The Saffron Malformation

by Walker, Bryan

  “I’m sorry Leone,” Quey told him, but those were the wrong words too.

  “No, she’s okay. I thought…” the world seemed to spin around him, though maybe it was more like a spiral because with every moment that passed everything seemed further away. “She’s going to come back. She wouldn’t just…”

  “She didn’t,” Quey said. “She fought.” He meant to say more but couldn’t, not without losing himself in his own tears, and that was the last thing the boy needed to see.

  He shrugged Natalie’s hands off his shoulders. “How?” the boy asked.

  Quey looked at him.

  “How,” he demanded.

  Leone reminded him of himself at that age, standing in a hospital watching his parents slowly rot away in adjacent beds. Her’s was by the window because she liked to watch the trees and feel the fresh breeze. He had the remote because she’d just tell him to turn on whatever he liked anyhow. Quey had posed a similar question to the doctors then and he’d been fed the bullshit Blue Moon had written for them. It had taken years of independent research to learn the truth, and though in some ways it made things worse, he was never satisfied until he heard it.

  “Sticklan Stone,” Quey told the boy and it was enough.

  Leone looked toward the ground nodding. “It was horrible?”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t,” Natalie assured him.

  “You know the man,” Quey blurted.

  Leone had his own memories of his own dealings with Mr. Stone. They rushed in and broke his heart.

  “Quey,” Natalie snapped.

  Quey glared at her and barked, “He doesn’t want comfort, and if he did lies won’t give it to him. Someone dies you want to know the truth.”

  “That’s still no reason to,” was as far as Natalie got.

  “Thank you,” Leone gathered himself long enough to say. He met Quey’s eyes for a brief moment and then what strength he’d mustered left him. His face scrunched and tears spilled and as the first sobs came he dashed down the hall to his bed.

  The room had a lot in common with a tomb for a spell.

  “What about Reggie?” Natalie finally asked.

  Quey looked at her.

  “It’s on the news,” Rachel said from the table. They looked at her and saw she was looking down at her device. “Screen to news feed, Saffron watch,” she said. The holoscreen across the room flashed and then there was a page with a list of stories, each had a picture and brief description to go with. “The one about the shootout,” she added and the screen flashed again.

  The reporter was an attractive young blonde woman in a sensible blouse and jacket. “Earlier today Saffron Security forces engaged a cell of the Anti-corps terrorist group in a firefight that left eight soldiers dead, and three wounded. This apparently was a safe house,” a picture of it appeared over the woman’s shoulder, “the group was using as a base to plan and engage in terrorist activities. We go now, to Richter Crow, C.E.O of Saffron’s operations.”

  Richter Crow stood tall and stone-faced in his dark blue suit and tie. His hands shuffled through some papers on the podium in front of him.

  “Piece of shit,” Rachel muttered. Quey glanced to her and nodded once.

  “As many of you have heard there was a shootout between our security forces and the terrorist group calling themselves Anti-corps. I am here to tell you that this small cell was a branch of a much larger group operating right here on continent. It is believed, given the information we’ve gathered from the house and other intelligence collected over the years, that this group has been active for quite some time and is believed to currently be hiding in the wastes.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Quey said.

  Leone had heard his father’s voice, even through his door and over his sobs and now he was walking back into the room, his eyes trained on the holographic image of his father.

  “On a personal note, there are aspects of this operation that have not been made public.” The man paused and brought a hand to his eyes, as if wiping tears. “Many of you know my son’s, Gren and Voz.” Another pause. “Most of you don’t know my younger children as I have gone to great lengths to keep them from the media. I have a daughter, Viona, and a son Leone. Last week they were on holiday in Beleuge, enjoying the museums and taking in the sights, when they were taken. Taken by Anti-corps in an attempt to scare us into backing down our vigorous pursuit. Earlier today, I learned that Viona was found in this house. The extent of the brutality used against her...”

  Quey realized too late what was coming, he’d given Richter Crow too much credit, assuming there was a glimmer of humanity in the man, something that would keep him from using her this way. He moved toward Leone but it was too late, the image of Rain’s horribly damaged body appeared on the screen.

  Rachel gaped, her fingers trembling as they touched her lips. Natalie gasped, “Oh shit,” and sat hard on the sofa. Leone didn’t blink. His whole body trembled.

  “This atrocity will be answered for,” Richter Crow assured the crowd and the image was gone. “Not just because she was my daughter but because I will not stand by and abide an organization willing and capable of doing this to any human being.” He looked into the camera and said, “Rest assured we know who you are. We will find you. We will not take prisoners.”

  “Screen off,” Natalie said absently.

  “Screen on,” Leone barked.

  The screen obliged both commands. Everyone looked to Leone. He was focused on the image of his father, clear as if he were standing in the room.

  “…group would suddenly deviate toward such a direction?” The screen came back in the middle of a reporters question. “I mean until now anti-corps has never taken a hostage or engaged in such behavior.”

  Richter Crow took a moment, let out a long sigh, then had a sip of water. “We’ve been on these people for years,” Richter began. “But recently we’ve had a bit of luck. We’ve gotten closer to shutting them down completely and an animal, trapped and frightened, I’ve found, is often capable of unimaginable things.”

  “Why did you keep your daughters kidnapping from the public?”

  Leone stepped toward the screen, his feet dragging as if they weighed a hundred pounds.

  “I truly believed that the agenda of this group was, as you say, to rebel against the corporate model, and that we could find a peaceful resolve to this situation without the need for bloodshed.”

  Leone stood before the image, staring at it. Watching as the man seemed to fight tears. The boy’s fist whipped through the air and swiped the image of his father’s head. There was nothing to strike and instead he spun on his heels and nearly fell. He snatched the legs of an end table and swung that toward the holograph. It crashed into the wall but his father was still there. He cried out and lifted the table over his head, meaning to smash the device projecting the image but Quey snatched the table and pulled it from him. The boy whirled on him and sent a fist into his face. Quey ducked his chin and tucked his head against his shoulder as the boys knuckles found his cheek.

  The boy stood in front of him, glaring and breathing heavily. “Leone,” Quey began softly.

  “Fuck you,” the boy snapped. “This is your fault. If you had just listened to her, gone with her, she wouldn’t have been there by herself.” Quey stared at the boy. He understood. He took a step forward.

  “I know,” he began.

  “You don’t know shit,” the kid barked at him. Then he shoved Quey and said, “Why don’t you just go plan who you want to get killed next.”

  The words stung. Quey stood silent as Leone stormed off down the hall.

  On the holoscreen the reporter was back, sitting behind her desk with a picture of Reggie over her shoulder. “…has been identified as Reginald Vann. He’s a former decorated Blue Moon security agent who fought in the war on south continent. Over the last few years he’s been living in a small town on the west coast but during the last year he’s been repeatedly spotted with this man,” Reggie
vanished and an image of Quey captured on a security camera in one city or another appeared. “He is a well known moonshiner that goes by the name Quey Von Zaul, and is now believed to be the leader of this terrorist cell. Weather that is his real name or just an alias remains to be determined.”

  “Quey has multiple arrests and ties to smuggling operations all over continent. He is also known to have affiliations with the Angles of the Brood, the group responsible for the raids on over fifteen cities and countless towns over the last year. Their relationship was made most notable by this video posted online.”

  The video of the Brood burning down his ranch began to play.

  “Screen off,” Quey said.

  The room snapped into silence.

  “I don’t get it,” Natalie said. “What’s the play?”

  “The play is they’ll be coming,” Quey said. “That picture of Rain gave Richter Crow all the justification he needs and you better believe there’s good odds on that he has a video copy of the entire event. If he does, it’ll be leaked online later today. He’ll claim we did it. Then he’ll send in the security forces and bury us under a hundred tons of rubble, us and all his dirty little secrets, and the people of Saffron’ll applaud him for it.”

  “That can’t be,” Rachel said.

  “No, he’s right,” Natalie interrupted. “All you have to do is say terrorist and suddenly people don’t look to hard for the truth of things. Plus he’s put it out there that we might be in bed with the brood. Sure enough these raids’ll be on us as well before too long.”

  “So what do we do?” Rachel wondered.

  After a moment Quey asked, “Where’s Arnie?”

  “Flight simulator,” Natalie replied with a shrug.

  Quey nodded. “Reggie sent a video. It’s of Rain’s torture. Someone has to watch it.”

  He saw the disgust on Natalie and Rachel’s face. “Why?” Rachel asked.

  “We have to know what she said. Anything they know we can’t use.”

  Natalie and Rachel exchanged a glance.

  “I can’t do it,” Quey admitted. No one was volunteering. “We’ll figure it out later,” he said.

  “I can watch it,” Ryla offered from where she stood just inside the hallway leading toward the elevators. Eyes looked to her with a bit of surprise.

  Natalie went to her and asked, “How do you feel?”

  “Tired. Sore,” she replied. She looked at Quey. His eyes found her in a different way than they had before. “She was my friend.” There was sadness in her, he could see it, but not a single tear in her eyes.

  “You shouldn’t be up.” Natalie said.

  “I’m fine,” she replied.

  “Of course she is,” Arnie said as he stumbled from the elevators toward the main room. “She’s a robot.”

  Ryla’s eyes widened and looked him. He had a bottle of whiskey in his hand.

  “Arnie,” Quey began.

  Arnie looked hard at him, “Is it true? What’s on the news?”

  Quey nodded. “The part you mean is.”

  “And the little robot’s gunna watch it. Must be nice. Have a switch like that.”

  “She’s not a robot,” Rachel defended.

  “What is it then?” he asked, then added, “Can’t trust it,” before taking a long sip.

  “You’re drunk,” Quey told him.

  “Yup. Don’t change that it’s got things. That last basement. Something big. Think there’s other things below that. It’s up to something.”

  “You’re angry, I get it. But whatever she might be… doesn’t change what happened to Rain,” he said and Arnie looked at him.

  “Sure,” he said with a shrug. “Why not. Put it in a dress and fuck it all you want.”

  Quey stepped forward.

  “Least your girlfriend won’t die,” the man finished and then he began to blubber. When he lifted the bottle to his lips Quey took it and said, “Quite enough of that I think.”

  Arnie looked at him. “Did you see her? What they did?”

  Quey nodded.

  “How? How does a person end up like that?” Arnie’s legs gave out and he dropped to the floor with a thick thud. Then he began to sob.

  Natalie went to him, knelt beside him and put an arm around him. Arnie sank against her and sobbed, drooling down the front of her shirt. “It’s alright,” Natalie said when Arnie noticed it. “I’m a mother, I’ve seen worse.

  Quey turned and handed Ryla his sheet. She took it and he didn’t look at her as he walked away.

  Ryla watched the video while sitting on her bed. She watched the first day, the beating and the rape. She scanned through the footage as her friend lie on the cold metal table, naked and weeping. The next day he strapped her down and pinched and pierced tender bits of flesh. By evening things turned truly brutal, introducing fire into the mix. That’s also when he began pressing the questions.

  “What did you send them?” seemed to be a common one.

  “A picture of your tiny dick,” She told him once. He’d laughed. “Does it make you feel good? Powerful? That why you hurt women, because they won’t give it to you on their own, so you take it.”

  Sticklan seemed to grow pensive at that. His reply was gentle. “Its not about sex. Matter of fact, when it comes to rape… you’re my first.”

  “Why then?” she’d asked. “What makes me special?”

  He touched her tenderly, caressed a bit of flesh that was yet unmarked above her belly and below her breasts. “I don’t know. Maybe because it should have happened so many times but you fought hard to never let it. Maybe because it’s the one thing Richter Crow asked me never to do.” He leaned in and kissed her gently on the mouth, she struggled and tried to pull away, but he grabbed her by the hair and forced her head still. “Maybe because of the way you handle him, and the world. There’s a fire in you and it makes you the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And that makes me hate you in a very deep and special way.”

  “You’re psychotic.”

  “Maybe because you throw it around like its swag at a fancy party, you hold it out as an offer to control men, to get in their heads and force their hands, but not with me. With me if I want it I take it and you are the one that’s weak and powerless.”

  “That’s not true. I don’t do that.”

  “Isn’t it? How many men have hidden you, helped you slip away, given you money or goods? How many did it without at least believing they would get to shoot one off inside you? And how many had? Hell, why do you think the moonshiner’s willing to fight a fucking war for you? They’re all going to die because he couldn’t stop thinking about your cunt.”

  Sticklan Stone moved away from her, to someplace off camera. When he returned he had a scalpel. “You disserve this,” he told her.

  That was when he cut into her. He left her overnight, crying herself to sleep. The next morning he came early and poured the bucket of maggots over her naked body. Ryla scanned the footage, watching as her friend struggled against her shackles, trying to reach her wounds, to pick free the creatures slithering inside and burrowing under her skin.

  More questions came, but the answers were always nonsense or confrontational. As he worked on her and as her condition deteriorated she began resorting simply to, “Fuck you.”

  Ryla watched. After the bugs came the water boarding, the burning, this time it was a rod with a round end that glowed red, and the slow bending of fingers and toes until finally they snapped. A hammer came, and then fire again. He’d leave from time to time, giving her time to think and recover some of her senses.

  Rain said little until the end. Sticklan unlatched her and it was clear she knew this time he’d come to kill her. She could barely stand and pain shot through her as she backed away from him. “One last thing,” she said. “A request.”

  Sticklan laughed. “This I’ve got to hear.”

  Rain looked hard at him. “Kill him.”

  “What?” Stone’s voice changed. It was seriou
s.

  “My father. I’m asking you to kill him.”

  “Why the fuck would you do that?” he growled at her.

  “So that when you do, you’ll know, you’re doing it for me.”

  He rushed her and grabbed her by the hair, “When I kill him,” he shouted into her face and Ryla was amazed at how boldly she met the man’s eyes. Even after all of that she hadn’t been broken. “It’ll have nothing to do with you.”

  “Except that I asked for it.” She glared up at him. He screamed wildly and kicked the table, rocking and nearly toppling it.

  “I asked you to kill him, as a final request. You do it and you have to know part of it’s for me.”

  “No you stupid cunt, I was going to kill him even without your asking.”

  “But you haven’t. And when you do, know I will be satisfied. All this will be worth it, so that I could set you on him.”

  Sticklan flailed about, slapping the sides of his head and shouting incoherently. He went to the cabinets and began to punch them then he tore at his hair and screamed.

  “You love me,” Rain began.

  “I don’t love you,” he snapped at her.

  “Then why’d you rape me?” He had no answer. “Why’d you follow me around the house all those years, staring at me, dreaming of this. You wish we could have more time but we can’t because of him. So kill him for me. Kill him for us, for taking me away from you.”

  “Shut your fucking mouth.” Sticklan went to the cabinet and pulled out a knotted length of leather and the cat of nine tails. Holding one in each hand with his chest heaving as it drew heavy amounts of air, he glared at her.

  “Do it for me,” she told him.

  His face was red and he let out a guttural scream as he came forward and struck her. The knot of leather collided with the side of her face and she fell to the ground. Gasping, she struggled to prop herself up on her twisted hands. Her head turned to look at him as he stood over her, his eyes wide and his lips peeled into a hateful sneer. He raised the cat of nine tails and whipped her. Rain cried out and the next blow came from the knot of leather. Ryla’s heart raced as she watched the man stand over her friend, beating her to the brink of death. The screams that accompanied the blows barely sounded human.