YES. HOW DID YOU KNOW?
MP SHOWED UP HERE WHILE YOU WERE KO, LOOKING FOR TONI MIURA.
MP?
MILITARY POLICE. THEY WERE LOOKING FOR YOU!
And that was that for him. There was only one thing left to do, and that was to find Ian and kill him before he lost his chance for good. His mind began to work frantically through all the options at his disposal. A nurse’s arrival interrupted his thoughts.
“Corporal, could I have a quick word?”
“Y-yes, nurse.” He answered.
“We’re having problems registering your name into our database, apparently there’s another Frederic Granger in our patient list, he had a work-related stroke a few days ago. Could you please confirm your name?” She kindly asked him.
Thinking hard, Toni threw himself at the only door he could find.
“My name is Raymond Rosa, I’m a Sergeant-cadet from LOGIS, MEWAC. I was using Granger’s uniform for lack of my own, I’m sorry ...” he lied.
She brightened up immediately and thanked him for his cooperation before taking her leave.
Belatedly he turned towards Harry to find him shaking his head disapprovingly. The boy took up the piece of paper again and scribbled furiously.
HOW MANY NAMES DO YOU HAVE, ANYWAY?? BUT THAT PROBABLY WON’T WORK. THEIR DATABASE IS ON THE GMN. IF THE GUY WHO’S NAME YOU GAVE IS SOMEWHERE ELSE OR MISSING, THEY’LL KNOW!
Missing!
Ray was dead, but he was probably listed as missing. He had just bought himself minutes, not days! Hurriedly he thanked a bewildered Harry and carefully stood on his feet, finding that even his soles hurt. Grimacing with the pain, he checked to make sure that no one was looking, and then set off like any other patient with a need to pee would; with great care and greater urgency.
Exiting the compartment, he found himself in a wide corridor, and he turned towards what appeared to be the building’s exit, a well-illuminated atrium with a reception to one side and four men on the other, MP written into their armbands in capital letters. Toni about-faced and followed the corridor in the opposite direction, coming across a lavatory populated with a pair of peeing patients. He occupied a stall as they did their business, thinking hard as he did so. His mind, however, remained sluggish, and he realized that he didn’t even know whether he had the strength for what needed to be done.
The pair finally left the room, and he nervously exited the stall. Acting on a whim, he quickly locked the lavatory from the inside and proceeded to open the window. After several failed attempts it finally opened with a clang, and the compartment’s interior was suddenly invaded by a whirlwind.
Only a fool would venture outside with the wind so strong and a body so frail, but a fool was he, and he sat his rump on the sill and pivoted his legs over with great effort. His hospital skirt suddenly blew into his face, his hidden nametag magically slipping out of his breeches and over his head to strike against the lavatory door.
Moving feet were clearly visible beneath it.
Cursing loudly, barely managing to hear the words due to the wind, Toni jumped out and fell the half-meter that separated him from the medical bay’s grassy grounds. Unable to keep his footing, he purposely fell on his left shoulder to lessen the damage. The pain, however, was terribly severe, and he knew that somewhere he was bleeding again.
Can’t you do anything without bleeding?
He remembered Hannah and wondered if she had survived the engagement, the real possibility that she might be dead agonizing him more than the pain. Suppressing the thought, he carefully stood and stepped into the buffeting wind, peering at his surroundings and trying to situate himself from what he remembered when he had last been there.
LOGIS had spent most of its time in the perimeter of Lograin’s airfield, and so he searched for that first. To his left were a few buildings, some of them derelict, and then a fence and the shifting forest beyond. He turned to his right, shuffling towards a group of taller buildings that blocked his view from whatever lay beyond. Lowering his center-of-mass as if he were driving an armored Suit, he leaned into the wind and moved towards the buildings, desperately hoping that he wasn’t being watched.
Feeling the chilly wind suck all the heat from his body, Toni began to regret not having remained in the warmth of his hospital bed. He might even have gladly accepted being arrested just to stay warm and safe.
Then he imagined the firing squad and the little smile on Ian’s face as he watched, and knew the cold was preferable to that. Not because of his execution, of course. It was the smile that bothered him, that cruel, un-empathetic, superior smile of his that said everything about what really went on inside the traitor’s mind. He could not bear to see that smile again. Colonel Tora was dead and who in hell knew if the Bakemono was dead or not, but if he was going to face a firing squad, it would be while savoring the memory of sitting on the traitor’s chest, grinning like an idiot while he cut his senior’s pale throat.
The wind changed as he closed in on the nearest building, and instead of fighting against his advance, it began to push him towards the darkened edifice. There was no sign of activity inside, and as he stumbled towards an imposing pair of solid wooden doors, he chanced a quick look towards the medical bay. There was no sign of activity at its exterior.
Momentarily encouraged, he twisted the door’s knob, only to find it solidly locked. Kicking it in was beyond serious consideration.
Fighting the wind, Toni rounded the building and soon found himself on a wide abandoned avenue. Finding another locked door, he lost his patience, found a hefty rock and tossed it towards one of the ground-floor windows. The projectile struck the glass and it fractured, retaining its integrity only due to the thick protective film that covered it. The abetting wind did the rest, and under the gale’s relentless force, the pane finally caved in and flew into the building’s interior. The sudden “whoomp!” it made as it disappeared would have attracted much attention on any other season of the month. Today the noise was almost entirely drowned out by the winds.
Grunting with the effort, Toni pulled himself onto the window sill and forced his legs over it, the strong wind helping to forcefully vault him into what appeared to be an office compartment. He struck the ground hard and began to roll slowly across the cluttered floor, moaning in agonizing pain as the invading whirlwind sent papers flying into the air around him. Once the pain had subsided, Toni stood and tried the only door, finding it unlocked. Opening it carefully, he peered out through the crack, finding only a central corridor bordered by windows to his left and closed office doors to his right.
Closing the door behind him, Toni limped along the pristine corridor, its cleanliness an insult to his senses after weeks of blood and grime. Quietly he paced its length, still expecting some caretaker to appear as he passed a succession of sealed doors, until he came upon an elaborately decorated entrance hall, its double-doors the same ones he had attempted to open minutes before. The hall was flanked by a wide staircase that allowed access to the floors above. Tiredly he gazed at those steps, wondering if he had the strength.
Finally coming to a decision, he began to carefully climb the flights, calmly allowing the stranger to take the helm as he did so. Upon reaching a floor, he peered at his surroundings, sniffed the air, and then kept climbing.
On the fifth and final floor, the stranger sniffed something that caught his attention. The floor was dirtier but well trodden, and most tracks led off to the corridor to his left. Following them, he eventually came upon several doors deep inside the building. The nearest was unlocked, and he opened the door and walked inside.
He found himself inside a workshop clearly meant for building maintenance and repair, its interior clad with weapons of diverse size and weight. On another day it might have been a toolshed, but to the stranger’s eyes it was an armory. He searched the compartment’s walls for anything both compact and deadly, and slowly came to the realization that he would need a cutting instrument to fit the part. He ru
ffled through several desk drawers, coming upon his first box-cutter. Before long he held four in his newly grimed hands. Two he discarded for being too fragile to hold up in a fight. A third, already well-used, he reserved for an emergency. The fourth, a wickedly sharp blade about twelve centimeters long when fully extended, became his weapon of choice.
He imagined it covered in blood, and willed that it become so. His sweet mother of Galician descent had once told him of an ancient god her far-off ancestors had prayed to in times of war. It’s name was Cosus, if he wasn’t mistaken. Hoping he had remembered the name correctly, he held the weapon between his palms and prayed to the non-existent god, pouring all his hate into the weapon in his hands. He had never done anything even remotely similar before, but it felt right, and it settled his mind and heart enough to accept what needed to be done, and what he would probably have to sacrifice in order to achieve it.
He had already wasted all his life-points against the bakemono. He accepted that as he stood in the center of the workshop, and it brought him peace.
His peace was rudely broken by a rifle-butt to the head. The sudden impact drove him almost to the ground but, lowering his center-of-mass having become his first instinct when attacked, he buckled his knees, laying both hands on the ground before he snapped his head over his shoulder to scrutinize the assailant.
His adversaries were at least two well-armed MPs, their eyes making it clear they knew that they had found the missing cadet. The sergeant spoke, but Toni didn’t hear the words. Instead he observed both soldiers as they covered his only exit. Their uniforms were characteristically black, their berets navy-blue, their Lacraus strapped to a diagonal leather shoulder-belt that clipped onto a waist-belt, and upon which a sidearm rested in its holster. But Toni didn’t care about that. They wore high leather gloves that covered the tendons at their wrists and much of their forearms, and the only adequate remaining target was their exposed throats. Toni cared about that. And there was a rifle between him and his nearest foe’s throat, its strap not long enough to turn against his second adversary without first having to waste a precious moment to cut the bond.
Slowly he relaxed his body, realizing he must certainly be raising red flags in the MPs’ minds. He shook his head, trying to force himself into thinking.
“What do you mean, no? On the ground or I’ll pop you. This is your last warning!” The sergeant ordered.
Turning his head slowly towards his superior, Toni smiled, finding it appropriate that he’d already managed to put in a prayer. He hadn’t managed to see or hear any more soldiers beyond the room, and he no longer had any expectation that there would be. He stared hard at the sergeant as the soldier’s nose flared at his target’s non-compliance, and saw only swine there. The sergeant’s lacrau was a compact weapon with a bull-pup design, meant for movement and combat in tight spaces, but that was going to work in Toni’s favor.
Springing into action, Toni grabbed the rifle in his right hand and launched himself towards the sergeant, managing to leapfrog his hand forwards to grab his adversary’s shoulder-belt as his left slipped the box-cutter’s blade out of its handle.
Easy does it, now.
He leaned hard into the sergeant and sent him thudding against his corporal, and his left hand snaked along his foe’s torso until the blade nestled against the straining muscles of his neck. The sergeant gave a squeal and fired off a burst, but then the corporal slammed against the corridor wall and all three came to a sudden halt. Toni began to push the blade in, the ease with which the steel suddenly entered the sergeant’s throat shocking him enough to make him pause momentarily, his adversary squealing and kicking as he pleaded for his life. Toni then began to cut more deliberately, putting more power behind the act, until the blade suddenly dug entirely in and laid bare the left and center of his foe’s throat. The sergeant fired off a long, impotent burst from his Lacrau and wood splinters flew, its barrel snugly secured beneath Toni’s armpit as the sergeant’s horrendous wound gave up its treasure. Blood poured in hot jets against Toni’s surprised face, flowing into his mouth as his jaw fell open at the affront, fat drops spraying heavily against the wall and the corporal’s struggling body with every generous spout.
The sergeant released his weapon and clapped his hands against his throat, and the panicking corporal, pinned into a sitting position by his superior’s weight, tried to throw the body over his knee and deploy his rifle.
Toni laid his knee on the weapon and pushed it down, and then placed his blade against the soldier’s throat and held it there with both hands, shock and horror briefly freezing his muscles in place.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, man. Just let me go. I won’t tell, OK? OK?!” The corporal pleaded as his senior rolled over the tiled floor beside him.
The soldier had a cleft chin, and was clean-shaven despite the look of someone whose beard grew thickly, and his dark hair had recently seen a pair of scissors. His eyes were wide and leaking, and his eyebrows were crushed together and reaching for the sky, his eyes possessing the pitiful expression of one who had just learned how one died by the blade. The soldier was well into his twenties, but in that moment he sounded clearly like a child, and Toni pitied and hated him for that.
“I’m sorry ...” Toni answered sadly, and with a sudden snap of his body, he opened the man’s throat.
Blood sprayed everywhere, momentarily blinding him, and as his adversary clutched the gaping wound and began to roll beneath him, Toni felt a hand take hold of his shoulder. He stared at the large hand, painted red with its owner’s blood, and he had a flash of a bloody armored Suit with a corpse hanging from its gorget. Turning to face the sergeant, he found the man stooping over him, Lacrau hanging loosely from its strap as the soldier used his free hand to plug the wound. The hand appeared almost sunk into his throat, but the expression on his face was tragic, and it spoke words the man could no longer utter. He fell upon Toni’s kneeling form and vomited a gush of blood upon him, and then he lay down where his dying subordinate thrashed and took him in his arms.
A minute passed by as Toni, sitting numbly with his back against the corridor’s wall, watched them bleed to death. The two men held each other tightly until the sergeant ceased to move, and then the corporal released himself from his superior’s limp grasp, huddled into a corner, and died alone. Before long there were no more sucking and choking sounds, and silence became bliss.
It was a while before Toni finally realized he was crying, and he continued to do so for a time.
A long while later, Toni’s breathing became regular and he stopped spitting compulsively to rid himself of the taste of the fallen soldiers’ blood. He decided that he had learned something new about himself. He was most certainly not a killer. What he had done horrified him, left him disgusted with himself. The emotion was so powerful that he found himself trying to smother it, before the horror could smother him.
Obeying a sudden urge to not look upon the corpses, he abandoned the corridor and took refuge in the workshop. Standing before a mirror fixed into the wall over a tiny lavatory, he stared at his reflection, newly horrified by what he saw. There were places where blood hadn’t smeared, but they were no wider than a coin’s breadth. His hair had become stuck to his skull, and he had what he could only call a blood-beard, where the blood soaked up by his two week-old fuzz had begun to clot. He looked into his own eyes, but quickly averted them as a potent wave of shame nearly overcame him. Slowly he began to wash his face, and then his hair and neck, until finally he began to carefully peel off his clothing and bandages, layer by layer.
He finally stood naked and decidedly cleaner, and he inspected his injuries against a mirror that had become speckled with drops of diluted blood. He realized he was fortunate in that the MPs had not put up a more considerable resistance. His right arm was bleeding from the corner of a half-healed surgical incision above his elbow, although it wasn’t even a trickle compared to what he had witnessed some minutes before, and the me
dical weaving that covered much of his chest, abdomen, groin and thighs seemed to require the bandages he had just removed to prevent infection. Every injured surface that had suffered compression ached terribly, and he realized that he was possibly bleeding beneath the affected skin as well.
That wouldn’t make any difference, though.
Covering up his crime was pointless, except in the interest of widening his window of opportunity to find and engage the special one. His injuries weren’t a problem either, since it would probably take days for any infection to do him in.
Finding an oil-stained overall inside a beaten locker, Toni put it on and pocketed his box-cutters. There was also a dirty sweatshirt and he donned it as well, ignoring the fact that it was in direct contact with the stem-cell matting that covered his injured flesh. Discovering a tough old pair of workshoes hidden deep in the locker, he put them on without socks and found that they fit snugly.
Taking a moment to settle his emotions, he then walked out into the corridor and was struck by a powerful smell to accompany the vista. It was an odd smell, not foul but nauseating nevertheless, and he knew where it came from due to his stints at his father’s farm. Blood pooled around the defunct soldiers’ bodies, and had begun to clot. He approached them and the odor of clotting blood intensified, but eventually he realized he could deal with it.
Toni searched through their pockets and shut down every electronic device he could find, including their watches. He unstrapped the less bloody of the two rifles and then stowed it along with two spare magazines into a rucksack he had found, before finally removing the pistol from the sergeant’s holster, taking note that his nametag read Luco Varano O-.
The pistol, a semiautomatic Miroku in 8 millimeter Short caliber, had a twenty four round magazine for a loaded weight of 480 grams, each round leaving the weapon’s barrel at a blistering Capicuan mach two; if he couldn’t get the job done with that, then he deserved to fail.
Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) Page 37
