A Fistful of Strontium

by Jaspre Bark

  "Actually," confessed Nose Job, shifting his weight in embarrassment, "he wasn't disguised at all. That's how we could identify him. Our surveillance units filmed Kit Jones as he approached Minister McGuffin's office, although it was only later that we matched his likeness to the one in the news reports."

  "You're saying you just let him walk in here?" Johnny asked incredulously.

  "I don't think you appreciate how rare this type of crime is on Miltonia," said Nose Job. "Our citizens are happy and our government prides itself on its openness and accessibility."

  General Rising cleared his throat and his eight eyes darkened. "I've been warning for some time that the political climate is changing. We've been too soft, letting in too many undesirables. This assassin is only the latest."

  "We are in the process of tightening security in the presidential palace and other high-risk areas," said Nose Job.

  "Too late for poor old Moosehead," muttered Johnny.

  "When did it happen?" asked Middenface, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

  "Four days ago," said Rising, adding pointedly. "Long before you arrived here and were detained by customs. There was nothing you could have done."

  "Kit Jones made an appointment with the minister - under an assumed name, of course - to discuss an issue with his entrance visa," explained Nose Job. He swallowed and a tear came to his eye, but he struggled to remain stoical. "I walked in on them just as the gun fired. If I'd been a second earlier... I... I'll never forget the look on the minister's face. And his killer... Identi Kit was standing over him, the gun still smoking, and he turned and he just stared at me. His eyes were so cold and he was grinning. He was proud of what he'd done, and... And I think he wanted me to know it was him. I think he wanted everyone to know!"

  "That's why he didn't disguise himself," surmised Johnny. "This wasn't just an act of revenge on the man who imprisoned him, it was a public statement."

  "Dinnae mess wi' Identi Kit," Middenface muttered.

  "You were lucky, Nose Job. Kit could have killed you, too, but he wanted a witness."

  "I thought he would kill me, at first," said Nose Job, suppressing a shiver. "He was coming at me with that look in his eyes, and... I'm afraid I didn't cope very well. I've never had a gun pointed at me before. As I said, this is a peaceful world. At least, it was... I'm afraid I passed out. Just for a second. When I came to, he was gone."

  "McGuffin was able to sound the alarm before he was killed," said Rising gruffly. "We had the ministerial wing cordoned off within ninety seconds, but we saw no sign of the perp, not even on the cameras. He'd vanished into thin air."

  "He might not have used his abilities to get into the palace," said Johnny. "But it's a sure bet he used them to get out."

  Middenface groaned. "Then we came aw this way fer nothing. Yon scunner's already done his worst. He's got nae more reason tae be hanging aboot here."

  Johnny nodded despondently. "You're right. He could be anywhere by now."

  "Actually," said Nose Job, "Kit Jones is almost certainly still on Miltonia. You see, we think there's more to this than just a personal vendetta - far more."

  After Johnny and Middenface had paid their final respects to Moosehead, Nose Job Johnson suggested they continue their business in more pleasant surroundings. They retraced their steps to the lift, rode back to the top floor, and were led into a comfortably appointed room a few doors down from the president's sanctum, which Johnny took to be Nose Job's own office.

  Johnny and Middenface sank into the soft, deep cushions of a black leather sofa, while Nose Job perched on a rigid chair beside his desk. Rising seemed content to stand guard at the door again.

  "For some time now," Nose Job began, "we've been having some, shall we say, difficulties, with a group who call themselves the Salvationists."

  "Norm supremacists!" spat Rising from the doorway. "It's not enough that they control ninety-nine per cent of the known universe. They can't stand the idea that there's a place, just one world, where mutants can be free of their bigotry."

  "Thank you, general," said Nose Job. "The Salvationists began life as a legitimate pressure group and we recognised them as such. They campaigned for equal rights for Miltonia's growing norm population."

  "The 'equal right' to persecute our kind," Rising grumbled.

  "Over time, though, the movement has been hijacked by extremists, and has gone underground."

  "Last week," said Rising, "they exploded a bomb on a school bus as it passed through the centre of Clacton Fuzzville. They sent a message by electronic mail to the palace, claiming responsibility. It was carnage: severed arms and legs everywhere."

  "Fortunately," Nose Job hastened to explain, "there was only one person aboard: the driver. It's just that he had a lot of arms and legs."

  "And there'd already been one attempt on McGuffin's life," Rising continued. "A norm took a shot at him during a press conference at the spaceport. He tried to make a run for it but my men were too quick for him. Four bullets right in the back; a perfect grouping. After that, I told McGuffin that he should be guarded at all times."

  "But the minister was convinced that it was a one-off incident. He was determined to go on as before and not to give in to fear." Nose Job sighed. "I don't know... Perhaps we should have seen it coming. Perhaps we've grown complacent with our comfortable lives here. Perhaps we should have done something."

  "You can't legislate against fanatics!" snapped the general. "They don't play by the rules. They'll do anything, use anyone, even sacrifice themselves for the sake of their own twisted goals. And they're cowards. They won't come out and fight, they only strike from the shadows. If the norms feel so oppressed here, if their life is so intolerable, why do they keep on coming? Why don't they go to one of the thousands of norm worlds, where they can live as happy as you please and lord it over the mutant scum they seem to hate so much?"

  "I don't understand," said Johnny. "What does this have to do with Kit?"

  "Did I not say?" asked Nose Job. "In Minister McGuffin's office, before I... Well... What I mean to say is, before Identi Kit left, he told me something. He said he was striking a blow for the Salvationists, and this was just the start."

  Johnny frowned. "Why would a mutant be working with norm supremacists?"

  "Who knows?" shrugged Middenface. "Who cares? Let's just go find the scunner. Ye got any questions, ye can ask 'em once ah've broken his face."

  "We think the Salvationists engineered Kit's escape from prison," said Nose Job. "It's likely that they also planned the assassination of Minister McGuffin, and equipped Kit for the purpose. He owes them."

  Johnny could see where this was going. "So, if we're to capture Identi Kit," he sighed, "we'll have to take on these terrorists, too."

  Nose Job smiled. "Our intelligence reports suggest that the Salvationists have a base in the mountains to the south of Clacton Fuzzville. Unfortunately, we have been unable to pinpoint its exact location."

  Johnny nodded grimly. "When do we leave?"

  "There's one more thing," said Nose Job. "The Salvationists have a hostage: a Miltonian citizen named George Smith, better known as the Consoler. He was snatched from his home over six months ago. Since then, he's only been seen in video messages sent to the media by his captors."

  Rising's thin lips twisted into a scowl. "At first, we thought they were forcing him to spout their racist propaganda, but now, we think it's worse."

  "We think they've brainwashed him," concluded Nose Job.

  "Why?" asked Johnny. "What's so special about Smith?"

  "The Consoler has a unique ability," said Nose Job. "He can absorb the mutations of others into his own body. That means he can-"

  "Turn mutants intae norms!" exclaimed Middenface, his eyes widening.

  "Or, as the Salvationists would have it, 'cure' them," said Rising.

  "They claim to have 'cured' over a hundred mutants already," said Nose Job. "We can't verify that figure, but you know as well as I do that many
of our kind have been taught to loathe what they are; to see themselves as inferior. The Salvationists play on that self-hatred. They invite mutants to come to them, and they make them 'normal' in return for their support for the Salvationist cause."

  "If we let this go on," said Rising, "they could shift the whole balance of power on Miltonia. We could find ourselves outnumbered by norms. There could be another Mutant War here."

  "That's why the president has empowered me to make you an offer," said Nose Job Johnson. "The Miltonian government will give you all the assistance you require to find the Salvationists and arrest Kit Jones. We will also pay you an additional fifty thousand credits if you can rescue the Consoler and bring him back to us."

  Johnny almost missed the muttered words of General Rising. "Whether he wants to be brought back or not."

  CHAPTER SIX

  CRIMINAL MAGNETISM

  Middenface was longing for the whisky he had found in the hold of the supply ship that had taken them to Miltonia. The hold had been only marginally less comfortable than the military air cruiser in which he now found himself. The hunt for Kit had involved far too much travelling for his liking. He needed a drink to take the edge off his nerves.

  The air cruiser lurched as it hit an air pocket, and then banked steeply. Middenface felt his guts turn over in complaint, but at least the mountain range to which they were headed had finally come into view. Hidden somewhere in this range was the Salvationist base camp where, according to their new allies in the Miltonian government, they would find Kit.

  About time, too, he thought. He could take comfort in the fact that as soon as they had bagged their man, there was only one more journey to make, and that was back to the Doghouse to collect their seven hundred thousand credits. That was the only thing he could take comfort in, though. They were going after Kit practically unarmed.

  The mountains were full of an extremely rare ore known as magnetinium. It only existed on a couple of known planets, and this particular mountain range had the biggest deposit ever found. Magnetinium gave off a huge field of... What was it Rising had called them at the briefing? Imps? No, it was EMPs: electromagnetic something-or-others.

  Middenface had spent most of the briefing fighting the urge to blacken every one of the general's eight eyes. Stuck-up, self-important desk monkey! The general was happy enough for the S/D agents to fight his battles for him, but answering Johnny's questions, that was another matter. It was clear that he was holding back information, and telling them no more than he had to. Not that Middenface had listened to much of what the general had said. Listening and plotting was Johnny's field; laldy and handing it out, that was Middenface's forte.

  Electromagnetic beans? No, wait, pulses. That was it. Yeah, pulses. Magnetinium radiated a field of electromagnetic pulses that disabled any electrical devices it touched. This made the mountain range the perfect place for a bunch of terrorist norms to hide out. No surveillance device could get close enough to find out where they were. What's more, any modern weaponry, or any type of technological doodad you cared to wave a stick at, was disabled the minute it got within the magnetinium's range, leaving General Rising's men unarmed against an enemy they couldn't find anyway.

  The upshot of all this was that Middenface and Johnny were walking into this fight with nothing more than knives and clubs. They had had to leave all their weapons back with the palace guard for safekeeping. If they'd taken them along, they would have been knackered for good. Their weapons were the most expensive things they owned, and they couldn't afford to lose them.

  Middenface did not like this one bit. Handing your weapons over to another man was worse than handing him your wife, naked and full of aphrodisiac. He was still chafing at the thought of it. He felt uncomfortable and undressed without the weight of them hanging off of him. He was so used to adapting his body to their presence that he didn't know how to stand or even sit without them. It was just one more thing that the whisky, if he'd had any, could have helped him forget.

  Although Rising hadn't known the exact location of the Salvationist base, his covert operatives had been able to torture enough information out of the few Salvationists they'd captured to narrow it down to a rough area. The general had smiled proudly as he explained this. Johnny had gone quiet and grim, or rather even more quiet and grim than usual. Middenface could tell he didn't like the idea of acting on intelligence gained by torture. It probably brought back memories of the Kreelers back on Earth. He'd kept his mouth shut all the same.

  So here they were, sitting in the bay of an air cruiser with two pilots and a lieutenant from the Miltonian covert forces. The lieutenant, who had ears growing all over his face (and probably much of his body), pulled out a military issue, handheld holo-projector, which emitted a three-dimensional map of the mountain range ahead.

  "This is about as far as we can take you," he said. "Any closer and our instruments will start to malfunction, along with the engines." He pointed to a section of the holo-map which turned blue. "We're currently here and you want to be," he indicated another section, which turned red. "Here. We're convinced the base camp is within this two-mile radius. Any questions so far?"

  "Aye," said Middenface. "Where do I tak' a leak?"

  "Erm, you'll have to wait until you reach your destination," said the lieutenant. "You'll use jetpacks to get within walking distance of the target. We suggest you use this route." A dotted line appeared on the holo-map, which then zoomed in on the image of the mountain range to give an actual bird's eye view of the route in question. "Our readings show that the EMP field is weakest along this line, allowing you to get as close as possible before the jetpacks cease to function. They should take you to here," a section of the map turned green, "where you'll have to use parachutes to land. A bit low-tech, I'm afraid, but any standard anti-gravity device simply would not function in this environment."

  The lieutenant handed Middenface and Johnny the jetpacks and two bulky backpacks to wear underneath them. "This button here jettisons the jetpacks," he explained. "Then you pull this ripcord here to activate the parachute."

  Middenface was highly dubious about the parachute as he put it on. He had no faith in ancient technology, especially not when his life depended on it. Unfortunately for him, there was no turning back.

  The bay doors opened and the lieutenant wished the two S/D agents luck. Middenface and Johnny jumped from the cruiser, their jetpacks roaring into life.

  Johnny took a deep breath. The cool mountain air was mixed with the hot smell of the jetpack's burning fuel. The wind in his face revived him after the long journey in the air cruiser, and he felt good to be back in action. He and Middenface had spent far too long in stuffy rooms with politicians and officers that neither of them trusted.

  He took a sharp left as he whistled through a gully and skirted a mountain pass. Middenface nearly overshot the turning, and Johnny had to yell loudly to bring the big lug back on course. Navigation had never been one of Middenface's strong points.

  By Johnny's calculation, they were less than two kilometres away from the point at which the EMPs would cause their jetpacks to cut out. They didn't as yet have much of a plan of action upon landing. They would have to employ all their scouting skills to locate the camp and then study its defences carefully. They had no idea how well guarded Kit was or how they were going to apprehend him.

  Like Middenface, Johnny sorely missed his weapons. They gave him an edge over most opponents and without them, all he had was cunning and guile backed up with a little muscle and determination. He was good with a knife and dangerous with a club, but his real area of expertise was as a marksman. His empty holster felt almost painful, like the hole of a freshly pulled tooth.

  They shot over a ravine and approached a plateau where the EMP field was much stronger. Johnny signalled to Middenface to get ready to jettison his pack. They coasted over the plateau and felt themselves jerked sharply backwards as they hit the field and their jetpacks instantly cut out. Johnny pull
ed his ripcord and the parachute billowed out above him, slowing his fall. He looked up at the thin fabric that caught the air and slowed his descent with a sudden admiration. Maybe there was something to be said for the ingenuity of ancient technology, after all.

  Middenface wasn't so impressed, however. Johnny was alarmed to see him plummeting past him, tugging violently at his ripcord and screaming out a tirade of profanities, some of which even Johnny hadn't heard before. He was relieved when the parachute finally opened out below him.

  Johnny lost sight of Middenface then, as he was carried away by a light gust of wind. The ground raced up to meet him and he hit it and rolled as he had been taught. He clambered to his feet and unhooked the chute. It was only then that he realised he hadn't seen Middenface land.

  He scanned the barren, rocky terrain of the plateau, and smiled broadly as he spotted his partner.

  "Awright, very funny. Now git me doon frae here," cried Middenface, dangling from the branches of the only gnarled tree in sight. Trust him to find it!

  Johnny took out his knife, clambered up and cut Middenface loose from the cords in which he had become entangled. He tumbled out of the tree, hitting several branches on his way down, cursing Miltonia, magnetinium, and ancient technology as he went.

  Johnny cut the parachute from the clinging branches and let it drop to the ground. They bundled both parachutes up and looked around for a place to dispose of them. They didn't want to leave any trace that would alert the Salvationists to their presence. The plateau was too barren and rocky to dig much of a hole, and they didn't have a spade anyway, so they jammed the chutes into a crevice and covered it over with rocks.

  "Where tae now, Johnny?" asked Middenface.

  Johnny surveyed their surroundings. As he recalled from the holographic map, there was a gully with a large mountain stream some kilometres away. If there was water, it was probable that there was also some vegetation and the opportunity to grow crops. A good place to begin the search, he decided.