by Rob Aspinall
A split second later, the same deal with the two at the rear. Big explosion. Giant flaming wreck.
Black smoke plumed into the air, the limo caught in a fireball sandwich. It tried pulling out around the blaze. I trained the rifle on the near side-front window and let off a single shot. It punched a hole in the tinted window and revealed a driver slumped over the steering wheel, brain-spat patterns all over the dash.
Oh. My. God.
I hated gory stuff.
I wanted to vom.
The limo rolled to a stop, burning bodies spilling out of the Range Rovers and collapsing on the road. I fixed the crosshairs on the rear of the limo and waited. I flexed a sun-cracked finger around the trigger and let out a deep breath. The rear door of the limo opened and an Arab bodyguard in a black suit stuck his head out, yelling into his phone. It only took a second to line up the shot. One tiny squeeze of the finger and his head popped right off.
Ugh, yuck. This was horrible. Seriously, make it stop.
Another bodyguard climbed out of the far side of the car, staying low. He unleashed a hell-storm of machine-gun fire in my direction, bullets pounding into the dune just a few feet below me.
The guy ducked back down behind the rear of the car, before rising to return fire again. I got him in the neck, the shot tearing his throat apart, blood spraying left and right.
I spotted an older man in military uniform running scared into the vast, flat desert over the opposite side of the road. I pulled the rifle apart and slid back down the dune to a beige four-by-four dusted in sand. I threw the rifle bag in the passenger seat and cranked up the engine. The air con kicked in, full blast. Ice-cool heaven.
I took off down the dune and across the road in front of the burning convoy. The man in uniform was old and covered in war medals, a trimmed white beard standing out against his dark skin. I cut in front of him and slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the four-by-four with a handgun by my side.
The old man stopped running. He knew the game was up.
“Just do it,” he said in Arabic.
So, what, I speak Arabic now?
I raised my gun and fired, but there was no bullet. Just a dart with a fluffy pink tail that stuck in his neck. He dropped to his knees, flopping mush first in the sand.
Time jumped ahead, the sun high in the sky cooking everything in sight. Uniform dude lay on his side in the back, hands tied with plastic cuffs and a black hood over his head. He groaned as he came to. The dash on the four-by-four rattled on the bumpy roads. The landscape was an endless yellow sea with a long stick of empty liquorice tarmac running through it. A far cry from the industrial wasteland I called home. Grotty grey council estates and boarded-up shops on the outskirts of Manchester, where regeneration didn’t stretch and people with money didn’t stray.
I rumbled along for a few minutes, alone, until I noticed a tiny speck in my side mirror, gaining fast. Now there were two of them, growing bigger and bigger until it was obvious they were chasing me down. One hand tightened around the wheel while the other reached in the rifle bag and pulled out a handgun. A real one this time. Heavier.
I steered with my knees while I locked and loaded. The two specks turned out to be a pair of shitty, dirty white Toyota pickups keeping pace either side of me, Arab guys inside signalling to pull over.
Army? Police? Worse?
We came to a stop just off the road. I tucked the gun in the waist of my combats. My drone body felt awfully calm, considering. There were five men in total. They held up scary-looking machine guns, screaming at me to put my hands up and get out slowly. I did as they screamed, walking forward a few metres and dropping to my knees. I tucked my hands behind my head, my phone concealed within them.
They trained their weapons on me while a man who appeared to be the leader performed a search. He relieved me of my weapon, asking me what I was doing and where I was going. Another guy wandered round to the back of the four-by-four, peering through the dirty windows.
“He’s here!” he said. “Alive.”
“Who are you?” the leader asked me.
I said nothing. He slammed the butt of his rifle in my stomach. Jesus, the pain.
“Who do you work for?”
“He’s not going to talk. Let’s get rid of him,” one of the men said.
“Shouldn’t we take him back for interrogation?” asked another.
“What’s wrong?” said the leader. “Don’t you want to make Major?”
The men hurried themselves into a line, clearly excited by the thought of a promotion. And I thought it was my heart condition that was going to be the death of me. After all this, it would be an AK-47 firing squad. I wanted to tell them it had all been a big misunderstanding. I’d been turned into a super-soldier by secret army surgeons. But drone-soldier Lorna didn’t like to talk. She preferred to text.
While my captors were busy preparing their weapons and I was busy pooping my mind pants, those clever man hands of mine were texting away on my push-button phone. I was so distracted by all the fear and facial hair that I hadn’t noticed until my right index finger pushed the last button. I expected another roadside bomb to go off somewhere, but nothing. Through squinting eyes, all I could see were the silhouette figures of the men; and, in the distance, a small black dot against a dazzling sky.
“It’s the end of the road for you, friend,” the leader said to me.
Rifles clicked. Fingers twitched. Eyes narrowed behind sights.
“Ready,” said the leader, “aim …”
I braced myself for an impact that never came. The instant the leader said fire, the entire firing squad was cut in half by a blink-and-miss rattle of bullets the size of Coke bottles, making Swiss cheese of their trucks in the process.
A grey-black drone flashed by low overhead, engines like thunder. It turned and performed a fly-by, before melting back into the sun, leaving nothing but the sound of the wind.
Five lives snuffed out faster than you can clap your hands. Vultures already circling high over the body parts and sand soaking up the blood. I got back to my feet and checked my phone. A text from me that said: Skybird. A text back saying: Skybird confirmed. I walked round to the back of the four-by-four, re-hooded my still-drowsy captive, climbed back behind the wheel and continued on my way.
3
Side Effects
Back in breezy old Manchester of England, I woke up sloooooowly in intensive care. My eyes sticky. The world just shapes and muffled sounds. Someone held my hand, talking. Wah, wah, wah.
When I eventually came round properly, the hospital room was dead except for my Darth Vader click ’n’ breathe ventilator and the gentle beep of the heart monitor.
Suddenly it hit me. That was my heartbeat and it was beeping steadily. I was alive. I felt like deep-fried shitballs, but I was alive!
Auntie Claire was snoozing in a chair by the bed. A nurse was checking my vitals. She smiled and nudged Auntie Claire awake.
Auntie Claire gasped in delight, seizing my hand. “Hey, Lorny.”
It was all too much. I couldn’t muster a single word, yet the rogue tear rolling down my left cheek said it all.
A few days later they took me off the ventilator and the head surgeon stopped by to debrief.
“Your surgery went well,” he said, with a big grin. “No complications and, so far, zero signs of rejection.”
“Thank you,” I said, “for everything. You’ve no idea how—”
He waved it away. “All part of the service … Now, since you’re on the mend, there are a few things I need to run through with you. First, you’ve had major heart surgery. So you need to act appropriately. We’re going to keep you on fluids the next few days. Then we’ll start to get you back on your feet. The number-one rule is to take it slow. Your new heart has perfect function, but you could still suffer from blackouts if you overdo it. Some patients are too weak to walk at first. Some get frustrated because they’re not allowed to do more, but just do what the nurses tell you
, okay? Donor organs like yours are precious, so take care of it.”
I nodded and smiled. Then asked how long I’d be in there.
“Two to three weeks, depending … But you’re doing really well. And you’ve got a strong, healthy heart in you. I held it in my hands. It’s one of the best I’ve seen.”
He checked his watch and said he’d see me before I left the ward.
“What’s the number-one rule?” he asked on his way out.
“Take it slow,” I said.
I looked over to the bedside table, where a leaflet chirped: Hey, I’ve had a heart transplant! What next?
The first time I found out I’d made the waiting list for an op, Dr J had warned me about the rehab and medication.
“They’ll decrease the likelihood that your body will reject the foreign tissue, but, obviously, there are some risks,” he’d said. “Infections, illness, fatigue, cancer …”
Oh fab, I thought, the C word. I wanted to stick my fingers in my ears and sing la-la-la! But the hard facts kept coming like spots and tsunamis.
“Don’t worry,” he’d said, creaking forward and touching me awkwardly on the arm. “Donors can be difficult to find, so you don’t have to think about any of that yet.”
Yeah, he’d not quite got the hang of this bedside manner thing, had he? Made me wonder what he was like with Mrs J. “You’re sagging horribly, dear, but so are most women your age. Don’t be unduly alarmed.”
I looked down at the mega-dressing running down the centre of my chest. I was definitely in the wanting-to-go-fast camp. I wanted to run and jump and dance and roller disco, but that would have to wait. First, I had to contend with the warm plate of pig slop being plonked in front of me for dinner. You think the chicken surprise is bad in hospital? Try being a veggie. There’s bogie risotto, cardboard tofu, burnt twig stir-fry, or my personal fave, sick on a plate. I know I was an ungrateful bitch. I was lucky to still be alive and gagging. And there were millions of starving children who’d gladly scrap over the cabbage medley. But, really, would it have killed them to cut the roots off the carrots?
Oh, what I would’ve given for one of Auntie Claire’s volcanic cheese toasties.
She’d make them for me every time I was put on standby for an organ, only to be let down. I’d sit there in the small, dated kitchen you found in two-bed terraces like ours, burning my chin on the melted cheddar oozing out of the toastie, a small plastic Jesus hanging off a cross on the wall in a white pair of budgie smugglers. Like always, he seemed to carry a smug look that said, Ha ha, stupid cow. Plastic Jesus loved that shit.
“Don’t worry love,” Auntie Claire always said in her harmless, religious-nut way. “God has a plan for us all.”
Yeah, that’s what I was worried about. His plan for me was a dodgy ticker and an early bath.
The problem with my old heart had been valvular. It meant I had a bad flap, as Auntie Claire called it. The flap didn’t open and close like everyone else’s. My heart struggled to pump blood around my body properly, which meant I got tired easily. I found it tough to concentrate. And Zumba was a big fat nada.
I was also prone to blackouts. My body loved nothing more than a good faint. In the middle of class, the shopping mall, on the bus, at the dinner table, the hairdressers. You name the floor. I’ve woken up on it.
It’s the Circle of Concern I dreaded the most, especially if there was a hot boy on the scene. Nothing said pathetic like losing your shit in the middle of Subway. There’s a video of that one on YouTube. Three minutes of me flat on my back, covered in shame and shredded lettuce.
Worst of all, the shitty blood flow gave me cankles and a little pot-belly, despite what people said.
“Oh no, Lorna, you’ve just got big ankle bones.”
See: Bits I Hate Most About Me in Thoughts N Shit.
I wasn’t born with the bad flap. It sort of just arrived out of the blue about four years ago. The doctors ran all kinds of tests and turned me into a walking voodoo doll before they finally put two and two together and came up with nightmare.
Auntie Claire said I was dying of a broken heart, ever since Dad ate that darn pesky shotgun and Mum skipped off to a religious supercult in Texas. (File under: Things We Don’t Talk About At The Dinner Table.)
Now, with a new heart in my chest, I couldn’t wait to start living. Okay, so I felt like death on toast, the dressing on my chest was worryingly huge, and every cell of my body hurt like I’d been stomped on by a T-rex. Yet, somehow, I felt better than ever. My heart was beating strong and steady, with no more skipping or buffering. My lungs were sucking in more life, with no more shortness of breath. I was even able to hold my concentration beyond a couple of minutes.
All flaps were go. By day five, it was time to put feet to floor and take a walk to the bathroom. I wiggled my toes inside my favourite dogface slippers, fluffy, warm and familiar. Jocelyn, the short, mumsy nurse who was my designated pee facilitator, steadied me as I rose gingerly. After a bit of swaying, I was baby-stepping it down the corridor. By Jove, I was walking. In my head I sang to the tune of “Let It Go” from Frozen.
I can waaaaallllk! I can waaaalllllk! I can walk, I can walk, I can walll-a-allllk!
Suddenly, I was cut off mid-song. Who the fuck was that red moon marshmallow face staring back at me in the mirror? It was the anti-rejection drugs they’d pumped into me like petrol into a car. I’d been warned about it, but it was still a shock.
Jocelyn stroked my back. “Your face will go down, sweetie.”
My mind raced through the side effects of the immunosuppressants, like a game-show voiceover reeling off a conveyer belt of booby prizes:
Decrease in muscle function!
Weak bones!
Weight gain!
Crohn’s disease!
Flaky skin!
Acne!
Facial hair!
Going bald!
Was greasy tramp hair that sticks to your forehead part of the deal?
“Let’s get you a nice hot shower,” said Jocelyn, as if reading my horrified little mind.
At least if my hair was shiny and clean, I could cover part of my face and make it look thinner.
I tried to block out the image of my future self: a beard, a broken arm, bingo wings, puff-pastry pizza face, a shiny bald head, a gam hand and a crooked walk. These were just potentials after all. They weren’t necessarily going to happen.
Sure, Lorna, keep telling yourself that, my inner devil kept saying in her bored, sarcastic drawl. Everyone’s gonna puke through their eyeballs when they get a load of you. You’ll never get a boyfriend. And even if you do, it’s doubtful he’ll love you. He’ll probably think of one of your friends while he’s doing you.
Jocelyn helped me take a shower without getting the dressing wet. I lingered in the warm water, letting it reinvigorate my aching bones. She stood with her back to me while I towelled off. I asked her about the donor.
“Obviously, I can’t thank him or anything,” I said. “But I’d like to thank his family and send them my sympathy.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said, “I’m afraid we couldn’t track down his family. No one knows who he was except for the name on the donor card. It’s all he had in his wallet. All I know is, he arrived in a London A&E. They put the heart on ice and flew it up.”
She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “The odd thing is, his body went missing immediately after the organ was removed. They didn’t have time to remove the other donated parts. Then again, hospitals are big places. Things go missing all the time.”
When I told Auntie Claire that night, she put it down to a miracle. A gift from God.
“See?” she said. “I told you he was watching.”
What? An immaculate corpse? Unless God had a hitman in the sky, taking out random strangers and dumping them outside A&E, I doubted it.
Maybe Plastic Jesus had connections, I thought, as I drifted off, hair carefully and futilely arranged over my planet-sized face.
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br /> 4
Cleaver
I surveyed the scene.
A dim, unwelcoming place. An uneven dirt floor, lumpy stone walls and a wonky, low-hanging ceiling. The military man in uniform sat on a thin metal chair in the middle of the empty room, head lolling forward under the hood. I walked out of the cool of the abandoned house and into the blazing white heat of the desert. A couple of mean-looking guys with sun-ruddied faces stood guard in wrap shades either side of the front door. Dressed like locals, but not fooling anyone. A long snake of dust made its way towards us across the cracked, sun-bleached road, growing into a pair of white SUVs. A team of heavies piled out looking like special forces in desert fatigues. They marched forward in tandem, armed to the eyeballs. One guy walked out in front. A short, wiry man with close black hair and velociraptor features. He wore everyday clothes – khaki chinos, a pale blue shirt and some naff brown leisure trainers.
“Morning, morning!” he chirped in a placeless British accent – a takeaway coffee in one hand, a pastry in the other.
We all filed back into the house. While the boss sipped on his coffee and munched loudly on his pastry, one of the heavies scraped another chair across the concrete floor until it faced my abductee. One of his team mates placed a military-issue laptop on the chair and opened it up. The green webcam light was on. Coffee-and-Danish finished his breakfast and pulled the hood off the captive man.
“Good morning, Sultan. Nathan. Nathan Moore. Pleasant journey?” he asked in English.
“What is the meaning of this?” the sultan replied, drowsiness replaced by anger.
“I will have all your heads,” he continued, eyes around the room. “All of you.”
Nathan laughed, patted him on the shoulder and hit a key on the laptop. The silhouette of a thickset man appeared on the other end of a video call.
