Eventually I gave up trying to convince him that her death was to be counted among the positives in his life. Until last week, his jaw had been wired shut. But he made a great effort to bitch-mumble at me even as I helped feed him, change him, and clean him. Now that he could talk, he was still being an unappreciative little bastard.
My Ceti business was being neglected for this. But after the attack, hiring help or even a droid was out of the question. We were both way up on the Navy’s shit list. After a while, relentless vigilance became outright paranoia. It had reached the point where I would taste Dusty’s meals before him, hoping I’d die of poisoning.
After all this coddling, he was getting a little too comfortable being waited on, and I was sick of it.
‘Have you ever tasted real fruit before?’ Dusty asked, as I cleared his plate and tossed the remnants of dinner into the sink. Of course I had no idea what he was talking about and reached for a smacker.
‘What?’ I said, lighting the joint.
Dusty’s handsomeness didn’t exactly improve with the accident. The metal now holding his cheekbones together gave him an unsightly bulge beneath both eyes. He’d opted for titanium instead of bone to leave the door open for augmentations that would make him a better pilot than he already was.
‘You know, like an apple, or an orange,’ he continued. ‘Real stuff with real skin, not plastic wrappers.’
Dusty had enough money to live as lavishly as a Ceti lieutenant. Instead he lived in a messy low-income flat that was covered wall-to-wall in electronics. The living room was an exact replica of the Breakaway’s bridge, fully capable of simulating real flight. An industrial workfab unit was crammed into the master bedroom, where he refitted engine components and built drones, scale models of Navy warships, and replicas of his favourite comic book heroes. Most of the gear was shut down and stowed in preparation for the journey to Corinth.
The few articles of clothing he owned were arranged in random piles throughout the place. And anything that wasn’t autonomously self-cleaning just wasn’t cleaned, ever.
‘No, Dusty,’ I said, as green tendrils of smoke hissed out of my nose. ‘I’ve never had a real apple.’
Turning towards the living room, I saw the Minotaur lounging in the captain’s chair.
‘He’s got that look again,’ the bull-man snorted. ‘Reel him in before he gets crazy.’
I ignored the advice.
‘Well, I have,’ Dusty said. ‘They grow trees in the biodomes on Eris. Inner Rim people get to eat the produce. Not the synthetic shit we eat here.’
An involuntary twitch contorted my face. That was happening more often lately.
‘So …?’ I asked, taking another deep puff.
‘So when this is over,’ Dusty said, ‘I want an apple tree.’
Swallowing the smoke by mistake, I burst into a hoarse, phlegmy wheeze.
‘I think I’m missing a few blunts,’ I managed.
‘I’m serious,’ Dusty said, moving into the living room. ‘That’s what I want.’
‘If we survive this,’ I vowed, ‘I’ll buy you a whole damn orchard.’
‘You’re such a fatalist,’ Dusty fumed. ‘It’s depressing.’
That was understandable. But when he wasn’t moaning about his dead ‘girlfriend’, he fantasised about heroics in the attack on the Archangel. The prospect of shooting Navy ships filled him with euphoria. Dusty dreamt of having each kill painted on the nose of the Breakaway, thinking it would earn him more ‘status’ with the other Ceti captains.
‘Did you actually read the battle plan?’ Dusty ranted. ‘I bet you don’t even understand it.’
God, he was annoying.
‘I know a bad deal when I see one,’ I said.
‘The shield tech is the difference,’ Dusty insisted, throwing a canvas sheet over one of the dashboard displays. ‘You haven’t seen what it can do. I have.’
I blew out another wisp of smog.
‘Even if you had seen it – and I’m going to call bullshit on that – what difference does it make?’ I asked. ‘It doesn’t help us, right? The Breakaway isn’t shielded.’
‘We have the element of surprise,’ Dusty said.
The Minotaur snorted into a brief laugh. Another twitch grabbed hold of my face.
‘This fleet’s too big to sneak up on anything,’ I said. ‘It’s going to be a massacre.’
Dusty stamped his foot like a little girl.
‘Just once, try to be positive about something!’ he scolded, before calming down. ‘Anyway, check your corelink. You have procurement chores.’
I fished the device out of my pocket while sucking the joint down to the hilt.
Glancing over his list ignited a bomb fuse within me.
‘Are you shitting me?’ I said.
‘It’s a long ride and cryo makes me sick,’ Dusty said. ‘I aim to stay busy.’
‘You’re strangling the corelink,’ the Minotaur observed.
‘This is … what … synthetic cow meat?’ I growled. ‘Really?’
‘Steak,’ Dusty said. ‘The stuff is delicious. Have you ever tried it?’
‘I’m offended,’ the Minotaur smirked.
‘No!’ I fumed. ‘Jesus Christ.’
‘They sell it in the Sixth Ward,’ Dusty said. ‘Just follow that succulent aroma; it’s the signature scent of Brotherhood.’
I had heard enough.
‘Fuck this,’ I snapped. ‘I’m not ordering a three-week supply of your favourite takeout.’
Dusty turned all red.
‘Then I’ll ditch your drug stash and see how you enjoy the trip!’
The bomb exploded. My fist lashed out on its own, smashing one of the electronic displays on the wall into pieces.
I didn’t even hear the words come out of my mouth.
‘The fuck you will, Dusty. I’ll hurt you real bad.’
His expression changed from defiance to fear, and for a moment I was gratified. Taking a frightened step backwards, he tripped, pulling more random junk down on top of him as he tried to catch himself.
‘Atta boy,’ the Minotaur said, as Dusty landed with a crash.
Horrified, I rushed forward to offer a hand. But Dusty cowered away as if I were a monster.
Maybe he was right.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered, heading towards the door.
The sun was setting on another Brotherhood ‘day’ as the giant mirrors that focused Orionis sunlight onto the curved city grids were gradually redirected away. All the activity to prep the Ceti fleet made for slow travelling, and it took me nearly an hour to reach the nearest tram station.
Along the way, I smoked as much as I could.
If you were a mutant, the Sixth Ward was an exclusive place to call home – and a miserable, impoverished slum to everyone else. People who settled there worked the most menial, dirty, or dangerous jobs in the station. But they were a proud community who wore their deformations like a badge of honour. If you didn’t have one, you didn’t belong.
The tram platform was crowded, but no one stood anywhere near me as I waited. Maybe it was because I smelled like a chemical refinery, or perhaps it was the green smog surrounding my head, or maybe the Ceti lieutenant insignia spread across my coat. Whatever the case, the express to Camden Market, the closest stop to the Sixth, was nearly empty. No one else boarded when I did. A few exhausted souls were already inside, every single one a mutant. Some had probably been working for days without sleep. The impending attack on the Archangel was an open secret now, and huge sums of wealth had transferred from Ceti captains to the labour force in preparation for the journey.
Taking a seat near the door, I reached for another joint – and realised it was my last one. Desperate, soul-shearing panic sets in. Just like that, my high evaporates and I’m back in the vortex, drowning in a sea of self-loathing, where drugs are the only thing keeping me alive. As the tram glides away from the platform, I begin hyperventilating. The curved cityscape looming high above is
suddenly terrifying, and Zeus is readying to feast on us as the whole station spins round and round, hundreds of thousands of pointless lives just turning in circles.
One scene of hardship after the next blinked by as the tram picked up speed. All these people were slaving to earn a few more CROs in the rush to send thousands of their own to fiery Inner Rim deaths. I broke into a nervous laugh, spawned by the madness of life and the terror of not having the fix I needed to cope with it.
When the tram passed by a larger-than-life projection of ‘The Patriot: Vladric Mors’, my self-loathing became hatred.
Vladric, the bane of my life. Of all lives. Yet he commanded such respect from them, reverence even. What had he done to earn it?
I knew the answer: he had given ‘hope’. The simplicity of it made me furious. Evil as he was, that motherfucker gave ghosts and mutants more hope than Orionis ever did. All he had done was recognise them as people with as much right to be here as anyone else.
What the hell had I spent my life defending? Tabit Prime had made this man. Without him, there would be no need for a Navy, or the Archangel. But if not him, their regime would have just created someone else.
Vladric Mors ruled Ceti through his lieutenants. His government was akin to feudalism, but the people who lived here preferred that to Chancellor Jade’s ‘democracy’. If a lieutenant was being harsh or unfair, Vladric made an example of him – often in brutal fashion – to send a message to the other lords. Although he had his own use for violence, he wasn’t interested in officers who relied on it. Instead he sought out those with real intellect. These lieutenants formed the core structure of Ceti, and most, if not all, owned warships with crews of their own.
Somehow, Vladric had convinced all these bright individuals that attacking the Archangel was not only possible, but an imperative necessity. Most of the fleet was flying straight into a gunfight they couldn’t win. Yet if Vladric’s lieutenants knew more, knew that this wasn’t a suicide mission, they weren’t interested in explaining why his plan would work to anyone else.
Something sinister was happening. I had infiltrated the inner circle too late. Dusty was a social outcast whom other captains shunned, and I had the reputation of a sadist. We were locked out from the intelligentsia of Ceti for good.
Deep down, I must have known it all along. The bad things I did to fuel this transformation from the person I was into the monster I needed to become accomplished nothing but the death of my own soul.
I accepted that everything I had sacrificed was for nothing. Reaching again for my last joint, I knew now what needed to be done.
‘You piece of shit,’ the Minotaur said, loud enough to startle the nearest passenger. He must have been sitting next to me the whole time.
‘Likewise,’ I muttered, lighting up. Immediately, a woman’s voice came over the tram’s loudspeaker.
‘Smoking is illegal on this tram,’ she said. ‘Please extinguish your narcotic.’
‘No, really,’ the Minotaur said, leaning forward. ‘Who do you think you are, threatening Dusty like that?’
There was nothing to say. He was right.
‘There’s one person in existence that gives a damn about you,’ the bull-man said, unrelenting. ‘Just one. And you were going to do what?’
‘Please extinguish your narcotic,’ the tram-bitch said.
Out of nowhere, my ears started to ring.
‘You were going to kill him!’ the Minotaur exclaimed.
Every passenger on the tram got up and moved away from me. And the ringing in my ears was getting louder.
‘You’d kill your only friend for a fucking joint,’ the Minotaur scoffed. ‘Pathetic.’
‘Jack Tatum, the Ceti Municipal Affairs Division has just issued you a summons for the misdemeanour of public narcotic consumption.’
‘End yourself and be done with it,’ the Minotaur said.
The ringing was so loud I couldn’t hear myself think.
‘What are you waiting for, Jack?’
‘Please extinguish your narcotic.’
I inhaled deeply. Too much.
‘Do it!’
The noise was overwhelming.
‘Please extinguish your life.’
The tram stopped. Or maybe the world had stopped moving long enough for me get out.
‘You have been summoned, Jake Reddeck, Jack Tatum, Jake Reddeck, Jack Tatum …’
I staggered onto the platform to escape and tripped over my own feet. A Ceti guard approached, weapon in hand, as I picked myself up from the pavement and drew a deep, deadly puff.
‘Were you just smoking on that tram, junkie?’ he asked.
‘Fuck you just call him?’ the Minotaur snarled.
When I looked up, the guard’s face was melting in viscous slags of flesh.
‘Jack Tatum?’ it said, drawing closer. ‘Are you alright, sir?’
The world was stretching and contracting. Every breath burned like a furnace. Fire pumped through my veins. I covered my temples to keep my head from flying apart.
‘I’m looking for a mutant,’ I managed. ‘He’s a … dangerous prick. I need your sidearm.’
‘But it won’t do you any good,’ the melted face said.
‘Give him your goddamn weapon,’ the Minotaur shouted. ‘Now.’
I felt a gun pressed into my palm.
‘Should I call for backup?’ the face asked.
‘No!’ I shouted. ‘He’s listening to your comms. I’ll handle it. Stay here!’
I didn’t care if he believed me.
Turning away, I stumbled towards the darkness. The border where Camden Market met the Sixth Ward was a maze of corridors, bewildering to navigate when sober. Metal and glass fused into faceless strangers who hurried out of my way. People were watching me from the shadows; I could hear their whispers, and every one of them knew I was a traitor in their world.
My body was beginning to fail. The ringing sound was maddening, and voices that spoke over it were all telling me to hurry. Rounding a corner I found myself in an open courtyard that seemed impossibly wide; I screamed when I saw it was filled with apple trees, upon which hung not fruit but eyes – and all staring at me.
I ran until I found myself lost among narrow alleyways lined with tiered apartments stacked like toys, moments from collapsing. Sagging razorwire cables were strung across the alleys, each one ready to lash me to pieces. A drone resembling a carnivorous insect pushed its way down the alley, spraying the streets with molten lava as a few yellow cadavers whisked litter into a cart ahead of it.
This was a fine place to die.
My back pushed against the alley wall. My legs quit, and I dropped straight down. A cold dampness spread across my ass. I was sitting in a deep puddle.
‘The best high you’ll ever get is a trigger pull away,’ the Minotaur encouraged.
‘You think Danna is there?’ I asked. The ringing was so loud that blood was draining from my ears.
‘Oh, yeah,’ the Minotaur said. ‘Go to her, Jake.’
‘She was all I lived for,’ I said, handing the gun to the Minotaur. ‘You do it.’
The puddle beneath me opened in a swirling vortex.
‘No,’ the Minotaur said, backing away from my outstretched arm. ‘This time, you’re on your own.’
Round and round we spun, the whole world swirling around the puddle between my legs.
‘I’m coming home, Danna.’
I pressed the gun against my temple and squeezed.
Five Years Earlier
‘I feel so … weird in these,’ Jake said, looking himself over.
‘I think you look sexy,’ Danna said, wrapping her arms around his waist. The subtle smile on her lips could convince him to do anything.
Jake was dressed in his Navy dress whites, reserved for formal ceremonies. The last time he had worn them had been a year ago at the annual Policeman’s Ball, which was where he first set eyes on Danna Tyrell.
‘Thanks, babe … are you sure about
this?’ Jake asked again. He’d only proposed to her a week before. The problem was, they had yet to tell her father, who also happen to be the highest ranking police officer in Orionis.
That made matters somewhat intimidating.
Danna squeezed his hands.
‘It’ll be fine,’ she reassured. ‘Besides, it’s not like you’re asking him for permission.’
Jake winced.
‘I really should have asked him,’ he said. ‘Just out of respect …’
Danna smirked.
‘Did you ask him if we could date?’ she said playfully. ‘This isn’t much different.’
Augustus Tyrell, the legendary law enforcement commander, was also a notorious hardass. Jake was just as terrified of him as every other freshman officer.
When he had first met Danna, he had no idea who she was. Not that it would have mattered. Nothing was going to stop him from introducing himself.
‘It’s … a little different,’ Jake said.
‘Mmhmm, a little,’ she said, planting a kiss on his cheek. ‘Not much.’
‘He’s my boss now!’ Jake said, clasping her hands. ‘He won’t even acknowledge we’re together.’
‘He will after tonight,’ she said, whispering in his ear. ‘Especially when I tell him I’m pregnant.’
Present Day – The Sixth Ward, Brotherhood Station
I woke from the most joyous moment of my life, believing that I had died, and that heaven was a place where you relived your best memories for eternity.
Instead I was shivering violently, soaked from the waist down in some frothing, foul-looking liquid. The Minotaur was nowhere in sight. I found the gun submerged in the muck, and, wondering why it hadn’t fired, discovered that it was biometrically locked.
I must have blacked out before realising.
Cradling the useless weapon in my hands, I started to whimper a little, and before long I was sobbing. It was grief, I think. Or remorse. Maybe both.
The Tabit Genesis Page 24
