‘I don’t know! I wasn’t fucking conscious!’ Mudge shouts.
‘You want to know? You want to know!’ I hear a hysteria-edged voice that isn’t Mudge scream. Everything seems to come into sharp relief. ‘It’s inside him. It forced its way inside him!’ I realise I’m screaming even though the comms connection is sub-vocal. I realise I’m weeping, but it’s dry, no tears when you have machines instead of eyes. I half-heartedly draw Gregor’s laser pistol and take aim towards the Berserks closing in on our position.
Everything stops. There’s a really bright light. It’s sort of blue and white at the same time. Mudge and I are no more than silhouettes now that everything has become a bright circle of light and the ground seems to want to climb into the air. There is no noise. Then there’s a rushing sound and there’s all the noise at once. Am I screaming?
Then I am burnt and blistered and standing, somehow, on a plain of brown glass. Mudge is on his knees close by, crying. I doubt he could tell you why. That sound is the sound of a gunship coming into land. The guitar riff is suitably sombre so it doesn’t jar more than a little bit. I turn and walk towards it. Rolleston and Josephine Bran jump out of the craft with an energy I can barely remember. Rolleston moves quickly to Gregor and begins examining him. I don’t like this and raise the laser. There’s shouting. I’m aware of the miniguns on this side of the gunship swivelling towards me. They are already rotating, up to speed. Buck’s fingers are poised over his fretboard; he’s the most tense I’ve ever seen him. One of the most dangerous people I’ve ever met is pointing a laser carbine at me as well.
Mudge is standing next to me and pushing the laser pistol down, but that’s no use, how will I shoot Rolleston now? I think Mudge is saying something to me. I watch Rolleston move Gregor. easily slinging him over his shoulders and moving him into the gunship, where there’s some kind of small glass technological coffin. It’s not dead, I think, and then correct myself: he’s not dead. Later I’ll realise it’s a secure biohazard isolation chamber.
Gregor’s in the coffin now. Mudge pulls me towards the gunship. telling me we ‘re going home now. Leaving Dog 4. But as we approach the gunship the weapons remain up, covering us. They won’t let us on board. They are businesslike and polite but we are not being let into the gunship. I am actually surprised that Mudge has the energy for a pointless argument, screaming at the gunship as the blast of their take-off forces us backwards.
It’s actually quite beautiful watching the gunship bank towards Sirius Prime, rising massive and seemingly close on the horizon. I realise that despite the thing inside Gregor, I don’t want Rolleston taking my friend away. I wish I’d shot him, in the head, with his own laser – Gregor, I mean.
I woke up screaming. I don’t think anyone noticed. I was hoping to die soon as I didn’t want another day of this. I hung from my frame looking down at the skinheads going about their business as I swayed in the wind, making noises that didn’t sound particularly human to me.
I watched the gate open and a figure walk in. He was wearing a rad duster not unlike the one I used to have. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and a mask that had a series of fetishist charms hanging off it. Dreadlocks spilled out of his hat, reaching halfway down his back. That meant something. He walked over to a group of skinheads. They began talking and I saw the dreadlocked figure remove a small pouch from the pocket of his duster. I heard myself start to make what I can only describe as a wet roaring sound. The skinheads and the guy with the dreadlocks and duster looked up at me. He moved closer to me, peering up. It was him all right. Despite feeling like my skin had been flayed off, despite the fact that I barely felt human and definitely had more important things to worry about, I was taken aback by how much rage I felt towards Gibby.
‘Jakob?’ So I was still recognisable, that was something of a relief. I could see insect-eyes emerging from the C amp;C mobile home. He was watching this intently. Gibby turned to the skinheads he’d been dealing with.
‘You need to kill that guy,’ he said. I could’ve sworn I heard a bit of panic in his voice. The skinheads shook their heads, shrugging in a manner befitting low-level thuggery confronted with a problem.
‘Fuck it, I’ll do it myself.’ The pilot flicked open the duster. An ancient Colt Navy.44 he’d added a smartlink to and modified for accuracy and modern ammunition appeared in his hand. Insect-eyes was walking towards us. Gibby cocked the hammer needlessly on the revolver. This would be better.
‘Stop him,’ insect-eyes ordered. A skinhead grabbed Gibby, dragging his gun hand down. Insect-eyes walked up to the restrained pilot and slapped him hard, knocking Gibby’s sunglasses and mask off. Gibby’s head snapped round with the force of the blow. When he turned back I could see the lenses that had replaced his eyes and a look of anger.
‘Who is this?’ insect-eyes demanded, meaning me.
‘You out of your mind, Messer?’ Gibby asked, fixing insect-eyes with a stare. So the little Nazi punk had a name. Messer, I’d have to remember that.
‘I asked you a question,’ Messer said dangerously.
‘Let me go,’ Gibby said. Messer nodded to the skinheads holding him. They let Gibby go but kept him casually covered. Gibby spun the pistol and slid it back into its holster. He pointed up at me.
‘Get rid of him or we will,’ he drawled.
‘You’re in no position to-’ Messer began, but with a final glance at me Gibby stalked out of the compound. He looked scared.
I was fading in and out. Nothing really seemed to hurt any more.
‘I thought it was just skin.’ A voice I recognised from what seemed like long ago. I was in a grotto, a magic cave of ultraviolet magic symbols and medical equipment. I’d been chanted over in a language I didn’t understand though I recognised some of the words. I’d been painted in blood and had things that rattled shaken over me. And then they’d painted new skin on over flesh flayed down to the armour.
‘He’s received a pretty high dose,’ said a voice thick with an accent I’d normally be able to identify.
‘Can’t you do anything for him?’ a worried-sounding Morag said. I tried to say her name but it sounded more like someone drooling themselves to death.
‘He’d need all his systems replaced, internal decontam for his organs, new blood and then only maybe. If we had facilities like that here, Crawling Town would be a much healthier place.’ It was a Caribbean accent of some kind, I decided, proud that I’d worked it out.
‘New York?’ she asked.
‘I checked. Even Balor doesn’t have the gear,’ the first voice said. Pagan, I knew him as well. I felt nauseous.
‘What you want to do?’ the heavily accented voice asked.
‘Patch him up, get him back up on his feet,’ Morag said decisively.
‘Why don’t we just make him comfortable?’ Pagan said. Fuck off, Pagan. Make me comfortable for what?
‘Just do it,’ Morag said.
I remember very little of it. I remember everyone coming in, but most of it I got from Mudge’s viz recording. He thought I’d want to see my rescue. I remember Mudge moving with a narcotic jaunt in his steps, his AK slung across his front. I remember Pagan, staff in hand, looking for all the world like the ancient Druid he so obviously wanted to be. I remember Mrs Tillwater, lilac skirt suit, very smart, the suburban matron from all those soap operas and sitcoms from long ago, except for the dead-skin mask from her last victim, unworn and tucked in the top of her skirt. She’d been an officer in the US Rangers until she’d crucified a column of refugees on Proxima Centauri for refusing to help her platoon hold back a Them advance. Dishonourably discharged, she spent some time in prison, but somehow she had been released and now she ran the First Baptist Church of Austin Texas. Of course I couldn’t forget Big Papa Neon and Little Baby Neon.