Earth-Bound Angels 2.5 S2E19

25 D 7 M 115 Y ATG (25 June 2202 AD)

  An unknown section of the city has burst into flames. The dead are walking the streets and the Lords have come out to play. Captain Officer, Commander Tim Evans is looking for the lost members of his squad but half are dead, the other half remains missing or scared witless. Only man he can rely on is his old friend SIC Roman Kincaid. Meanwhile John is trying to get to the bottom of things while haunted by strange visions of plush dragons.

CHAPTER 32: THE DENIZEN MALICE: THE MAD BUTCHER

  The city offered John little variety, with four types of squares and little difference between them. Low-income squares had four slender apartment blocks, for those who earned little or nothing. Middle-income squares, with a horseshoe of row houses and a park in-between, were for those with a job. The high-income squares could be designed to your own tastes and were only for those well off, usually successful businessmen but also couples with a lot saved up. The last type was the public square which could house anything from a large sea park to a mall.

  It was therefore not the middle-income square itself that John would remember. Nor was it the by-then commonplace fire everywhere. Indeed, as he arrived, he had already lost count of how many other similar squares he had encountered. It was the man he was chasing. He had caught the sound of running shoes. Round a corner it was gone. At the end of corridors a dark shape. The middle-income square was the last stop.

  John half ran into the park with the figure just ahead of him. It had stopped as there was no other place to go. It was trapped. “End of the line, Overkill. This is as far as you go.”

  Fire blazed up around them and banished all shadows. The figure was dressed in a green business suit with long, black pigtails down his front. John was frozen in place, observing the figure as it turned around. It was not Overkill, but a happily smiling youth with green eyes like lush fields of grass. John’s hand fell down his side.

  A foul stench of sulphur cut the meeting short. Lord Phantom appeared off to the side. A semblance of annoyance suffused his disinterested face. “The timing here was crucial was, so where is that bag of bones? I even got the fire right.”

  “W-what is going on? Why is my brother here?”

  “I was tasked with making you believe that Overkill is still in this world. I might add that it was not a work that fell within my parameters. Lord Arcana would have been able to create a much better doll. But I suppose making him obey orders would be too much to ask for.”

  Ronnie waved at John and smiled brightly. John forced his head away to the stout Viking warrior next to him. “What do you mean?” John asked with anger rising up into his voice. “I saw Overkill in Bangladesh, and again in Sweden just a few months back.”

  Lord Phantom rested his hands on the axe and sword he had tied around him. “Did you really? Did you actually ever see him in person? Or was it a fluttering of clothes and corpses reminiscent of his killing style?”

  The fake Ronnie Long faded away, catching John’s attention momentarily. “What would be the point? That is not even Overkill.”

  The house behind Lord Phantom exploded and rained debris down on the square. The monstrous Soulbreaker pushed its way forward with its grotesque left arm twitching. Lord Phantom gave the spectacle only a backwards glance. “You are late,” he said in an unclear voice, neither accusing nor praising. “I told you the timing was essential for this trick to work. My fake Overkill would bring John here, and before he could catch on, you would come in here with Soulbreaker and kill him.”

  “Fishing Soulbreaker out of the gravity stream took longer than I expected. He almost washed clean out of here.” The Butcher clapped Soulbreaker’s sickly arm.

  Lord Phantom put his eyeballs back on John. “My powers are not unlimited, John Kilburne. I created a phantom to be Overkill, but you firmly believe him to Ronnie Long. I cannot change that, so that’s the shape it took.”

  The Butcher held the undead Soulbreaker back though John did not feel the least bit safe. The rage and bitterness churned in him and it was hard for him to get any words out. He stepped forward and then back again, ready to fight but then lowering his arms only to bring them up again. “If I have chased a ghost all this time,” he finally expressed. “Then… where is the real Overkill?”

  Soulbreaker had a blank expression on his face, and his eyes were milky and blind. He was calm simply from the hand Butcher placed on his arm. Lord Phantom’s coldness was set in stone. “I do not know. I have searched for him in many worlds and never even found a single trace of him.” As John was about to protest, Lord Phantom put up a hand demanding silence. “It would be wrong of you to presume that means he is dead, however. Overkill still lives in one of the many other worlds, or perhaps even in the cracks between them, but that is a lot of space to cover.”

  The Butcher scratched his chin with his left hand and observed Lord Phantom with narrow eyes. “Just because I’m a little late doesn’t mean you had to go blabbering about Overkill. You still have that helper of yours that I made you.”

  “You old fool,” Lord Phantom said, his image dissolving into smoke. “John came here and saw he had chased Ronnie and not Overkill. What was he to believe? You don’t give him enough credit, Lord Carrion. He would have figured it out sooner.”

  The Butcher spat on the ground with a tch and removed his hand from Soulbreaker’s arm. A change convulsed over the tranquil undead. The glazed eyes burned with rage and it howled with pain. “Who… am I?” it bellowed panicky and thrashed its arms around maddened. The right blew up everything it touched, and the left smashed everything to pieces. The ground, the walls, nothing was safe. The Butcher withdrew inside a door and disappeared.

  “You are Soulbreaker, and you are dead. I have put you out of your misery before and I will again.”

  Soulbreaker didn’t listen. He grabbed his head like a man trying to stop the world from reeling. John’s hand on his gun shook. It was the perfect opportunity to blast him away. But Sword’s warning still rang in his ears. He doubled back instead. Soulbreaker was on his tail quickly. The agonised howls were like a wounded animal trying to get arrows out of its flesh. But what ailed Soulbreaker could not be removed so easily.

  Soulbreaker’s clumsy gait made him trip. His right hand smashed into the ground. Light snapped and crackled. Fissures sprang up around him. The square broke apart with loud whines of protest. Soulbreaker backed away. John’s end of the square dipped further and further into the gravity field. No sense in trying to jump away, John had trouble enough clinging to the square. He tumbled off his feet and smacked into the fence below him. The last he saw of Soulbreaker was the undead man with a Butcher holding his arm.

***

  All police squares had their own IM room. Didn’t matter if they had only one or a hundred IMs. To each robot was a tube that would clean, perform minor maintenance and recharge their batteries. There were two on left side as Tim entered. Opposite were a worktable and a suspension rack in case of bigger repair jobs.

  Commonly the IM room also had a manhole to access the lower parts of the square. In case someone decided to break in from below, they would be met with a pack of hostile IMs, woken up by the alarm. The IMs did not pay any mind to Tim however, despite him having trouble lifting the manhole cover. It was not a solid illusion like common doors and window, but instead solid metal weighing over fifty kilograms. It was obvious that the way ahead was intended to go through it. It had already been lifted up and laid halfway open. Tim’s only job was to push it far enough aside for him to slip into the hole.

  Several minutes of careful fiddling and pushing and his job was done. Tim took a moment to get his breath before climbing in. Brackets set into the wall guided him all the way down.

  The very lowest part of any square was warm and constantly vibrating from machines at work. The squares flowed on a gigantic sea of anti-gravity like a barge city. Engines worked tirelessly day and night to counteract the bobbing so that the square felt like solid land. The energy came from the waste discarded by humans every day, from excrements to garbage and even corpses. Body disposal in recycling plants was a common practise in Prima City. Not only did it save a lot of space from graveyards, it also kept the anti-gravity generators going.

  People did not normally come down to the service tunnels so clean-up was at a minimum with layers of dust swirling up with each step Tim took. He coughed and sneezed and held up an arm to protect his face. The light was also kept at a minimum. In the near-darkness, a dozen things seemed to be alive and coming for him. With the workings of Lord Phantom it would not be strange, and always a surprise. The things lurked just outside of his field of view. Spiders. Tim was not normally afraid of them, but living in Prima City all his life he had had little contact with them before. Seeing their hideously bloated shapes magnified on the walls sent shivers down his spine. He turned and they were gone, but the pitter-patter of feet continued.

  Another shape appeared before him. Tim froze. He had just turned his head away for a moment and there it was. But it was a solid wall. He had reached the end of the short tunnel. No one could have come or gone, and the next manhole was undisturbed. Tim chuckled despairingly to himself. It was gone again and he could see nothing. Must have been a trick of the light. “It is not safe for you down here, Sayyid. There are things not of this world.”

  “Who’s there?” Tim pressed the green button on his neck. Light flashed out and illuminated a niche next to him. A brown face wrinkled with age and stress stared back him. Brown hair was tugged under a white turban and was growing down the face into a small moustache and goatee. His accent was unidentifiably Middle Eastern, and his body was draped in fine silks like a wealthy merchant.

  The man bowed deeply. “The name is Gulzar Boulos, a humble traveller at your service,” the rose-cheeked stranger said. “I am a man of some renown where I come from; works have been written about me. You might know me under a different name? M–”

  Tim raised a hand to stop Gulzar from going on. “That’s well and good, sir, but you are a civilian with no business down here. Disregarding the fact that you even managed to get this far, it’s too dangerous and I will have to ask you to leave.” Not trusting the man to be alive or real, Tim put a hand on the butt of his gun.

  “I am extending my most sincere advice when I tell you that you will need me. Ahead is the heart of the waste management plant. The noise, the heat, the filth and the stench is the reason humans observe from behind a thick pane of plastic. I took a peek earlier. I’m sorry to say that a robot malfunctioned and broke that pane. Now the door is sealed shut to prevent leakage of anything nasty. A shame, since there is a key you must acquire.”

  Tim did not remove his hand from the gun. The calmness surrounding Gulzar was unnatural and unsettling. “If that is the case, then how will you be of help to me?” he pointed out. “You don’t look like someone from around here. Don’t tell me you have access to the room?”

  “Of course not. As you said, I am a stranger here, only to peddle my wares. A policeman was nice enough to take me here to clear up some identity problems, but sadly we crashed into the wall.” Gulzar bowed his head in a moment of silence. “There were things in the parking lot, impossible things that he could not believe. I’m afraid he crashed because he was distracted and panicking. Was he a friend of yours?”

  “No, I’m just here to take care of those impossible things. My mission failed before it could begin however and now I’m just looking for the rest of my crew. You wouldn’t have seen an Asian woman around here? Her name is Long T’an.”

  “No, though I did see a young girl. Ran away before I could catch up with her. She put on a brave face, let me tell you, but she was scared.”

  Hadn’t someone else mentioned a young girl before? “You never answered my other question, civilian. How are you going to be of help to me?” Tim pressed.

  To this, Gulzar put a hand on Tim’s shoulder and led him into the niche. The door at the end appeared to be of metal with a little window for looking inside. A robot lay on its belly. Only dedicated waste management facilities had offices for overlooking the enormous metal cylinders. Waste and garbage was automatically transferred into the tanks and sorted and processed for energy. Sometimes IMs guarded the process, but mostly the minor ones were left to themselves, already being monitored by the section’s central waste management plant.

  Gulzar rapped a knuckle on the door. “As you can see, the biohazard prevention has the room sealed off pretty tightly, but do my eyes deceive me when they spot a dolphin-embossed key on that robot.”

  Tim pressed his head against the window. The IM was awkward-looking with disproportionate limbs and a small head. Blue paint on its body was faded and left his metal-plated body exposed in large patches. A single key was clutched in its right hand. Behind it the pane was smashed and green smoke filled the room. No one would ever get anywhere near the tanks so there was no door in the dividing wall. If a crisis occurred there would nothing a human could do anyway. They would either have try and solve it from their pc, or vacate the premises and let an IM break down the wall to take care of the emergency. Strangely, the IM appeared to have broken out. All the pieces of the pane were scattered out into the safe side of the room.

  Tim turned back to Gulzar. “So what do you want to do?”

  The stranger smiled serenely. “This.”

  The door offered no resistance to Gulzar as the merchant slipped through it. Tim gasped and drew back a step. Gulzar leisurely walked up to the broken IM. Perhaps it been recycled and then regained a flicker of life. Gulzar bowed down, unhooked the key and walked right back to the door. The toxic fumes and unimaginable heat did him nothing.

  “W-what are you?”

  The key was held between two fingers so Tim could enjoy every little aspect of it before disappearing into Gulzar’s clutched hand. “A member of an ancient order of knights. Don’t worry, you’ll quickly forget everything about me and your mind will bridge the hole in your memory. You will probably think up that the key was hurled outside of the room or some other fairy tale.” Tim shook his head to show he did not understand. He waved his hand for Gulzar to get out quickly. His heart hammered with fearful concern for another human’s wellbeing. “Not yet, I need some assurance first. Once I give you the key, you will have to walk away. Don’t even try to pursue me.”

  Tim banged his fists on the door. “S-sure, whatever, just get out there now. I don’t care about the key or how you did that, but you can’t stay in there!” he screamed. Gulzar smiled like Tim was a child worrying something insignificant.

  “Take the key and go. I will be all right.” Gulzar stretched out his hand with the key. Instead of taking it, Tim took the hand.

  Gulzar’s face was calm and still smiling. The hand sticking out of the door became immaterial and sunk back inside. Tim was clasping nothing. The key clattered to the floor. “I don’t know who you are, but I won’t forget this. Thank you.”

  Tim picked up the key. He lingered for a while longer before finally rushing back down the tunnel. He had a few ideas of where that key could fit.

  “You will. But don’t worry; such is the lot of a Neon Knight.” Gulzar phased out of the door and fell to his knees, coughing and shivering. “Phew, that nearly killed me. I’m surprised I was able to fool him for so long.”

***

  John had no idea of his self in the anti-gravity field. He was an oarless boat being tossed back and forth on a raging sea. The anti-gravity field were notorious for their deadliness. Pc signals were drowned out so castaways could not be traced. The possibility of finding pockets of nothing was slim, but would invariably result in a certain plunge hundreds of meters down to the ground far, far below.

  Most dangerous was the possibility of not getting out for days and starving to death, accidently fall under a square and getting roasted to death by the stabiliser engines or get whacked by flying bubbles. The latter of which was fortunately not a problem. The entire section was completely devoid of any sort of traffic. Was the area cordoned off or did it exist outside of conventional rules of time and space?

  “You asked me where the real Overkill is. Well, there is one place even I dare not investigate. It’s a place beyond description, and no word has yet been given meaning to accurately encapsulate it, but for easiness’ sake we can call it void. Showing you will be easiest. Simply hold on to the idea of Overkill and you might get lucky.” Lord Phantom’s voice rang out though his presence remained lacking. It was dark in the anti-gravity stream, but the utter blackness descending on John’s eyes was not a colour. It was the very absence of colours, of wind or sensation.

  It was neither warm nor cold in the void, nor bright or dark. It simply was, and terribly lonesome as well. He could feel other souls out there but not the number or the extent of the place, only the immense distance between each. Overkill quietly floated past him, eyes closed, still wearing ragged clothes and a green rag over his face. Bile rose inside John and contorted his face into a mask of rage. Yet Overkill could not see him. Instead he drifted off, into the void to join the others. John opened his mouth to scream but there was no air to carry his sounds. The name of his brother thundered inside own head instead. The illusion broke.

  John jerked away. A pair of hands tried to force him down, to make him sit still, but John could not stop fidgeting. He had seen Overkill again. “P-please, I beg you mister Kilburne, stop resisting.” He knew that voice. One that could not possibly be inside the void. Colourlessness was replaced by blackness was replaced by colours. The worried expression of a youth swam into his vision. “You’re lucky I found you. I was just on my way through the parking garage when I saw you drifting around lifelessly.”

  “Tim Evans. Of all the places we should meet, I find this one least likely,” John said in a weak voice.

  The blonde man stood up with his perpetually demure expression. “I was made captain of a team to tackle unexplainable phenomena and pave the way for Detectives to do their work. She is all that is left, along with SIC Kincaid and a still missing Officer.”

  John turned his head. He was propped up against a van. Next to him was a woman rocking back and forth, mumbling to herself. “You are moving up in the world, Tim. And to think you were wasting your talents as a simple Detective.” John tottered up on his legs, but used the van for support until they could stop shaking. “So what happened to this one?”

  “She locked herself inside a holding cell, but she was not as safe as she thought. Some robot tore out the back wall and almost killed her.” Tim brimmed with joy at seeing John alive. He almost smiled when his subordinate fidgeted noisily.

  “Well, I am very happy that you saved me, but I am looking for a way out. I am guessing you have not found one yet?” John asked.

  Tim shook his head. “I’m still looking for my last missing subordinate, wherever she may. I can’t leave this place until then. Having said that, I think I might have stumbled upon a way out by chance.” Instead of telling the rest of the story, Tim instead waved his arm at the van.

  “This old thing?” John turned around and took in the personnel carrier in new light. “You sure it will still drive?”

  “It’s the only surviving car I’ve seen in this entire section. The rest are either banged up or on fire. Still, I can’t get inside it to check if it works. We had to push it manually just to get it out of the way.”

  John put his hand on the door of the cab. Hundreds of years of training had allowed him to manipulate his energy down to a very fine substance. He could knock things back in place, blow them away or get them to open, all by adjusting his energy output. The yellow, intangible light flowed from his fingertips into the mechanism, cracking and popping at the precise places they needed to go.

  To Tim it didn’t look like John was doing anything, but only moments later the door clicked open and dematerialised. John jumped in behind the dashboard with hands moving around. The truck remained impassive. Tim peered up but John quickly leapt back down and moved to the front. “Yes, here we are, someone has removed several parts of the engine. I see a few cables missing, some mechanical parts and a squirt of oil would not hurt either. Easy to replace if we could find some replacement, easier still if we could find the actual missing parts.”

  Tim looked at the opened panel of the flat front. It all looked alien to him. He clutched the dolphin key in his hand. “I’ve found several things up to now, how hard could some spare parts be?” He put it back in his pocket and looked up with a tinge of determination on his solemn face. “I’ll try to find my last team member and see what I can stumble upon.”

  John clapped him on the shoulder. “Leave the car maintenance to me, and focus on finding your mates. I know what I am looking for.” Tim nodded in agreement, so John headed for the exit at the end.

***

  He had explained the situation to John, but had left out some details. There had been nothing to the underground path but the waste treatment. Hadn’t he met someone down there? There was another manhole, but that had been impossible to lift. He had had no choice but to go back.

  It was by the holding cells that he had heard the noise. The old model IM he had seen below was breaking through the back wall. It had Officer Brandie in its arms, like it examining her, but threw her away again. The robot then continued digging its way up. Tim had rushed in through the downed barrier and picked Officer Brandie up. She had been as limp as a ragdoll since.

  Tim glanced sideways at her. He couldn’t leave her there. The general idea had been good, to get into safety, but was there truly a safe place anywhere? He hoisted her up on his shoulders again and worked her into the truck. The bubble opened in the back and the hatch acted like a stepladder. He could not activate the foam when the car wasn’t working, but at least no one should come for her in there.

  That robot still lurked somewhere, and it was likely to show up again. What weighed extra heavily on Tim was the design of it. It had been so old-fashioned, like a model from before the Destruction, but that was a hundred years ago. That an IM should still be working after all that time was ludicrous, but had Tim really encountered all that many things that made sense? No, it was a trickery of the cursed section. A weird and contrived trickery, but trickery nonetheless. He set out again with half a mind of where to try his new key.

  He had had more trouble with John. Tim had stood at the top of the staircase on the outside wall when another unbelievable coincidence had happened. John was slowly drifting towards him. Primasians were often confused when they first saw a large body of water, thinking it to act like the anti-gravity fields. Many children, rich or poor, enjoyed throwing things down there and watch how they react. Heavier things would slowly sink, lighter things would float and things in-between would sink only to shoot out like a rocket.

  The root of the fun was that you never knew what would happen, and weight was far from the only factor. Other things like displacement and surface area were likely to have an effect as well. So a ten kilogram weight could sink while a twenty kilogram one floated. A man wearing a suit with a hammer hidden in the back could be floating one minute, drift on his side and sink, only to be hurled out at a violent speed.

  Tim had barely caught him. Fortunately, John was surprisingly light. Without the hammer weighing him down, he would likely be no heavier than a child. It would take Tim a long time to remember the hammer though. As he backtracked through the police station, secretly hoping to bump into John again, the memory of John instead swirled together with everything else he had encountered.

  The first room he wanted to investigate was one close-by. It was likely a generator room since it was right on top of waste management room. The energy from the waste management went straight to the engines keeping the square afloat while any extra was stored in generators that kept up the light. Hopefully the generators had not run out or been smashed. Then he would never get any good light.

  The key he inserted into the steel door’s lock vanished, along with the door too and revealed, indeed, the generator room. Tim allowed a relieved sigh to escape him. The generators were, like all machines in Prima City, packed into a non-descript cases. Four of them were huddled together in the middle; large, square and with rounded corners. There was no apparent way of turning them on, however.

  Tim did a full 360 around the room before realising there was a panel on the side of one generator. It was not lit up. Hopeful, Tim put his hand on the panel. It should not be too picky with specific people but rather their rank. Sure enough, the generators gave a delightful hum within seconds and an operational table popped up on the panel. The generators were not fully charged but could easily run for a few weeks undisturbed.

  A hand smashed up through the floor. Tim reeled against the wall. The door next to him clicked. It was locked again. Another hand followed the first and ripped a hole in the floor. The hands were followed by arms dragging up the head and body of an outdated IM model. P-I-M was still etched with almost illegibly faded letters on his left breast.

  The robot put one foot on the floor and he was inside. Tall, heavy and awkward-looking, with arms and legs too long and big for the body, and the head similarly but oppositely proportioned. “What do you want from me?” Tim half-screamed with panic rising in his throat, his heart hammering, ready to pound right out of his chest. The metal lips of P-I-M were unmoving as it replied. Nothing more than shrill scratching, like shaking a metal bucket full of rusty nails. Tim put his hands over his ears. “S-stop. Stop! I can’t understand you!”

  P-I-M used the lapse in awareness to grab with a single hand around Tim’s throat. The metal giant easily lifted him off his feet. Most of the robot’s forehead was painted blue and equipped with a shade to make it look like a cap. Lifting him up into eye height thus made Tim’s toes barely dangle freely. The scratching, broken voice that followed was angry though the metal face remained hard and unchanging. It heightened to an ear-piercing roar. Tim screamed in pain as the disharmonious tunes bored into his ears. P-I-M threw him away. Tim banged into the wall, hard, knocking the wind out of him. Black spots danced across his vision.

  Tim desperately coughed for air while massaging his swelling neck. His blurry vision caught the next attack just in time. The metal fist pounded into the wall right where he had been. P-I-M tugged at its arm, unable to get it out. Tim took his pistol and emptied the magazine. The ricochets flew everywhere with sparks to follow. A single bullet hit him in the chest. What little wind he had gotten back escaped him again and he fell to the ground. He would get a bruise but the thick security clothing had protected him.

  P-I-M ripped out a chunk of the wall with a great pull. The robot tore off the collar of metal that stuck around his arm. Tim leant up against the generator catching his breath. His hands automatically fed his Heckler & Koch VP70 another magazine but he dared not fire it again. He had only had so many magazines left, and the bullets were wasted on P-I-M’s armour.

  Another fist swung at him and again he dodged. Even with his combat suit, the force and density of the blow would undoubtedly kill him. It smashed through the generator casing with ease and sunk into the delicate machinery within. Bolts of lightning ran up P-I-M’s arm. Its convulsions lasted for several moments. The light illuminated Tim’s face. He held up an arm to protect his eyes. When he looked again, P-I-M was on the floor, unmoving. The red light behind the robot’s green shades flickered erratically, just like the lights above.

  Another moment later and the lights were back. The power supply had been diminished but not destroyed. Tim picked himself up and scrambled out of the unlocked door.

***

  John stood in the courtyard of the police station. He looked over his shoulder to see the lights blinking. They had come on while he was finding the way outside. He paid it no mind until the light spilling out illumed the car that had crashed into the wall near the door. On the backseat sat a black dragon plush, looking at him with its red button eyes. John backed away and ran.

  Right before him sat the toy again on the fence. Its lifeless face was directed at him. John paused, shaking all over. Cautiously he approached it. He touched it with the tips of his fingers. It was a light tap, and the plush rocked back and forth before landing at his feet, still staring at him. John cried out and fell to his knees. He took Mr Black in his hands, attempting to choke it. The head and arms and wings of the doll flailed wildly. John realised the futility of his actions. He crumbled into a foetal position, sobbing while clutching Mr Black to his chest.

  One of the corpses, a young civilian girl in a purple outfit, melted into a gooey mass. It slithered along the ground and grew a head with body and arms and wings of its own. When it had reached John, Shamira had taken its place. “Are you all right, honey?”

  John swayed from side to side, cradling the plush close to his chest. “I cannot make it go away,” he said in a rattled tone. “Wherever I look, everywhere I turn, it is right there.”

  “That’s just a plush dragon, John. There is nothing unusual about it,” Shamira pointed out.

  “N-no, you do not understand, I saw it in my rear-view mirror and missed the armoured personnel carrier coming from the side. I am telling you, for the last three weeks it has been haunting me,” he cried, though no tears would come to him.

  Shamira shook her head and took the plush away from him. She lifted it up before her and examined it, twisting it and turning it, tugging at its extremities and even its button eyes. “No, there is nothing unusual about this dragon doll. Don’t you think it’s just your guilt of handing Mino over to Mattlock Industries?”

  John opened his mouth and closed it again several times. Shamira smiled down at him and offered her hand. “I guess that is a possibility. But why is it here then?”

  “You must have brought it yourself.”

  “Why are you here? Did I not tell you to stay away from me? I cannot put you through any more danger, Shamira.” John stood again.

  Shamira gently caressed his face with her right hand, holding the plush with her left. “You’ve always been so irrational. I’m used to danger, and I can take care of myself. I mean I don’t have any offensive powers and I don’t know any kung fu, but I’ve gotten this far. And you’re a fool if you think I’ve been sitting on my hands until we met.” John hung his head, but Shamira lifted it. The two looked at each for a while. Was it love between them? None of them said anything but silently accepted the other’s presence. They moved their faces closer. A horde of zombies burst out of hiding, breaking up through the ground and streaming from around the building. “That’s all the advice I had for you. If you want your nightmare to end, then bring the plush to Mino, and then bring Mino back to me.”

  She was gone before the undead could reach John. A mob of rotting, bloated and broken corpses shambled as fast as they could. Feeling renewed with energy, John shone yellow. His entire being was swallowed by the light. The square trembled under his feet when the bubble burst. An aura of burning justice seared through the courtyard, touching only those who had been afflicted, leaving behind piles of ash among undisturbed wreckage. The flames did not even waver nor was dust blown up.

***

  He was out at last. The dolphin key had opened a backdoor at the police station, leading into some forgotten courtyard. Supply crates were stashed everywhere against the low wall. Tim looked back at the police station. He would not miss it, but he would have to return. They had a truck that could take them out if they could find its missing parts, or parts to replace them. All Tim needed was to set his affairs in order and find the last member of his team. Then he could call his SIC, his best friend, and they could leave.

  The courtyard however would not do him much good. The low wall was open at the other end but with no bridge to the next section. A woman stood at the edge and looked enraptured into the abyss. She did not respond to Tim’s calling, but she was dressed in the right uniform.

  “Officer T’an, is that you? Identify yourself!” Tim commanded, but the raven-haired woman remained frozen on the spot, hand in her pocket.

  “You have gotten a squad leader’s tone to your voice. I am most impressed. When you first joined the team, I thought you would be too isolated to make yourself stand out. In fact, I was kind of hoping on it. But Officer Kincaid really got you out of your shell.” She turned around. Her eyes were cold and unfeeling. She closed them.

  “What do you mean you counted on it?”

  “I had the best grades in the academy. I did not feel threatened by the old veterans or by officer Kincaid. Not even your promotion to squad leader fazed me. I could still make a good career, I thought.” She took her hand up from her pocket. She had a gun as well, and she pointed it at Tim. “But you were a foolish leader. Assigning us to the mystery case squad killed all of our careers. I… I could have become a detective! Now no one wants to touch me. None of my applications are even getting looked at. My credentials are ruined.”

  Tim put his arms in the air. He knew exactly how dangerous those guns could be. “Long T’an, I was a Detective myself once, but all I ever wanted was to protect this city. No one wanted to face the fact that mysterious things happen, so I volunteered us for the job. What we do here is important.”

  “Important? Our first mission and everyone are dead! Abed and Suhaimah, gone. Officer Brandy, broken. It’s just you, me and officer Kincaid left.”

  Her face ticced and her hand shook. Tim kept calm though fear poured out of his brow. “I know that things have not gone well. But this is just our first mission. We’ll be better prepared next time, and people will recognise the work we have done,” he said, doing his best to keep his voice steady.

  “The next time? There won’t be a next time, don’t you understand? We’re all going to die here, but I can least make sure you pay.” Officer T’an’s gun fired. A mist of red sprayed up from Tim’s left shoulder. He fell to the ground. “I don’t intend to die here with you, squad leader. I’m getting out.”

  The last Tim saw before blacking out was another shape appearing next to him, and more gunshots firing around him. “Dammit, what was with that bitch?” Roman spat on the floor and put his gun away. “You still with me, buddy? Hey!”

  Tim could not reply. Roman took off the jacket to examine the wound. Shallow. The jacket had taken most of the force so the bullet was still visible and clanked away. “I know those things pack a wallop, but this is ridiculous.” Roman put a hand to the wound and clenched a fist. His face twisted into a mask of rage. He took out his own gun and disappeared too.

  It was only moments later that Tim woke with blinking eyes, head full of fog, still on the floor of the courtyard. A gunshot rang through the air. He frantically scampered up on his feet. His hand was quick to find his pistol. The quad was empty. Confused, Tim looked around, finding frightening shadows behind every stack of crates. The shots were coming from beneath him, ringing hollowly up from another manhole. His mind was busy trying to process everything that had happened around his blackout, so his body acted on pure instinct and fear and leapt into the opening.

  He splashed down into the tunnels below the hole. Water tanks were usually installed close to the sides of squares for easier access. They were filled with purified water either from processing plants in the city or from dedicated waterworks below it. Rupturing them was no easy task. Yet water slowly trickled down under his feet. That also meant the square had to be tipping ever so slightly. Nothing he could feel, but he could definitely see it. There was no one left to monitor the square. With a broken waste processor, no one to fill it and one destroyed generator, it was simply a matter of time. He had to find both of his crew mates quickly.

  It did not take him many steps before he felt someone else’s presence. He stopped, and the splish-splash of feet continued. It was too dark to see anything around him. The echoes also made determining the source impossible. Behind? No, he could see nothing from the light down the manhole. Ahead? It had to be ahead. But the splish-splash continued all around him. It could be a trick again by that same man who had conjured his father. Then again, there were other things, other people, just as crazy but unrelated to that guy.

  Tim crept further in. It could just be Roman. Or similarly, Officer T’an. The tunnel stretched far in a straight line. A dozen vital spots could be waiting for him: the engines that continuously burned and held them aloft, pipe rooms that directed waste or water or food…

  Gunshots blared up again, closer. Tim picked up his pace. The second splish-splash was frantic. Yells. Inhuman grunts, like a large monkey perhaps. Another yell, a human, Roman. On the opposite side of the wall.

  Impossible. Tim traced his hand across the wall. There were no doors. The lights inside the tunnel blinked into existence. A large fan above him turned on. Roman couldn’t possible have… It was a large fan. Something behind needed some serious cooling. Perhaps the central computer for the square. A man could easily have fit between the blades before they had been turned on. Tim ran again. He had to find Roman. He had to find his friend.

  There were those ape sounds again. An enraged beast banging on all surfaces and howling in pain. There might not even be a way inside from where Tim was. Yet he soldiered on, unheeding of his sore shoulder. Blood trickled from his flesh wound. The black shirt underneath soaked up most of it and stuck to his skin. He felt nothing, only the adrenaline pumping through his system.

  A door. He paused. Frantically he groped it until he noticed the dolphin emblazoned at the top. He put the key into the lock. Key and door vanished, meaning that was the last door that it would unlock anyway. Only then did his mind raise the question of what sort of beast was trapped inside. His muddled mind conjured a thousand horrors. Mock courage continued to course through his system.

  The lights flickered. For a moment Tim stood still and assessed the situation. He cautiously ventured inside. Water surrounded his boots. Heavy footfalls splattered around. Strong fists pounded all the walls and banged the floor. He could see it. It was large and shaggy, a primitive man covered in curly brown fur. Its gums were revealed with lips pealed back. The water around it was stained red. It was wounded from a shot to its right arm.

  The ape would come for him next. Tim drew his gun and like a man possessed took aim. The ape stood still, heaving with rage, sniffing the air. Tim could not move. He simply stood with the gun pointed, waiting for the beast to either run off or attack him. Would he be prepared if it came to that? Splish-splash.

  Ice ran down his back. Neither of the two were moving, so who made the new sounds? Friend or foe? His eyes scanned the surroundings, but he dared not even move his neck. He was frozen, a statue. The ape picked up on the sounds and locked eyes with Tim. It screamed as it pounded its chest with one arm. It came closer with alarming speed. His finger would not move.

  The splish-splash was desperate. The surprise jerked his hand. Finally he pulled the trigger. A single shot rang out. But it did not hit the ape. Instead it sank into the floor next to it. But it was enough. The ape jumped out of the way and headed into a different tunnel.

  Tim turned his head and looked at a woman. She was hard to make out, but her skin was pale and wrapped in a single roll of purple cloth. It was her sword on his gun that had altered the trajectory.

  “What is with you people and your weird weapons? Stop hurting the Khenlong-po!” the woman screamed into his ear. Her sword was a single piece of iron banged into a fine blade, wrapped with strips of animal skins on the hilt.

  Tim retreated from the dangerous swings and found the wall. The tip of her blade found his throat. Her eyes were furious, but in control. She was a woman using her rage to power herself up. Others would not have been able to stop themselves. The sword would just have gone through Tim’s throat and that would be the end of him. Instead he could enjoy the beautiful craftsmanship up close, and the woman’s beautiful, turquoise eyes. “I was only defending myself.”

  “The Khenlong-po is more afraid of you than you are of it. If you people wouldn’t try and defend yourself in the first place, it would never go out of control like that.” Her voice was teeming with anger too. Not hatred, merely frustration at the situation. The sword was too heavy to keep pointed. She had found understanding in Tim, so she lowered it again.

  “What do you mean by ‘you people’? Did you see another man, in robes like mine?”

  She kept the sword out. Her muscles would spring like wound coils if he tried anything, and the sword would not stop short of his tender flesh again. “I saw someone. The Khenlong-po sort of lost interest in him after the big noise. He’s still back there.” She pointed to the far end of the room, where the ape had bumbled out from.

  Tim nodded and looked despairingly into the darkness. “I better go. It sounded like he was in danger.” However, the woman grabbed his shoulder and held him back. “What?”

  Actually saying whatever was on her mind was harder than she had thought. She paused for a moment, eyes turned away, but releasing him again. “He looked… he had… he took one of the tunnels. I didn’t see which one, but there was blood. I think he was hurt, but he could still run, so he should be all right.” The woman, afraid of saying anything else, stomped after humanoid. Tim nodded and sped off in the opposite direction.

***

  His first warning that something was wrong was the door closing behind him. No, he had had the feeling ever since he laid eyes on the place. A meat processing plant. All government rations got distributed freely, and to those who had never had anything else, it was good enough. But some might still like a change. What most people saved up for with their allowance or wage wasn’t commodities, but food. Several private businesses specialised in exotic fruits or strange cooking or just steaks, T-bones and spareribs, selling either directly to customers or restaurants. To market themselves, their factories and plants would often be within the city, and commercials and ads would sport their liveries.

  The plant John had found was abandoned, however, and had been so since the Warring City. ‘Human Front’ was still written with large letters on a billboard on top of the blocky building. It was people’s own responsibility if they chose not to eat what the Government gave them, so there was very loose control with the import. What was important was not a bloody ring in your pork sandwich, but drugs or guns or slaves.

  With the decline of the Human Front and other organised gangs, however, some of their establishments saw renewed usage. Most, however, were left to decay. Space was still aplenty within Prima City. An old meat processing plant would be cheaper with a building fully constructed, but came at the high price of shady background. Only thing keeping it afloat was a bare minimum of power from the internal power grid. It could not give light to the darkened corridor John entered, but it would keep the square from drifting away and possibly damaging other squares by banging into them.

  A door opened on his left and an old man shambled out. Smooth jazz accompanied him until he closed the door. “You have come looking for spare parts, oui?” the man asked in slobbering, horrible English. Outside flames cast a little light inside and revealed a gaunt face missing both eyelids and lips. Bloodied drool hung from his rotten gums. “There is a small matter that we need to get through first. Your autopsy.”

  The Butcher raised his hand above his head like drawing a weapon from its sheath. Out of thin air materialised a rusty katana with a nicked blade and a blood-soaked grip. The other doors banged open. Undead streamed out in the dozens. Frothy blood stood out of their mouths. Their hands were raw from scratching and scraping at their own skin. Deep gashes cut across their shirts and into the arms and abdomen below. Several had bite marks and big chunks of flesh missing.

  “I was actually hoping to see you again. We did not quite finish talking last time.”

  The undead howled and wailed as their grubby hands clawed at John’s suit. They were upon him before he could react. They bit into his arms and legs, but fell back with teeth melted off. John lit up his arms with yellow energy and lashed out at them. He could have shot them, but his gun remained in his pocket. So did the turmoil inside him, an unrest he could not explain. It drove his mind to savage impulses. His fist smacked into an undead’s chin. Her head blew off and took those around her along.

  Again and again John struck down the putrefying corpses, but more just took the place of the fallen. The walls splattered with chunky, gooey blood and brains. His fist blew a hole in someone’s chest. The light toppled another three. His suit was stained with the clotted blood of old corpses. All the while the Sword screamed inside his mind to stop, while Shamira howled in mortal agony. It was not until the corpses were all de-animated that John discovered it was him that had been moaning in soul pain, not the dead.

  John fell against the wall. He had mindlessly taken out the zombies without considering himself. The outburst had drained him physically and emotionally. The Butcher approached him, ripping a strip of skin off a corpse to wipe his mouth. “Those were just some rejects I had on backorder. Filthy scabs with only the remotest trace of intelligence. Terrible. But the main course has not yet been served.” He called out for Soulbreaker. Twice, in different directions, and then a third time. John clung to consciousness, feeling dizzied and worn out. He had been too reckless.

  Nothing came. The Butcher spat on the floor. Soulbreaker was not coming. Rather than wasting time waiting, the Butcher staggered forth on old, rotten legs. John put up his hands. The light on them flickered. He winced and lowered them again. The Butcher raised his katana. John sidestepped the attack and whipped out his gun. Several pellets of glowing energy assaulted the Butcher. They exploded and engulfed the room in a white mist. The Butcher cut his way out. John saw every move, but the Sword’s voice was in his head the whole time. Retreat. You cannot defeat the enemy. He will kill you.

  The katana sliced down John’s front. A line of bright red mixed with the darker and slimier blood staining his suit. He staggered back. The Butcher lowered his sword, shifting his head down the hall. Again he wiped his mouth with the slice of skin. “Je suis désolé, but your real entertainment isn’t coming. Fils de pute! I better go see what’s keeping him.” He turned back towards John. “Bon soir.”

  “This city is all I have. What kind of a man am I if I cannot protect it?” John mumbled to the Butcher’s disappearing back. He crouched down and banged his fist on the floor. “So why do you haunt me even now, Karen?”

  His hat had escaped him sometime during the fray. The fedora was soaked with sludgy blood, the feather unsalvageable. He held it out before his shades for a long moment before finally slamming it back on to his head. Little streaks of blood trickled down his chin.

  The meat processing plant was bare and made the large rooms look even larger. The smaller rooms were filled with blood and scratch marks on walls and floor. Shelves were ripped out or toppled over, depending on make. Shipping crates of metal and wood were burst open and broken. The meat had been kept fresh for so long but spoiled so easily. He found nothing of use.

  Lastly he moved into the largest room where most of the work had been. It had been kept primitive to reduce the cost. Tables still stood around, permanently discoloured by blood and scratched by tools long ago taken away. By the farthest wall lay a pile of cables. The kind that went into a car and made it run. The Butcher had planned a bigger showdown but something had interrupted him. John took the cables and thanked God under his breath. He had found some of the things he needed.

***

  As it turned out, Roman had not gone far. He was just inside the main computer area. Towering constructs of plastic and metal rose far up towards the bottom of the surface with a catwalk slithering all the way from bottom to the top. Roman had collapsed at the foot. “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

  Tim ignored his friend’s fidgeting and shone light from the pc on his neck to Roman’s torso. Three small rifts from a long-nailed hand. “Stop saying that. You were knocked on your tail by a large ape, I want some confirmation for myself.” Tim moved from the superficial wounds to Roman’s head, checking the eyes. “Well, you seem fine, but I think it would be best if you stayed still. I’ll go after T’an myself.”

  Roman only fidgeted harder, but Tim pressed against his shoulders. “You said it yourself, I’m fine, so let me go. Dammit, you stubborn ass!” Blood trickled out of the nail marks and Roman winced. “Sheesh, all right, have it your way, captain, but I’ll be coming after you as soon as these black dots stop multiplying.”

  Growling. Tim spun around. He had not associated the resuming of splish-splash to be an enemy. The woman from earlier, or even the ape, could have returned. Instead, something large, green and scaly stood in the doorway. It lumbered as if the body it possessed was a stiff doll. Its left arm, twice the size of its right, twitched erratically.

  “Who am I?” the beast asked in a pitiful voice. It paused and whimpered. Tim recognised it. His face of horror turned instead to disbelief. The beast cried out again, more desperately than last. “Who am I?!”

  Tim looked back at Roman. His best friend was up on his own feet with his gun in hand. “You’re Soulbreaker, you ugly shitfucker!” Roman emptied his clip. Blood sprayed from Soulbreaker’s body. The slouching undead made no noise of pain, if he even felt it. Roman lowered his Browning HP, his confident smirk fading. “No… what? What’s going on?”

  Soulbreaker lifted his hands into the air and roared. The whole square shook with its frustrated and pained screams. The monster charged forward with its mutated arm flailing dangerously to one side. Tim grabbed his friend and leapt out of the way. Soulbreaker smashed into the computer like a solid brick wall. Dazed, he stumbled back. Tim took his own Heckler & Koch VP70 and fired a few rounds. The scales had softened with death and rot and were missing in large clumps. They offered Soulbreaker little protection. Conversely, he didn’t feel the shots anymore. Tim lowered his gun to Soulbreaker’s leg. The undead monstrosity tripped and fell. His right hand touched the ground.

  The floor erupted with explosions. Both humans flew through the air. Roman banged against the far wall. Tim tumbled along the floor. Soulbreaker looked surprised at his hand. Deep rifts ate away at it. The skin shed and the flesh dripped off.

  “I can’t believe how few doors this place has. Incroyable.” The Butcher shuffled through the doorless doorway, wiping his face on a slice of skin, smearing blood on his cheeks. “There you are, you imbécile! Who are these people? Do you think they look like John Kilburne?”

  Soulbreaker reached out his melting hand. The process had stopped again. Two of his fingers had vanished, leaving him with three bleeding stumps. “Who am I?” he asked like a child with a cut on his hand, trying hard not to sniffle. A flash of anger surged up in Soulbreaker. He screamed: “Who am I?!”

  The Butcher whacked Soulbreaker over his head. Slouching, the undead monster was just smaller than the tall Lord Carrion. “Silence. I will not hear another word out of you, you failure. I can’t believe the troubles I have had with you.” The Butcher forced Soulbreaker’s face closer to his own with incredible strength for the weathered corpse of an old man. Something akin to fear suffused Soulbreaker’s face, but the Butcher sighed. “Tant mieux, tant pis. At least you flushed out a couple of rats who’ve snuck into our domain.”

  “And who are you?” Roman burst out and pointed his finger accusingly, having no other weapon against the monstrosities.

  “A researcher of sort. I study necromancy, especially necrophagy.” The Butcher wiped his mouth with the slice of skin again, finally slurping it into his mouth. He raised his other hand higher his head. A katana appeared in it. He struck the blade into the ground. A crack spread from the tip down under the feet of the humans. “This is not a place for ordinary humans. How you got in here I will have to look into later. I invite you to stay in my private realm until I get back. I will be pleased to make you a part of my army.”

  The floor opened up. The metal floor turned to stone and changed colour to a dull grey. A rank stench of decay, like a sealed mausoleum, wafted up from below. Tim and Roman had no chance of escape. They fell, and the ground closed again.

***

  The plot of land before Agent Smoulder had been untouched for a countless age. The once-beautiful flowers grew thickly up the walls of the small house. It was not a public square, so it had to be a high-income place, but the house was just a small rectangle with only one floor. There could not be more than four or five rooms.

  The dead swarmed the square. It would have been so easy for Agent Smoulder to turn around. His entire life would have been easier. But he recognised the house. It defied all meaning. It had to be an illusion, a work of magic, yet something had stirred within him that threatened to choke him.

  His gun was useless against the undead. He had come far by running and following in the wake of others, but the rotting corpses filled the yard thickly. He could try and bowl through them. Push them aside. Create some domino effect. But what if they caught him? They could pin him to the ground; overwhelm him with numbers and tear the flesh from his bones. Yet the house compelled him to go forward. He had to make sure. It had been so long, so very, very long.

  Agent Smoulder took a step off the tile walkway and on to the grass. The dead instantly jerked their heads his way. Slowly they stalked closer. He stepped back, but there was no off-switch once the dead had found their prey. He tried the gun. The closest undead shook violently, fell to the ground and got up again. He took a step back. That very same zombie’s head exploded, then the one next to it and the one next to it. Agent Smoulder looked to his side.

  John Kilburne was a mess, soaked head to toe in disgusting, rotted blood. A deep gash down diagonally from his left chest exposed pale skin. Even his shades were smeared with the goop. Tim waved a hand over his nose.

  “M-Mr Kilburne!” Agent Smoulder tensed up defensively. For a long time he had pursued the vigilante known as the Bludgeoner. His best clues had led his theory towards John Kilburne, but he had been unable to pursue it. “What are you doing here?”

  “You are not half-wrong, but you are not half-right either. I am a robotic replica of John Kilburne designed for–”

  “A robot? Yes, certainly, the real John Kilburne would have died a long time ago. Still, I was not aware that they could robots so lifelike.”

  “I am just an initial model. I am certain that others after me will be better built.”

  John’s gun made a sound like the crack of a whip. An undead with its rotten hands on Agent Smoulder’s chest fell headless to the ground. All of its blood spilled on his blue uniform. John aimed the gun towards the garden. The dead were catching up. Agent Smoulder looked past the rows of shuffling corpses to the small house with its white walls covered in green.

  “I have to get in there.”

  John nodded in understanding and fired his gun again. “Then you are in luck. I need some oil for a car.” The dead stumbled over each other to get at them. The knee-high stone fence did nothing to keep them from the stone boardwalk. “And I guess some electrical components would not be bad, either, but that would be asking for too much.”

  Agent Smoulder entered the garden. The dead got no nearer than him than they could touch him. “I think we should have some machine oil inside,” he said in a calm voice. “Cully always said she wanted her own bubble to work on.”