Bad Timing
Page 1
STRONTIUM DOG
BAD TIMING
The rock in front of Johnny disintegrated into a million tiny pieces. The force of the explosion knocked him from his feet. The tiny shards of rock scratched harmlessly against his body armour but left deep painful gouges in his face and hands. He kept his eyes screwed shut, protecting the one weapon he couldn't afford to lose.
When he opened them, O'Blarney was standing right over him. The robot shook his head. "Sorry about that, don't know my own strength sometimes."
Johnny glared up at him, preparing to roll, to spring, to do whatever he could - however futile - to survive the inevitable attack. "Never gloat before the fight's over, scumball."
O'Blarney laughed. He pointed his arm at Johnny. From the end, a thin, lethally sharp blade snicked out. It was cruelly serrated, clearly meant to hurt as well as kill. "Scream if you want to, mutie," he said. "It'll give me a buzz."
STRONTIUM DOG
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For my dad, Brian Levene, who taught me about writing and a lot of other important things.
Strontium Dog, Middenface McNulty and Durham Red created by Alan Grant, John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra.
A 2000 AD Publication
www.abaddonbooks.com
www.2000adonline.com
1098 7 65 4321
Cover illustration by Greg Staples
Copyright © 2004 Rebellion A/S. All rights reserved.
All 2000 AD characters and logos © and TM Rebellion A/S."Strontium Dog" is a registered trade mark in the United States and other jurisdictions."2000 AD" is a registered trade mark in certain jurisdictions. All rights reserved. Used under licence.
ISBN(.epub): 978-1-84997-081-5
ISBN(.mobi): 978-1-84997-122-5
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
STRONTIUM DOG
BAD TIMING
REBECCA LEVENE
THE STRONTIUM DOGS
The Great War of 2150 devastated Britain, leaving it a nuclear wasteland with only thirty per cent of the population left to pick up the pieces. The killing was not to end there, however, as Nelson Bunker Kreelman, Civic Leader in New Britain's South-West Sector, implemented deadly anti-mutant legislation fuelled by his irrational hatred of those unfortunate enough to have been transformed by nuclear fallout. The Muties were eventually subjected to slave labour, and later systematically exterminated for their "differences".
Unbeknownst to the public, however, Kreelman hid an extraordinary secret in the form of his mutant son, Johnny. After suffering twelve years of abuse at the hands of his cruel father, Johnny was elated to discover that he did not have a fatal eye condition as he had been told, but was in fact in possession of great powers. Johnny ran away from home to join the rebel Mutant Army, who fought for the rights that were taken away by his own father. He eventually became a leading figure in the fight against his father's murderous campaign against the mutants.
Shortly after the abolition of the Mutant Extermination Bill, Johnny Alpha was exiled off-planet, and it was at this time when he got into the dirty and dangerous game of interplanetary bounty hunting. The job was perfect for him. He could use his alpha ray emitting eyes to break the will of his quarry and, in no time at all, Johnny was feared by fugitives throughout the galaxy. The Galactic Crime Commission's Search/Destroy Agents were commonly known as the Strontium Dogs. Johnny Alpha was to become the best of them...
PROLOGUE
Johnny should have known it was bad news when the messenger dropped dead right after delivering the invitation.
He'd tracked Johnny and Middenface McNulty down to a tavern in Jonesburg, a backwater settlement on the backwater planet of Aquarius Minor. The town was a dump, the bar was a hovel and the whiskey had been watered down so many times it wouldn't get a three year-old drunk, but it'd been a tough job and Strontium Dogs were used to taking comfort where they could.
Middenface, as usual, was downing his drinks like booze was due to get outlawed at sundown. As he drank, he idly brushed away some of the flies that were circling lazily round the five centimetre high lumps that covered the top of his head, the visible marks of the mutation that made him forever outcast from normal human society. The buzzing of the flies competed with the out-of-tune tinkle of the piano player. Personally, Johnny preferred the flies.
He ran a hand back through his untidy black curls and sipped at his drink as his strange, blank eyes scanned the bar warily. He'd been a Strontium Dog - a mutant bounty hunter employed by the Galactic Commission to hunt down the scum of the universe - more years than he cared to remember. But he'd never lost that slightly sick feeling he got at the end of a job, when the knowledge of what he really was hit home. Because the truth was he was a killer, and the fact that this was the only job society had left open for him didn't make the knowledge any more comfortable.
He didn't let this thought distract him from his careful scanning of the bar's unsavoury clientele. Middenface might be in his cups, but Johnny never let his guard down. He and Middenface had come to Jonesburg to collect the bounty on Father Jones, a psychopath responsible for scores of deaths on a string of worlds, and a tyrant to the townsfolk. Still, a couple of local boys had died in the crossfire. Johnny and Middenface were muties, and Father Jones - whose severed head, proof of the kill, and major source of attraction for the flies, stared blindly out from its place on the bar beside them - was a norm. Generally speaking, when something went wrong it wasn't norms who ended up taking the blame. Besides, no one ever died by being too careful.
So it was John
ny who spotted the guy first. He was old, his skin wrinkled like leather, but he looked like a mutie, and that drew Johnny's attention. As far as he knew, he and Middenface were the only Search/Destroy agents within five sectors of this slime pit. Then the old man caught Johnny's eyes, and Johnny saw the recognition in his face. He nudged Middenface with his elbow, nodding in the direction of the door, then let his arm drop back down right next to his blaster, in a casual kind of way.
But the old man lifted his arm in a wave, and called out in a voice so croaky it sounded like it hadn't been used in a decade. "Johnny Alpha, I've got a message for you."
Soon as they saw that the newcomer was connected to the bounty hunters, the townsfolk backed away, like he had some kind of plague. The piano player stopped on a bum note, which rang out loudly in the suddenly silent bar. Even the flies seemed to get the message and scrammed. Unsteady on his legs, the old man staggered towards the two mutants. "Message," he said again.
Johnny studied the man, sure that he had seen him somewhere before. He had a hood pulled up over his face, but there was something about the tilt of the eyes, the way his mouth quirked up at the corner in his unnaturally pale skin...
"Spit it oot," Middenface said impatiently. "We're busy men, ye ken, things tae do, people tae see, bevvies tae be drinking..."
"I've been sent to tell you about a job," the old man said. Up close, he smelt musty, like there was a whole load of dirt caught in the folds of his black robe, and none of it too fresh.
"I'm listening," Johnny said.
The old man's eyes locked with his, burning with a feverish brightness. "You're to go to the Rushmore Memorial Asteroid Field. You'll find it inside Hillary the Third." He grabbed Johnny's arm. His gun arm. "You got that? Hillary the Third!"
"Yeah?" Johnny said, trying to prise the old man's fingers loose, but shaking his head at Middenface when he moved to intervene. "So what's the bounty and who's the target? And why ain't the warrant coming through official channels?"
The old man shuddered, flecks of spittle flying from the corners of his mouth. "Can't tell you, Johnny. You'll get instructions in the asteroid. Just go there and you'll find out. Please Johnny, go to the asteroid. Please." In his desperation, his fingers clawed into Johnny's arm.
Middenface did move then, pulling the old man away with casual strength. "Jings! Calm doon, man. We'll no go onnywhere till ye gi' us some answers."
The old man opened his mouth, as if to reply, but instead coughed. It was a deep, painful sound, as if his earlier words had ripped something loose in his chest.
Johnny frowned, his earlier caution replaced by concern. "Take it easy, old timer."
The man wheezed in a breath, looking up with an almost preternaturally peaceful expression. "Johnny, I'm sorry," he said. And then he let out a very soft sigh and slumped to the ground. Dead.
"Helmaboab!" Middenface exclaimed. "I hope he isnae contagious."
Johnny knelt to check for a heartbeat. Nothing. "Just old age, I think." He reached up to close the corpse's eyes. As he did, the old man's hood fell back, and Johnny finally got a good look at his face and at the bald, crazily pockmarked landscape of his skull. He had been right. He did know him.
McNulty leaned in, recognition dawning on his face too. "Hold on! If I didnae ken better I'd say that was Craterheid Cleeg."
Johnny pulled back the man's cloak further, to reveal a battered Search/Destroy badge pinned to the front of his grubby armour. "It is Craterhead Cleeg."
Middenface shook his head. "But Craterheid is just a wee laddie! How can he be dying o' auld age?"
Johnny stood, pushing his helmet over his head so that only the freakish light of his eyes shone out of its shadows. "I don't know," he said. "But I sure as hell mean to find out."
1 / HEAD SPACE
Johnny strode quickly over the weed-filled ground surrounding the ramshackle buildings that passed for a spaceport in Jonesburg. Middenface trudged dispiritedly behind him, cradling Father Jones's severed head in the crook of his elbow.
"I hadnae finished my bevvy. Leaving half a glass o' whiskey is tantamoont tae sacrilege in my book," Middenface muttered, wiping the sweat from his face with a blood-smeared hand that left a crimson stain along his cheek.
"Craterhead told us it was urgent," Johnny replied, neither turning round nor slowing his stride.
"He didnae tell us much else, though, did he? If this job's legit, I'll eat my lumps."
As they walked, the few townsfolk scattered around in the midday sun turned to stare at them, the hostility plain in their faces.
Johnny swept his gaze over them, and they quickly dropped their eyes, unwilling to issue an outright challenge to the bounty hunters. But one of them, a young, soft-faced man, turned and spat onto the dust, as if the mutants' very presence left a sour taste in his mouth. Johnny shrugged. Being liked got you more party invitations, but being feared kept you safer.
"Not like we're in the position to turn down work," he said to Middenface, as they entered a small compcrete building which advertised itself on a neon hoarding as offering "The best dang shuttles in the quadrant. Guaranteed not to implode, or half your money back." The sign fizzled and went dark as they pushed through the door.
"Tae true," Middenface agreed. "The Galactic Council's done nothin' but bring in new regulations ever since President Hillary got intae office. You'd think they didnae want us tae do oor job, jus' sit in the Doghoose fillin' in paperwork the whole day. I wish I'd never voted for her."
"You didn't," Johnny said. "Muties don't get a vote."
"Aye, I ken. But if I'd ha' voted, it'd definitely ha' been fer her. She's a proper wee bombshell. Her breasts are the size o' small moons, and as fer her-"
"Good morning... gents," the weaselly man behind the desk interrupted. He had to shout to be heard above the high-pitched throbbing of the air-conditioning, which someone had turned up far too high.
"We need to hire a long-range shuttle," Johnny said.
The man smiled, showing off his collection of jagged brown teeth. "You're in luck, we've had two just returned. How long will you be needing it for?"
Johnny shrugged. "Don't know."
The man's smile slipped slightly. "Right... And how will you be paying?"
Middenface reached out and put the severed head of Father Jones on the countertop in front of him. It was already decomposing, and a small maggot dropped out of its mouth and began to wriggle towards the clerk. "On credit," Middenface told him.
The clerk's smile had by now dropped completely, and a sweat had broken out on his face despite the arctic temperature of the room. "Right. And can... can I ask where you're going?"
"Rushmore Memorial Asteroid Field," Johnny said.
The clerk's smile re-emerged, looking sickly but determined. "Sightseeing trip?" he asked.
"No exactly," said Middenface, scooping Father Jones's head back into his arms as Johnny collected the shuttle power-key from the clerk.
The shuttle itself was small, but had warp capacity, which was all that really mattered. Middenface strapped himself into the co-pilot's seat, shifting uncomfortably as the webbing pressed him into the lumpy chair back, while Johnny checked over the ship's instruments.
"How's it looking?" Middenface asked.
"Like a heap of junk," Johnny growled.
"Is it gonna get us there?"
Johnny gave one of his rare smiles. "Guess we're about to find out," he said, and gunned the engines.
The ion drive leapt to life with an explosive boom that rocked the whole shuttle. Then, after a heart-stopping moment, the noise settled into a softer - if not exactly soothing - hum, and Middenface felt the rough hand of gravity pushing him back into his seat as Johnny nosed the shuttle off the tarmac and towards the outer atmosphere.
It took them five minutes to push their way out of the planet's gravity well. It would take a further three days to reach the asteroid field. Middenface wasn't looking forward to the journey at all. A childhood in the
Scottish mutant ghetto of Shytehill, not to mention a stint in jail at the age of ten, had given him a horror of confined spaces that he hid as best he could but had never managed to conquer.
By the end of the first day, Middenface had explored every square centimetre of the shuttle, taken apart one of the food unit's control panels just for the hell of it, discovered that he didn't know how to reassemble it, then eventually with Johnny's help managed to get it back into something like working order. The only food they could now get it to produce was shepherd's pie, to which it always seemed to add a generous portion of raspberries, no matter how many buttons they pressed to try to get it to stop. After that, Johnny forbade Middenface to leave his co-pilot's chair.