniques.

  “You’re going to have a buzzing headache for the next few weeks, grab some pain killers from the store before you head back to the farm.” Chadrick took his tools and tray to the sterilizer station. “Don’t knock it about, and don’t play with it. It’s going to hurt like hell, and it’s going to itch. Don’t scratch it. If you cannot keep from messing with it, cover it. Get someone to tape a patch of gauze over it. The only caution there is that it’ll rework itself closer to your head than it might have been before.”

  Bosco nodded and winced.

  “It’s better if you let it do its own thing. And make sure you don’t sleep on it.”

  Chad nodded toward the door. Putty followed the now-two-eared man out.

  Left without an actual patient, Chad studied Flynn’s neck and his lips twisted in disgust. “I’ve told you. When you’re down in the mines, you have to keep that covered and sealed.”

  “Your prescribed solution was more suffocation than help.”

  “At this rate, it’s never going to heal properly. Even if you do everything right from here on out, you’re never getting away from that scar.”

  Turning on his heel, Chad led the way back to his office and Flynn followed, even knowing his impending fate.

  “I bet you didn’t even hesitate to step into that fight. Didn’t think at all about the fact it might tear you open again.”

  “Actually, I did. But Henri bartered for my assistance, and it was an offer I was willing to accept. Risks and all.”

  Chad sent him a scathing glare and then smacked the chair next to his beside the desk. “Sit. You know the drill.”

  He did as he was told. Obedience was easier than having the doctor chase him through town until they were around someone more than happy to take a side. It was never his.

  “He wasn’t joking.” Andrew’s face appeared on the screen behind Chad’s head. “You’re not a good patient.”

  Winking at the man, Flynn said, “But I’m a great kisser.”

  Andrew blushed. Maybe you’ll have to show me sometime.”

  “You don’t want this baggage.” Chad shot Flynn a look that held all the weight of his previous sermons.

  Unbuttoning his shirt collar, Flynn ignored the grimace that came as Chadrick saw his other scars—and knew how close two of those he could see had come to killing Flynn.

  Looking at the ceiling, Flynn ignored the burn of the stretched skin. The sooner he figured out why he was on the planet, the sooner he could leave it and get away from Chadrick for however long it took his neck to heal beyond the doctor’s ability to prod at it.

  A faint whistle echoed from behind Andrew and the young man finally stopped staring. “Gotta go.” He cast a vaguely harassed look off camera. “See you tomorrow Dr. V. Maybe I’ll see you too.” He winked, then he was gone.

  Shaking his head, Chad never once hesitated in his ministrations. “One of these days, you’re going to tell me who the hell put a noose around your neck.”

  “One of these days, you’re going to accept it’s not important.” Flynn clenched his teeth as Chad touched him again, sending stinging pain clawing its way up his neck.

  “Yeah, right.” Clucking his tongue, he reached for an ugly looking, curved pair of tweezers—Flynn should have been used to the sight of them now. “There are new fibers in the wound.”

  Gritting his teeth as Chad fished around, Flynn tried to distract himself by counting ceiling tiles.

  “So….” Chadrick said as he worked. “Have you solved the mystery of Putty’s nonexistent girlfriend?”

  It would have felt like a sharp swerve in the conversation, if it wasn’t for the fact he tried to bring it up every time they were alone. Chad’s childhood crush might have faded, but no one was more protective of Putty’s love life.

  “Unlike you, I believe she’s real, and also unlike you, I’m not going to ask him to talk about her when he’s made it clear he has grand plans for introducing her to us.”

  Making an unconvinced noise, Chadrick leaned back in and continued with the tiny tugging movements before pressing a warm, wet towel to the four month old wound.

  “Please tell me you haven’t been poking around into her past as much as you’ve been poking around in my neck.”

  The fact his friend wouldn’t look at him as he cleared up his work tray was clue enough he had.

  “I just want to make sure he doesn’t get hurt.” Chad took the cloth away and sprayed Flynn’s neck with something that smelled like black licorice. “After all, we know the Monroes are prone to doing… ill-advised things.”

  Refusing the gauze bandage, Flynn put his hands on Chad’s shoulders and looked him dead in the eye. “Leave it alone. He’s survived this long with only mild supervision. He can navigate whatever’s going on with that relationship on his own. If he asks for help, go to town. If not, it was never our business to begin with.”

  Mouth scrunched with a bit-back argument, Chad nodded in forced agreement.

  “Go away. I’m done with you.” He knocked Flynn’s hands from his shoulders. “But if I see that thing torn open next time, I will attach a bandage to you with a skin welder.”

  “Liar,” Flynn buttoned his shirt and left before Chad could decide he’d missed something.

  The sun was low. The bar was full. Flynn kept walking.

  Too many people in too small a space.

  Dangerous.

  Especially if someone decided to shove him into another fight.

  He let the quickly cooling night air clear his head and dilute the smell of the medical cologne the brief visit to the doctor’s domain had left him with.

  It was a long walk back to the scrap yard he presently called home.

  Putty and Chad had found lodgings in the city center, surrounded by people they were helping, and easy to find.

  Flynn was helping by keeping away. And if he had to get out quick, being on the outskirts would save him much needed time. Being isolated also meant that if things went sideways in the worst possible way, he could minimize casualties.

  He walked without taking his eyes off the dirty pavement. There was no one he wanted to talk to. No one he wanted to see.

  When he used the keycode and passed through the side gate to Nika Kolodjejak’s junk yard, he had a straight-barrel view of the Redlands third most famous spire, the one they called the Anvil. It looked like a rabbit to him. And as he walked down the shadowed aisle amid the hulking wrecks and cast off equipment he—

  A cold spike of awareness slid down his spine.

  Someone—something—lurked.

  He turned a slow circle and stopped when he
saw the figure in a broken shadow. Its movements jerking.

  A ghost of a man.

  Living form, automated soul.

  It was watching him again.

  Cloudy eyes following him in a dead light.

  The Colarium called them the Reanimus Protocol. The rest of the universe called them slags. Lurching dead men with limbs run by Colarium processors welded into their skulls. The waste remnant of the Absolution Conflict’s casualties.

  If he’d dealt with fewer of them in his life, he’d have given into the superstitions so many let claim their minds.

  Slags were not zombies.

  Not in any way a flick would portray them, aside from being among the reanimated.

  The dead man wasn’t stalking him. As long as it stayed where it was, Flynn wouldn’t react. Treating him like a wasp was the only way he’d get a good night’s sleep.

  Flynn shivered at the memory of battlefields. Blood still pumping out of a dead man’s chest as they sat, bolt upright, and killed two more Lazarai soldiers before a headshot destroyed their hardware.

  But this ghost wasn’t a part of the Colarium’s killing force. It might never have been. This was one of the five dead men who roamed the yard like guard dogs.

  Flynn could imagine Nika had sold his soul for the contract that allowed him this little experiment.

  On the battlefield, slags programming meant they put a bullet in anything that didn’t have a Colarium uniform. If a civilian caught a slug, that was their own fault.

  A buggy slag that had slipped its leash in a civilian population like the one around them… that would be a massacre.

  Letting the ghost be—if it was buggy, it would already have come after him—he headed for the ugliest piece of metal on the northern end of the yard.

  Long, blunt lines, the ship would never make it off the planet’s surface without a blasting tank and an atmospheric heat cone, but those were problems he’d deal with when the time came.

  As it was, the ship wouldn’t make it three inches off the ground, much less all the way to the void.

  As it was, he didn’t give a flying fuck.

  He just wanted his bed.

  But as he rounded the corner, he knew he wasn’t going to get one.