by Rob Lopez
Amped
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 Rob Lopez
All rights reserved.
E-book Edition
Second Edition, January 2014
www.roblopezblog.blogspot.co.uk
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
End
What Now?
1
Alex Harvey wasn’t much of a runner.
But he thought he’d try his hand anyway.
His legs were pumping hard, and the pain killer wasn’t having much effect, but he was gaining on the lead runner. The greyhound track was dimly lit, and there were only a few spectators in the stands, growling their encouragement. His spiked running shoes pounded the dirt, throwing up clods of mud. It might have been okay for the dogs, but it was a bugger for athletes to run on.
The stimulant in his blood sharpened his senses, cutting through the fog that was trying to shut his brain down. The blood booster in his veins sucked in every bit of oxygen that his panting lungs would give it. He hadn’t trained for this though, and the leader was pulling away again, glancing behind him.
Alex glanced back too, seeing the bloke in third place grimacing as he pushed through the pain barrier, his teeth bared as he closed the distance. With his shoes slipping as they rounded the bend, Alex pushed harder, trying to maintain his lead.
It wasn’t enough. By the time they hit the straight, the leader had pulled away, and the pack behind Alex was starting to crowd him. His heart hammered against his chest and his vision started to blacken round the edges. Alex tried once more to pick up the pace, his breath hissing like a snake caught in a mangle. His tunnel vision got narrower and his head pounded with each beat of his heart.
Big Nick had twenty grand on him for this race. Alex had promised him he could win it. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d promised him, of course, but if he didn’t deliver something now, he’d better get out of town before he got a visit from Nick’s goons.
Final stretch now and he’d dropped to third place. Fuck. This dog shit track was killing him.
A beam of light shone in his eyes, blinding him, and for a minute he thought someone was shining a torch from the stands.
Then he heard the whop of rotor blades and saw the police helicopter come low over the track, its searchlight throwing everything into sharp relief.
Game over. Everyone was running all over the place now, trying to avoid getting rugby tackled by the coppers swarming through the stands.
Alex shook his head, trying to clear his vision, and leapt the track rail, heading for the tunnel. The appearance of a police car there changed his mind, and he veered off. A fat copper yelling profusely tried to grab hold of him, but Alex streaked clear of his grasp, watching him fall flat on his face. Hoisting himself onto a billboard, Alex grabbed at a strut on one of the stands and flipped himself up onto the corrugated iron roof. The helicopter searchlight caught him as he pounded along the rattling sheets and he jumped down on the other side, rolling as he landed on the wet grass of a cow field.
Police lights flashed blue in the car park and Alex sprinted away into the darkness, straining his eyes for electric fencing or barbed wire in his path. His night vision was completely shattered though, and he didn’t see the coppers waiting for him until it was too late.
“Hold it right there!”
Alex veered off as torches picked him out, then he went down as the taser barbs bit him and convulsed his body. With his muscles twitching at an obscene rate, his heart accelerated to an unbelievable crescendo, and Alex’s last thought was: Shit, he’s killing me.
2
Alex woke up in a hospital room. Very nice, flowers and all. Smelt fresh. When he sat up however he found his wrist handcuffed to the bed rail. That was when he remembered.
The last time he’d woken up in a room like this was when his undercover vehicle was blown up by an IED. That was his last tour, and it should have been his last everything. The Sudanese guide he was with had been, by all accounts, completely ripped apart. His teeth were embedded in Alex’s arm. He’d been lucky, they said.
Two months spent chained to a radiator in a basement in Al-Kufrah didn’t strike him as being that lucky. Especially when the English Government wasn’t particularly keen to negotiate his release. It took a bout of Yellow Fever to finally get him shipped home, and even then he got billed for the flight.
The door opened and a police sergeant entered, some fat bloke who looked really serious. Alex hoped it wasn’t the one who fell over trying to catch him. The sergeant tutted and shook his head.
“What is it with you, Alex?” he said. “Will you never learn?”
“I’m not Alex. My name is Schubert von Nutstrangler, and I just happened to be out jogging that night.”
The sergeant sat down on a chair, sighing with the effort. “If only your DNA could lie as fluently as you, eh?”
“It would if I could afford it.”
“I don’t think so. And by the way, we know where you live as well.”
“No fixed abode.”
“42 Chester Street, flat 3, shared with the other dope fiends. And your mother’s not Emma Watson.”
“I wouldn’t have minded.”
“Dame Watson’s old enough to be your grandmother. And you’re walking a tight line.”
Alex lay back and stared at the light on the ceiling.
“You realise, son, that you tested positive for seven illegal substances. Seven.”
There was an interesting cobweb by the light. Not such a clean room after all.
“You were a walking chemical factory.”
“Running chemical factory,” corrected Alex.
“Running to your grave son. The ambulance crew almost couldn’t save you. A few minutes late getting here, and you wouldn’t have made it. Is winning some race really worth dying for?”
A stupid question. “Yes.”
“No. It isn’t. Do you know how many of these so-called enhanced athletics events we’ve broken up this year? Fourteen. And we’re going to keep on doing it. It doesn’t make sense for you to carry on. Isn’t normal athletics good enough for you? We’ve still got some sports venues left, and they’re all kosher. Join a club, enter the Olympics and bring us home a medal. Isn’t that enough?”
Alex studied the ceiling again.
The sergeant looked disappointed. “I know your record son. I served too. I know you were in special forces, and you did more than most blokes manage in a lifetime. Maybe you’re bitter, getting sold out like that. I know there’s a lot of ex-forces blokes struggling with civilian life. You’re not special. Get a grip son, because you’re not winning anything. If you don’t change tack now, you won’t make thirty, and I don’t see what’s so great about that. Be as cocky as you like, but I see hundreds like you coming through the system, and they end up either dead or in prison. Is that really what you want?”
“Prison’s full, and what I really want is for you to take these cuffs off and bring me a sandwich, because I’m starving.”
The sergeant stood up. “I don’t know what else I can do for you, to be honest. I’m trying to help you out.”
“You can start by not calling me son. And I’m not bitter about my time. It was a good crack. I’d do it again.”
The sergeant frowned and turned to leave.
“Brown bread,” called Alex.
“Tha
t’s what you’re going to be if you’re not careful,” said the sergeant, opening the door.
3
Bail papers in hand, Alex left the police station and crossed the busy Warley Road in bare feet, his spiked shoes hanging around his neck. He was still in shorts, but the sun was out, and while he wasn’t about to burst into song, he felt pretty good. Binning the papers, he ducked into a charity shop, pretending to admire the cracked ornaments in the window display whilst actually looking down the road.
There was a solitary car parked on double yellow lines, a nerdy bloke at the wheel staring in his direction. He didn’t look like one of Nick’s typical goons, but Alex was sure Nick would be after him, and the guy looked suspicious. He jogged out of the shop and down the high street, checking behind him now and again.
Sure enough, the car pulled out and started to follow him.
Picking up the pace, he turned a corner and dashed across the road, running into a shopping arcade. A security guard eyed him suspiciously and spoke into his radio but Alex ignored him, going down the escalator steps two at a time. Most of the shops were boarded up, and there seemed precious little to guard, but another security bloke down below was coming over.
Alex vaulted over the side of the escalator and ran for the No Unauthorised Personnel door, banging straight through it and into a breeze block corridor of exposed wires and pipes.
“Oy!” someone shouted, behind him.
He followed the emergency exit signs, found the fire door and ran down some rusted steps. Through an alleyway was the road and Alex peered out, but he couldn’t see the car that was following him anymore.
Behind him the guard gripped the handrail at the top of the steps, wheezing, but he wasn’t going to chase him further. Alex tipped him a salute as he took to the street.
He stretched his legs as he strode through town, keeping an eye out. By the time he made it out of the centre, he was pretty sure he’d shaken his tail.
Which was disappointing. After sitting around for a couple of days in hospital and a police cell, Alex was up for a bit of excitement. When he reached the park he put his shoes back on and went for a leisurely sprint, throwing practice punches into the air. He was feeling out of shape and it was time to get back in the game.
42 Chester Street was a run down old Victorian terrace with more broken windows than unbroken ones. Mattresses, old settees and rusted bike frames filled most of the front yards, and half the cars parked on the street were abandoned, windscreens shattered and missing wheels and doors. If the town of Innsbury was the arsehole of the world, then Chester Street was the arsehole of Innsbury.
Still, it wasn’t too bad. The old Victorian walls were strong, and the flats roomy. And the rent was cheap, especially when you shared it with a few others.
Places like this were mostly full of wasters, but Alex was lucky that his room mates were all ex-army. Once out of the mob they tended to gravitate towards each other, drawn by the lure of the tribe. Especially when they had nowhere else to go. Every conversation in a pub seemed to add another body to the place. In an old garrison town like Innsbury, there was always another old squaddie to be picked up. And some of them really were old.
Like Pricey, sleeping off his night shift on the bare floor of the flat, wrapped in blankets. He helped out as a volunteer at one of the soup kitchens, and probably drank most of the soup himself. He was about sixty and would go on and on about how the country used to be really something.
“You talking about the empire, grandad?” said Alex to him once, teasing him.
“I ain’t that old,” Pricey replied indignantly. “But it was still better than this.”
“Yeah, and you could have yourself a pint, a meal and a blowjob for less than a hundred quid. I believe you.”
“Fuck off.”
Then there was Smithy. He was asleep on the floor as well, but that’s how he always was. He’d disappear occasionally, only to come back hammered or stoned. He was supposed to be an engineer, but he’d also told Alex once that he’d been a pilot, so it was difficult to be sure about him. He needed watching as he tended to swipe any food that was lying around, whether it was his or not. You only had to turn your back once when you were cooking, and when you turned back, your pot would be empty. It was a good job he spent most of his time hibernating really, otherwise he’d have been pounded to a pulp by now.
Forbes, also known as The Man With A Plan, was sitting in the kitchen, phone in hand, thinking. He always looked like he was planning something, but what it was, he never said. He never got stoned, kept himself in trim and would disappear occasionally to do stuff. Alex had no idea what, and he never asked, but it was nice to have someone around who wasn’t a complete fruitcake.
“You got my stash?” Alex asked him.
Forbes threw him a bag and Alex started rooting through it.
“Where’s Ads?” said Alex, finding some protein pills.
“He’s got work.”
“What doing?”
“Demolition.”
That was Innsbury’s only growth industry. ‘Scaling Down’ they called it. Levelling the place, more like.
“Luke come back yet?”
“Nah,” said Forbes thoughtfully. “He’s gone to China.”
China was that mythical place with jobs, clean streets and a chance for an ordinary bloke to live a decent life. It was a real country too, of course, and hundreds migrated there every month. Thousands more talked about it but never did. The trek across Asia was daunting, and you’d be lucky not to be robbed, murdered or just picked up and sent back. And when you did get to China, the coppers there would beat the crap out of you. They didn’t like Caucasian trash messing up their middle kingdom. Siberia was a better bet. They weren’t so fussy there.
But the myth remained. So whenever anyone disappeared for good, they’d ‘gone to China’.
Alex rattled a tub of steroid tablets. He was running low. Grabbing a glass of water he threw some down his neck and walked over to his weights.
“Any of Nicky’s boys come round looking for me?”
“Yeah, yesterday as a matter of fact. Told them you were in prison.”
Alex pumped his right arm, the muscles standing out like bridge cables. “They’re not going to believe that. What about Stu? Has he been in touch yet?”
“No, why?”
“The fight’s on tonight and I don’t want him thinking I’m not going to make it.”
4
Wade Forest was a relic of days gone by, one of the out-of-town retail parks from the boom times. Supermarkets, clothing chains, call centres and phone shops. All gone now. The buildings stood empty, stripped of their copper wiring, glass and anything else that wasn’t screwed down too tight. Tonight’s cage fight was going to be held on the cracked concrete between the ladies clothing aisle and the freshly made sandwiches counter - or rather, where they used to be. A packed hall tonight, with hundreds crammed in for the big fight - Hurricane Harvey vs Dez the Rez.
“Hurricane Harvey?” said Alex, binding his knuckles with tape. “Is that the best name you could come up with?”
“Better than Dez the Rez,” said Stu, tapping a hypodermic needle to get the bubbles out.
“It’s gash mate. Pass that bottle.”
Stu passed him a stoppered vial, and Alex uncorked it to sniff the contents. He knew the smell of most of the performance enhancing cocktails used on the circuit and he wanted to make sure. It wasn’t unusual for a manager to spike a fighter with a placebo and then bet against him.
“Stimulant, blood booster and pain killer,” said Stu. “You should have more faith.”
“What about Methyltestosterone?”
“You need to bring more money in before we can afford that.”
“What’s tonight’s money?”
“Five hundred.”
“Five hundred? That’s nothing. That fucking bottle costs more than that.”
“You’ve got to build up your reputation before we
can get more. Got to invest in you.”
“I’ve got to eat, Stu.”
“Don’t we all? Sit still.” Stu found a vein in Alex’s arm and stuck the needle in, injecting the cocktail.
As soon as he pulled the needle out, Alex jumped up and danced around the portacabin that served as the changing room, jabbing the air and quickening his breathing to get the cocktail circulating quicker.
The crowd was hungry for it tonight. Alex could feel the vibes as he pushed his way through to the raised cage in the middle. Hanging onto the outside of the cage were a bunch of women who were already sweating and screaming. They wanted to see blood. Minders walked round the ring, pulling them off.
The ref at the gate checked his fist bindings to make sure he didn’t have any spikes in them. That was the only rule - no weapons. Once in the ring it was anything goes. Knock the other guy unconscious and stay standing to be declared the winner. Punching, kicking and strangling were all okay. Climbing out of the cage to run away was not. Oh, and killing the other guy was a bit of a no no, as it caused a few problems with covering it up, what with the witnesses and all.
The ref and the minders were all Park Boyz, the local criminal gang hosting the event. They already had collectors going round the crowd, taking betting money off them. So when Alex caught a glimpse of the guy who’d tried to follow him earlier in the day, he knew he was safe. Until he got outside anyway.
The guy didn’t look that threatening though. With a high forehead and bug eyes, he looked more like a professor than an enforcer, and he was watching Alex with interest. Alex made a note to tackle him later while he was still in the building, to see what he was up to.
The other face in the crowd that he recognised was a bit of a surprise. Forbes, in a very smart suit, standing at the back, arms linked with a very nice lady. Not your usual estate trash either. Bit of a filly actually. Smart and posh, and not exactly a wilting violet at the sight of the mob in front of her. In fact, she looked just as keen to climb onto the cage as the other birds, if it wasn’t going to ruin her dress.
