A Fistful of Strontium

by Jaspre Bark

  "You're accusing me of prejudice?" asked Johnny. "Against mutants?"

  "That's what you Stronties do, isn't it? You hunt mutants!"

  "I hunt criminals. I am a mutant!"

  "You don't look like a mutant."

  "What are you trying to say?"

  "You'd be surprised how many people try this trick, Mr Alpha. They come through here, wearing prostheses or contact lenses, and they think we'll just wave them in. There are tests we can run, you know."

  "I'm a mutant," said Johnny darkly. "Do you want me to prove it?" He felt the almost involuntary surge of alpha energy to his eyes and knew they must have flared.

  The customs official's grey skin blanched a little, and he took a step back but continued unabashed. "Your paperwork is being examined. If it is found to be in order, it will be presented to the relevant authorities and your case will be evaluated. The process shouldn't take more than a day or two."

  "A day or two!" exclaimed Johnny.

  "Of course, the fact that you and your partner came so heavily armed could complicate matters. We have something of a backlog at the moment and it may take some time for the necessary permits to be issued for each of your weapons."

  "Listen, pal," said Johnny. "I don't have time. My information is that Identi Kit came here to kill an old friend of mine; a member of your government."

  Granite Face frowned. At least, that was how Johnny chose to interpret the crazed pattern that textured his stony brow. As the man had no eyebrows, it was difficult to be sure. "Who are we talking about here?" he asked guardedly.

  "McGuffin. Moosehead McGuffin. You heard of him?"

  "I'd be a pretty poor customs official if I hadn't heard of the Minister for Immigration," Granite Face said stiffly.

  "The Minister for...?" Johnny grinned, seeing a way out of this. "I want to see him. Now."

  Granite Face hesitated a long time before replying. Johnny longed to know what he was thinking but his tiny eyes betrayed nothing. He was tempted to use his alpha rays to rip the thoughts from the officious mutant's brain, but he thought better of it.

  "That isn't possible," said Granite Face, at last.

  "I told you, we're old friends. Get a message to Moosehead. He'll see me."

  "And I told you that is not possible."

  "Why not?"

  It took Granite Face a moment to come up with an excuse. "I can't go calling the presidential palace every time some kook turns up claiming to know a minister. Why, next thing you'll be telling me is that you're a personal friend of the president himself."

  "I fought alongside Moosehead in the Mutant War," said Johnny. "He was a scout then, serving under General Armz. He and I-"

  "Please, Mr Alpha," said Granite Face curtly, holding up a hand to silence him. "Restrict yourself to answering the questions I put to you."

  "I've answered your questions, over and over again."

  "Not to my satisfaction. Name."

  Johnny sighed and buried his face in his hands. "Johnny Alpha," he mumbled.

  "Real name."

  "That is my real name."

  Middenface was getting restless.

  He had taken to pacing; trying to walk off the pain that had begun to throb behind his eyes and the rage that was building inside his chest. It wasn't doing him much good. It took only a couple of his sure strides to cross the white-walled room. He was starting to feel cramped and dizzy from having to turn around so often.

  He felt like busting down the flimsy door; one good kick would do it. He had caught glimpses of the guards on the other side as Granite Face had come and gone, and he knew he could take them, even with their guns. There would be others, though. Many, many others...

  "So, let me get this straight," said Granite Face, seeming to enjoy his prisoner's discomfort. "You say Moosehead McGuffin is a friend of yours, and yet you didn't know he was our Minister for Immigration?"

  "Aye, well," said Middenface, "it's been a few years. Ah'd heard he wa' some kindae political bigwig out here, but it's not exactly easy tae keep up with Miltonian current affairs, if y'knae what Ah'm sayin'."

  "Oh, I know the norm media likes to pretend we don't exist," said Granite Face with a hint of bitterness. "After all, it wouldn't do to show mutants everywhere a better life, would it? They'd only get above themselves, and then who'd lick out the gutters and see to the trash?"

  "Ye think I don't know that?" snapped Middenface. "I grew up on Earth, pal, in New Britain during the Kreelman era. I was sent tae a mutant jail when I wa' ten years old. Ye think I don't know whit it's like tae be treated like shite?"

  "And now you're a Strontium Dog," said Granite Face.

  Middenface clenched his fists and took a deep breath.

  The worst thing was the disappointment. Sure, he had expected some trouble here - there was always trouble - but still, he had been optimistic about this trip, waving aside his partner's doubts. This was Miltonia, after all: the mutant paradise, a world built for people just like them. How bad could it be?

  "I think I've heard all I need to hear."

  Middenface ceased his pacing and glared at the customs official suspiciously. "What? Nae more questions?"

  "No more questions."

  "Then ye're letting me outtae here?"

  "Not just yet, Mr McNulty. This interview was only the first stage of our investigation. Next, my colleagues will take you to our medical facility, where you will undergo a full examination and body cavity search."

  Middenface felt the nodules on his head glowing red. "Ye what?" he growled.

  Granite Face smiled and turned to a new form on his clipboard. "Now, to begin with, how many body cavities do you wish to declare?"

  Johnny was sitting, slumped over the white plastic table, when he heard the howl of rage. It was followed a moment later by a series of dull thumps. Then, an ear-splitting crash as a shape was suddenly punched out of the white plaster of the wall in front of him. It was an uneven, roughly square shape... with a nose.

  Johnny heard more shouting and running footsteps outside. He looked up at the clock above the door, nodded to himself and sighed.

  Evidently, Middenface had just sobered up.

  Johnny Alpha got his first look at Miltonia's sky - the first time he had seen a sky at all since Thulium 9, three days earlier - in a dingy back alleyway that smelt of rotting garbage. He was guided out of the spaceport building by two customs officials, each with a hand on one of his shoulders. His ankles were chained together with not quite enough slack between them for him to walk comfortably. Another length of chain connected his ankles to his wrists, which were also manacled.

  Middenface was beside him, similarly bound and escorted, and looking very sorry for himself. A hovering police transport vehicle awaited them, its engine stirring up clouds of dust from the tarmac.

  The alleyway, like the doorway behind them, was packed with more officials who wore black and white uniforms. Given the plethora of mutations on display and the imaginative ways in which their shirts and trousers had been altered to accommodate extra arms, legs, heads and tails, they may as well not have bothered. Each of them held a blaster trained nervously upon the S/D agents who, they had no doubt been warned, were highly dangerous. Some of them had the bruises to prove it, so they were taking no chances.

  Granite Face stood a discreet distance away, his arms folded, with an ostentatiously large white bandage wrapped around one corner of his head. He had the same smug expression that he'd worn when he had informed Johnny that he and his partner had been designated a security risk, and would therefore be shipped to an internment camp for illegal immigrants pending the result of their visa applications.

  Middenface bristled at the sight of his tormentor and Johnny spoke quickly to calm him. "Don't sweat it," he said. "As soon as Moosehead finds out we're here and what they're doing to us, he'll sort it out. He won't let us rot."

  "D'ye think so, Johnny?" asked Middenface, miserably. "According to yon stony-faced chappie, our auld f
rien's in charge o' these here scunners. Ye think the Moosehead we knew'd let any mutant be treated like this?"

  Johnny couldn't answer that. He had been thinking the same thing himself. It had been a long time since he had last seen Moosehead McGuffin. He hadn't even had the customary retirement party at the Doghouse and just announced that he was packing it all in and had gone. Could he really have changed so much?

  He maintained a worried silence as his escorts pushed him into the back of the transport. He sprawled awkwardly on a narrow wooden bench where he was soon joined by Middenface. A thick grille separated them from the officers in front of the vehicle.

  The last thing Johnny saw, as the door closed behind him with a soft hiss of hydraulics, was Granite Face talking to a mousey-looking young woman in a neat business suit. She kept pawing at her saucer-shaped ears and twitching her whiskers. Granite Face's smile had disappeared. He obviously didn't like what he was hearing.

  A moment later the door opened again, and Granite Face was standing there, his face dark with fury.

  "You're free to go," he growled in a voice that suggested it was a supreme effort to speak each word. He motioned curtly to two uniformed officers who scurried past him into the transport and began to unlock Johnny and Middenface's restraints. "My colleagues here will arrange for the return of your possessions. A car has been sent for you and will collect you from Gate Four."

  He turned and made to stride away but Johnny called after him. "Hey, what's going on here? Why the sudden change of heart?"

  "Looks like ye were right, Johnny. Moosehead came through fer us, and no' before time!"

  Granite Face halted and took a few deep breaths before he turned back to face them. "Orders from the president," he said through clenched teeth. Glaring at Johnny, he continued: "It seems he is a personal friend of yours, after all."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  PRESIDENT OOZE

  If his detention by Customs and Immigration had given Johnny a bad first impression of Miltonia, his second impression was most alarming. He had been wondering why the guards, who a second ago had been about to ship him and Middenface off to an internment camp, all looked so tense as they accompanied the bounty hunters across the spaceport's opulent plaza. Surely this must be an easy and routine mission for them. The second he and Middenface stepped through Gate Four's grand entrance, he found out the reason for their tension.

  The guards formed a tight-knit wall of bodies around Johnny and Middenface. "Hey! Hang on a minute," yelled Middenface as he was crushed up against Johnny. Then Johnny saw the banks of cameras all trained on them and the sea of bodies waiting to engulf them.

  The guards shuffled slowly towards the hover limousine that was waiting for them, taking Johnny and Middenface with them. They were beset on all sides by reporters from Miltonia's leading news agencies. The reporters were the advance guard of a whole crowd of mutants who had turned out to see the S/D agents. Many of the crowd also pushed forward, desperate to get a look at Johnny and Middenface, craning their necks and pointing. This made it slow going for the guards as they pushed their way through.

  "Hey, Alpha," a reporter with a giant mouth and no nose called out. "Do you think becoming an S/D agent is a good example for a former war hero to set young mutants?"

  "Mr Alpha, Mr McNulty," said another long, thin reporter with three eyes and a prehensile fin growing from the top of his head. "Finnegan Trio from the Clacton Fuzzville Courier. Do either of you plan on applying for full Miltonian citizenship?" Finnegan's float-a-cam hovered in close, its lens whirring as it focused on Johnny and Middenface. It drew a spate of other float-a-cams with it, every orb-like camera shooting footage and snapping stills of the bounty hunters, who were astonished at their sudden celebrity.

  A thin, snake-like mutant actually managed to slither between two of the guards and press herself up against the pair. "Johnny, Middenface, you don't mind if I use your first names, do you?" she purred. "I'm Sarah Saurus from the Modern Mutant web channel. I want to talk to you about cosmetic surgery. Do you think the modern Miltonian girl is complete with anything less than four breasts?"

  Before Johnny could even begin to ask the woman what she was talking about, the guards stopped and parted just enough to reveal the open door of the limousine. Sarah Saurus was dragged to one side and the guards used their pistols to swat away the float-a-cams that tried to follow the S/D agents as they stepped into the vehicle's spacious interior.

  "Gentlemen, welcome to Miltonia," said the smartly dressed mutant with four arms who sat opposite them. His head consisted mainly of an unnaturally huge smile. "My name is Grinling Gibson. I'm a special envoy attached to President Leadbetter's administration." He reached out and shook Johnny and Middenface's hands simultaneously, as his two left hands patted them on their shoulders. Grinling exuded so much charm and confidence that it seemed he must have been genetically bred for the sole purpose of meeting and greeting dignitaries.

  "I'm here to make your audience with the president run as smoothly as possible. Are there any questions you'd like to ask me before we go any further?"

  "Whit the hell was aw that aboot?" snarled Middenface, jerking his thumb back at the crowd they had just left behind at the spaceport entrance.

  "Ah yes, the impromptu conference," Grinling said with a wry chuckle. "News travels extremely fast in the capital, and I'm afraid you've created rather a lot of interest. It isn't every day we get a visit from two genuine heroes of the Mutant War."

  Grinling pressed a button and the thin stem of a holo-projector appeared from a hidden compartment in the upholstery. It began to play a holo-programme showing Miltonia from space as the first settlers' ships landed. Then it zoomed in to show the fugitive mutants building the first prefabricated shelters on the planet's surface.

  Grinling's manner suggested that he had run through this patter with visiting delegations countless times before. "As I'm sure you're aware, Miltonia was settled soon after the Mutant War by British mutants from the ghetto of Milton Keynes: soldiers and civilians who wanted to build a new life free from persecution. The Mutant War is a defining moment in the foundation of our planet and people; a glorious and heroic struggle that began the long march towards the freedom and prosperity every Miltonian enjoys today."

  "It didnae feel too glorious or heroic tae me," said Middenface. "Most of it was spent hidin' frae the Kreelers or cooling our heels in a holding cell."

  "We fought because we had to," said Johnny. "It was our only way of staying alive. Kreelman and his government lackeys stirred up so much hatred among the norms, the only way we could survive was by fighting back."

  "And you won," said Grinling with genuine admiration in his voice. "Nelson Bunker Kreelman was deposed as a minister, and his anti-mutant bills quashed. It was a decisive victory for mutantkind."

  "We fought them to a standstill and they agreed to let us live as long as we left the planet," Johnny said in a bitter voice. "That doesn't sound like much of a victory to me."

  "Nevertheless, it still led to the founding of Miltonia and the promise of freedom and equality that it offers to all mutants. The fact that you both played key roles in the victory of that conflict means you are held in extremely high regard here, even allowing for your, erm... unfortunate career choices."

  The holographic image of early Miltonian settlement dissolved to be replaced by a dramatic reconstruction of the Siege of Upminster. It was the title sequence in a holo-show about the Mutant War. "This is still the most popular show in the history of Miltonian entertainment," explained Grinling. "As you can see, you're both lead characters."

  Johnny hadn't seen, because the actors playing him and Middenface bore only the slightest of resemblances to them. "Johnny" was portrayed by a mutant with huge bulbous eyes that protruded from his head and glowed a dull red, while "Middenface" had enormous spots covering every inch of his bald scalp and face, and spoke in an incomprehensible drawl which was subtitled.

  "Yon scunners look nothin' like
us!" protested Middenface.

  "Yes, well the programme makers took certain liberties in order to portray you according to Miltonian ideas about what's physically attractive," Grinling said. "You see, on Miltonia, the more mutated a person is, the more they are admired. It is a badge of status, and all mutations are displayed with pride."

  "That sure makes a difference from everywhere else we've seen," said Johnny.

  "Miltonia is quite different from everywhere else in the universe," said Grinling.

  The holographic display changed once again to show the workings of a Miltonian mine.

  "Due to the highly radioactive nature of the minerals we mine, only mutants can run the mining operations," Grinling continued, "which is why we control all the wealth on Miltonia. It's also why we admire mutation. The longer someone has worked in a mine, the more mutated they are likely to become and the richer they are likely to be. To be highly mutated is a sign of great prosperity and social standing."

  "Incredible," Middenface muttered to himself.

  "If we're so well-known, then how come the officials who held us didn't recognise us?" Johnny wanted to know.

  "It's unlikely they believed you were who you claimed to be. You don't look a great deal like your popular images, and you did arrive in a-" Grinling paused to choose his words carefully, "somewhat unorthodox manner."

  Johnny nodded, accepting the explanation.

  "May I ask you gentleman a question?" said Grinling, leaning forward with an expression of polite deference.

  "Okay," said Johnny in a guarded manner. His years hunting down the worst criminals in the universe had taught him to give away as little as possible about either himself or his mission.

  "Were you close to your former comrade, President Leadbetter? I only ask because his mutation has increased considerably since the days when you would have known him and you may not recognise him."