KILLER T

by Robert Muchamore

  ‘Will reversing the mod help?’

  ‘It may stop things getting worse, Harry. But a proportion of your lungs is clogged and spongy already. Altering your genes won’t make dead lung tissue grow back. In the long term, the only solution may be a double lung transplant, using a donor lung or synthetically grown lungs.’

  ‘That sounds expensive,’ Harry said warily.

  ‘Donor lungs rely on the tiny number of people who die with young, healthy lungs. Primarily accident victims. Synthetically grown organs are a new technology. It’s extremely expensive and with current techniques adult-sized lungs take four years to grow.’

  Harry drummed anxiously on the arm of his chair. ‘So, in the long term, this doesn’t look good?’

  ‘I won’t pretend that it’s great, but there are options. Reversing your respiratory modification will hopefully stop new tissue damage. If it’s an allergy, we may be able to identify the trigger. Possibly a dust mite in your home, or one of the fertilisers in your polytunnels. Then we could consider surgery to remove the most damaged areas of your lungs. Of course, your lung capacity will be reduced.’

  ‘By how much?’

  ‘It would be proportional to the amount of lung tissue removed. You wouldn’t be running marathons, but I’ve seen cancer patients who’ve had an entire lung removed who manage to live relatively normal lives.’

  ‘I don’t know what we can afford. Ed’s medical bills are already killing us.’

  ‘You’d be entitled to free medical treatment if you returned to the UK,’ Dr Harkom noted. ‘Though the system is under strain and you’d probably find yourself at the end of a long waiting list.’

  ‘Something to consider, I guess,’ Harry said, tipping his head back and feeling angry with himself for getting modded.

  But would I be here with Charlie if I was still pale and spotty?

  ‘I’m still talking over your options with a couple of colleagues,’ the doctor said. ‘We can decide how to progress when I see you in two weeks’ time.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Harry said. ‘One other thing. Charlie’s got a ton of other stuff to worry about. If she comes in to see you with Ed, I’d prefer you didn’t mention this.’

  As Harry ended the call, he could hear Vern finishing off the door in the kitchen, while Ed horsed around with Patrick in the hallway. Harry sat still in the armchair, holding the phone and scared of the gunk that rattled his chest every time he breathed.

  He stayed that way for a couple of minutes, until the guilt about leaving Vern fixing his kitchen won out. Patrick and Ed were mucking about with a set of juggling bags, and Patrick howled with laughter as Ed lobbed one at Harry’s back.

  ‘Go easy, Ed,’ Harry warned. ‘You’re a lot stronger than Patrick.’

  Harry was levelling up the repaired door when Charlie came up from the lab, giving Vern a welcome-home hug before grabbing a cold-water jug from the fridge. Her eyes looked glazed as she gave Harry a kiss, and asked Vern why he wasn’t lying down.

  ‘Went crazy cooped up in the hospital,’ Vern said as he wiped dust and filler crumbs off the kitchen worktop. ‘Not one for sitting still.’

  Charlie looked at Harry. ‘I got a call back from lawyer Sue. She said technically I need to file an adoption petition for Patrick, or hand him to the authorities. But in the real world it’s only a problem if someone is looking for him, like a grandma or something.’

  ‘Did Seth have family?’ Harry asked as he spotted Rosie coming up their drive holding a plate of something she’d baked.

  ‘Not that I know of,’ Charlie said. ‘And, judging by the filthy clothes and cigarette burns, they didn’t much care if they were around.’

  ‘Knock, knock,’ Rosie said brightly, coming through the door holding a loaf cake sealed in an anti-virus bag. ‘Have you stolen my husband?’

  Ed had a nose for Rosie’s cake and strode in, dragging one leg because Patrick was clamped to it.

  ‘You two seem to be hitting it off,’ Rosie said as Harry reached into a cupboard to grab a pile of plates.

  Patrick let go of Ed’s leg, then stood between Harry and Charlie and spoke quietly. ‘My butt hurts again.’

  ‘You mean you want the toilet?’ Harry asked.

  Charlie shook her head and squatted down. ‘He uses the toilet by himself, but he keeps saying his butt hurts.’

  ‘Where does it hurt, sweetie?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘Here,’ Patrick said, squeezing his left buttock. ‘The man who killed Mikey and mom did it.’

  ‘I’ve looked,’ Charlie explained to Rosie. ‘I can’t see anything except a tiny red mark.’

  ‘Take him to the clinic,’ Harry suggested.

  ‘I’d love to get him checked out,’ Charlie said. ‘But if I rock up at a paediatrician’s office, twenty years old, with a kid that isn’t mine who’s covered in bruises and belt marks and with no adoption paperwork, they’ll call the cops on me.’

  ‘True,’ Harry said thoughtfully.

  ‘I could take him,’ Rosie said. ‘I’ll make sure it’s Dr Laurel. She’s partly retired now, but she still works three days a week and I’ve known her since my eldest was born.’

  ‘That would be so great,’ Charlie said. ‘My lawyer said it’s much better to wait a few weeks before filing paperwork. Adoption is tricky, but if a kid is settled and happy, and nobody else wants him, there’s virtually zero chance they’ll take him away.’

  Rosie started slicing the cake and Harry felt like he belonged as he surveyed the scene. Vern cross-legged, Ed scoffing cake like a typical hungry teenager, Patrick insisting on dunking his cake in a glass of milk and making everyone laugh when he inevitably dropped a big bit in it. And Charlie, standing bare-legged by the fridge, making a pot of tea. Sweaty and tired from a shift in the lab, but still the most beautiful thing Harry had ever seen.

  66 BIG ONION

  Harry opened one eye and saw a bauble of snot on Patrick’s top lip. They’d put Patrick to bed in the spare room, but if he woke up he’d lift the bottom of Harry and Charlie’s covers and wriggle into the space between them.

  Mickey Mouse said it was a quarter past four as Harry rolled on to one side and realised he’d been disturbed by a clank from the air-conditioner. The unit that cooled the upper floor was decrepit and the banging suggested that the outside fan had come loose from its cracked bearing for the second time in a month.

  A replacement bearing was on order, but getting spare parts for an elderly Chinese-made air-conditioner was tricky. Vern said it could cause major damage if the fan blades shattered, so Harry decided it couldn’t wait until morning.

  When Harry sat up, he felt the ball of muck that had built up on his chest while he’d been sleeping. To avoid waking Patrick and Charlie, he held his breath as he grabbed his jeans off the floor, bolted downstairs and ripped into a coughing fit over the kitchen sink.

  It took a couple of minutes to hack out a build-up of blood and phlegm. As the fit died down, Harry filled a glass with iced water and caught his breath, propped against the dining table. He thought about the conversation with Dr Harkom, and the situation with medical bills.

  Maybe it’s best if I go back to the UK to get these lungs fixed … But my US residency expired when Kirsten went home to look after Granddad. Charlie can’t come with me because of Ed and Patrick, but I won’t be able to return to the USA, unless Charlie marries me first …

  Keeping busy was the best way to stop coughing and troubled thoughts, so Harry threw the rest of his water down the sink, grabbed a ladder and toolbox out of the garage and spoke into the walkie-talkie the private security company had given him.

  ‘This is Harry to the guard on duty, do you copy?’

  He recognised the voice of the redhead with the amazing long hair. ‘Copy, Harry. Is there a problem?’

  ‘I’m going out back with a ladder to fix my air-conditioner. Just letting you know, so one of your drones doesn’t shoot fifty thousand volts up my rear!’

  �
��I’ll program a buffer zone around your house,’ the redhead answered. ‘And you be careful – it’s windy out here.’

  The racket from the air-con meant Harry didn’t hear the howling wind until it almost snatched the back door out of his hand. Harry isolated the air-conditioner with a switch at ground level, then rested the little ladder against the house and fixed on his leather tool belt and the elastic strap of a head-mounted lamp.

  There were a bunch of weird-looking shell beetles crawling on the ground and Harry sprayed the area around the ladder with insecticide before climbing up. The storm was chucking up dust and he considered going down for a set of goggles as he loosened three screws on a safety grille and let it pivot down round the fourth.

  He gave the fan blades a wiggle, confirming it was vibration from the cracked bearing making the blades rattle. But when he felt in his tool belt he realised he’d climbed up without the wrench he needed to tighten them.

  ‘Dammit.’

  Harry coughed into his virus mask as he went down the ladder and opened the expanding tool box. He found the wrench in the second layer of drawers, and was about to climb back up when he noticed moving white light.

  Nerves kicked in as he looked round the side of the house and saw two panel vans at the gate. Harry charged into the house and roared up the stairs.

  ‘Charlie, wake the hell up!’

  She sprang up sleepily, accidentally leaning on Patrick’s arm and making him yelp.

  ‘I think the zombies are back,’ Harry shouted as he reached the bedroom doorway. ‘I’ll grab my gun and go wake Vern. You get the boys down in the shelter.’

  He reached for the assault rifle on top of his wardrobe, stuck two spare clips in his tool belt, then grabbed the walkie-talkie.

  ‘What’s going on at the front gate?’ Harry shouted into the box. ‘Front gate, do you copy?’

  The redhead spoke. ‘One of my colleagues isn’t well. His replacement is arriving. No cause for alarm.’

  But her tone was off somehow, and one sick guard didn’t explain two vans. Back downstairs, Harry stepped out of the front door where he could see the front gate being opened by two men.

  When the walkie-talkies got handed out, the guard explained two buttons. One sent an emergency alarm to all the other radios on the circuit, while the other alerted the local police. Harry flipped a protective cover and pressed both buttons as Charlie yelled inside the house.

  ‘Just this once, don’t argue,’ she begged Ed. ‘Grab Patrick and lock yourself in the shelter.’

  Harry looked at the radio. Its luminous blue display now read, Error. No base station. He pressed the buttons again, but just got the error message

  I want Charlie down in that shelter too. I need to tell Vern and Rosie. But the vans will be through the gate any second.

  Patrick was squealing and Ed defiant as Harry vaulted the rail at the end of his front porch. Rosie and Vern’s place was less than fifty yards away, and he remembered how Rosie’s sharpshooting had saved their asses during the previous attack.

  ‘Eat this, zombie bastards,’ Charlie shouted as she opened the kitchen window and lobbed several of her handmade grenades towards the vans approaching the house. ‘And, Ed, I’m not telling you again. Get down that shelter NOW!’

  Harry only made it a couple of paces from the porch before one of the guards he’d been paying for stepped from behind Vern’s parked Jeep and tackled him. Harry tried to shove him off, but another guy loomed overhead and smashed his nose with a rifle butt.

  It wasn’t a zombie.

  ‘Long time no see, Harry,’ Man Bun smirked as the guard snatched Harry’s rifle.

  A pair of Charlie’s homemade grenades exploded almost simultaneously. The lead van was too close to the house, but the blast threw up clouds of dirt and set fire to the underside of the second van.

  Harry tried to scramble as Man Bun and the security guard shielded their eyes from a third grenade blast, but he was concussed and his limbs weren’t following orders. Vern and Rosie’s bedroom light came on as the two thugs dragged Harry through the dirt.

  While several armed men jumped out of the burning panel van, a four-man squad who’d come from higher ground approached the rear of the house.

  Dressed only in one of Harry’s T-shirts, Charlie kept screaming at Ed to get down to the shelter as she heard footsteps in the back yard. She spun, shooting the lead man in the face as he booted the back door, which Harry had left on the latch when he went out to do the repair.

  Next door, Rosie had grabbed the rifle she kept propped against her bedside table. She rattled off two accurate shots, killing the driver of the lead van and a woman in body armour getting out of the second. But the team coming downhill heard the shots from the balcony and countered with a shoulder-launched mortar shell through the window of her upper rear bedroom.

  As the last of Charlie’s grenades hit bodies fleeing the burning vans, the mortar explosion ripped a huge hole in Rosie and Vern’s roof and destroyed the internal walls on the upper floor. Vern was hobbling to his gun cabinet when the ceiling crashed on to him, while the force of the blast knocked Rosie half out of the window as chunks of drywall flew and wooden splinters speared her back.

  Harry tried breaking loose, but explosions, dust and the blow to the head had disorientated him. There was smoke and flame outside as he got dragged up the porch steps and into the kitchen. Charlie had her arms raised and two rifles in her face, while Ed’s fear of going down the shelter meant neither he nor Patrick had reached safety.

  Masked and body-armoured figures swarmed out front and in the hallway, while outside several moaned from grenade injuries.

  ‘Both vans are shot up,’ someone reported to Man Bun. ‘Two dead, at least six injured.’

  ‘Another dead in here,’ a voice added sourly. ‘Nobody told us we were heading into grenades and snipers.’

  ‘Quit your whining,’ Man Bun roared. ‘If our vans are wrecked, take the Porsche and the Jeep.’ Then he pointed at three guys. ‘The lab is down the hatch in the living room. Get the machinery out, then start spreading the explosives around. The boss wants this house levelled.’

  ‘Cops will have their drones out with all these explosions,’ a giant superhero noted.

  ‘Let my people worry about cops,’ Man Bun said as he approached Charlie. ‘Go search upstairs. If they’re running a lab, they’ve probably got cash lying around.’

  A powerfully modded guy knocked Charlie to her knees and wrenched her arm tight behind her back as Man Bun closed in.

  ‘Long time no see, Charlie girl,’ Man Bun teased. ‘You’ll have to forgive your security team. But, you know, these rent-a-cops have families to look out for. Except the dumb redhead, who took a bullet for her trouble.’

  Charlie scowled up at her tormentor. He’d had some work done, looking years younger and without the stooped posture.

  ‘Prick,’ was all Charlie could think to say.

  Across the hall, someone shouted that they’d found the lab. Harry was dazed and blood streamed from his broken nose, but nobody was looking his way, and he still wore a belt full of tools.

  ‘Let’s have Charlie girl tied tight so she can’t misbehave,’ Man Bun ordered. Then he turned towards Harry. ‘Haven’t you got big and strong since I squeezed your little boy balls?’

  ‘Are we taking the two kids?’ someone asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Man Bun said. ‘If they’re not wanted, they’re easily disposed of.’

  Charlie whimpered as the superhero tightened rope round her ankles.

  ‘Stop fussing!’ Man Bun teased, and he spun and booted Charlie in the ribs.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ Harry roared.

  ‘Or what?’ Man Bun shouted back, laughing as he opened his arms wide, to a space filled with men in full body armour.

  Harry figured Charlie would suffer less if he gave Man Bun a reason to turn on him. He thrust upwards with a screwdriver, jamming it deep into Man Bun’s thigh.

  �
�Christ,’ Man Bun screamed, staggering backwards into the dining table. ‘Why wasn’t he searched?’

  Charlie screamed as a superhero yanked Harry effortlessly off the floor and banged him down on the kitchen table.

  ‘I’ve got bad news for you, kid,’ Man Bun announced, flipping Harry on to his back. ‘A modding lab and a girl who knows how to use it are worth a lot of money. But you’re not worth shit.’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ Charlie squealed, writhing as two men bound her wrists to her ankles to make a hog-tie.

  Man Bun eyed a sack of home-grown onions and grabbed a muddy one, still attached to its green stalk.

  ‘Nice veg, Harry,’ Man Bun said, pulling the screwdriver out of his bloody leg as he turned to the superhero. ‘Crack a few ribs for me, Hector.’

  ‘Nooo,’ Charlie screamed, as Hector’s huge fist shook the table and made Harry bawl. ‘Leave him alone. He’s got lung problems.’

  ‘He certainly has now,’ Man Bun said, booming with laughter as he forced the onion into Harry’s mouth.

  It was bigger than Harry’s mouth and there was an agonising snap as his jaw dislocated.

  ‘Don’t!’ Charlie was screaming. ‘Leave Harry alone. You’re killing him. I can tell you where I’ve got money. Ten million at least.’

  ‘Think I need this loser to make you tell me where your money is?’ Man Bun laughed.

  The muddy onion forced Harry’s tongue to the back of his throat. His nose was clogged with blood, the smashed ribs were excruciating and the jaw was the most pain he’d ever felt. Charlie’s screams were like a drill in his brain.

  ‘Please, please. I love you, Harry. I love you so much.’

  I love you more, Charlie. I wish I could tell you that.

  But where did all the pain go?

  Where did the light go?

  I’m above it all. I can see the superhero and Man Bun’s bloody leg and Ed getting knocked down as he tries to wrestle his way into the room to save me.