The Culled Part 22

I found it forty minutes later.

Tucked away in a chrome cabinet (locked, but fortunately not bullet-proof), inserted between vile-green separators like the most unimportant thing on earth, rammed between bulging files marked PAL-, PAM-, PAO-, PAP-, it was a slender, unremarkable thing. A faded project-report, listing funding allocations, resources, cla.s.sification levels, diplomatic pa.s.ses, locations, and personnel.

I had to sit down.

Take a breath.

Look away. Out across the dark landscape and that brightening patch of sky to the east, promising - eventually - a new sun.

Then I looked back and re-read the t.i.tle: PROJECT PANDORA.

It made me s.h.i.+ver, which is quite a thing to admit when you've spent most of your adult life killing people in secret.

I rifled through the loose sheets inside like a man possessed, fingers trembling, spilling useless doc.u.ments and paper clipped photographs. It all seemed like it was happening to someone else.

I found the name I was looking for near the back.

Vital statistics. Origins. Code numbers. Re-a.s.signment location.

There was a photo pinned to its rear.

I stared at it for twenty minutes.

The sun edged higher.

And then abruptly I was ready to leave, and stuffing the papers into my pockets, and staggering upright, fighting the s.h.i.+vers, and casting my eyes across the photos I'd dropped, stopping to retrieve my rifle, and- Oh s.h.i.+t.

And there he was. Staring at me. Pictured in black and white, a decade or two younger, smart in dress-uniform and sergeant's stripes, smiling with officious intensity at the camera.

JOHN P. MILLER.

Lacking only for a vast white mitre, a snowy robe, and an exaltation to the Lord on his lips.

John-Paul Rohare Baptiste.

Why the f.u.c.k was he in the file? What the h.e.l.l was he doing th- Snkt.

This is a sound I have heard many times. This is a sound I am acquainted with intimately, and have been responsible for creating in the vast majority of cases.

This is the sound of a semi-automatic pistol being armed, in close proximity to someone's head.

The head was mine. The pistol was Cardinal Cy's.

"f.u.c.k." I said.

"Yeah," he said.

n.o.body moved.

"How did you find me?"

"On the way up. Heard a shot. Took it nice and slow."

Opening the filing cabinet. b.u.g.g.e.r.

Still the same, strange voice. Little stammered bursts of thought, tones just a touch too high for comfort.

"Given us a chase. Haven't you? Troublemaker. Caused all sorts."

"What's on the roof?" I said. Stalling. It didn't matter. He had no reason to keep me alive now. Just s...o...b..ating. Just being curious. Just playing with me.

"No concern." He said. "What you looking for? Up here, huh? What's got you into this?"

"None of your business," I deadpanned.

He punched me in the kidneys, giggling horribly and as I went down I made it look good, cried out, and staggered, and threw up my hand to ward him off, letting the photo of John-Paul flap about, and- -and in the confusion sneaked my other hand onto the Uzi in my pocket, and- -and the gun was back on my scalp, only this time I was kneeling.

"f.u.c.k."

"Hands. Lemee see. On head."

He giggled again. Not right in the head.

I did what he said. The Uzi clattered to the ground beside the photo of John-Paul, and somewhere behind those impenetrable red specs I guess he s.n.a.t.c.hed a glance.

"That who I think?"

"Yeah."

"Looks young."

"Yeah."

"What you doing here?"

"Looking for something."

"What?"

"Information."

"What information?"

"You really want to know?"

"What information? f.u.c.k! What information?" The muzzle jabbed against my temple.

I sighed.

Tensed.

"I'm after the location of a secret UN funded research-team sent to find a..."

And I struck. Always mid-sentence. Always unexpected.

Turned. Arms swiping across the pistol muzzle. Knocking it to one side.

He got off a shot - angry and loud and shocking in the silence - and the muzzleflash vanished in the wrong direction, and I was standing and snarling, and then wrestling with the gun between us, and oh f.u.c.k oh f.u.c.k oh f.u.c.k...

He was laughing.

He was stronger than me.

The gun came up slowly like the sunrise outside, like a perfect black 'O' opening to swallow me, and I pushed and fought and put everything into it, and- Don't you f.u.c.king give up soldier!

Sir, no sir! Etc etc.

-and it still wasn't enough.

Hooked a leg behind his knee. Tipped us up. Rolling on the floor. Grunting, dribbling, spitting, sweating. The cords in his neck stood out like ropes, and still he wasn't going to stop laughing, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, still he was giggling like his sides had bust.

He took a hand off the pistol, and for a second I thought I'd won. Redoubled my efforts. Forced everything I had into snapping his wrist.

But it made no difference, and he was still laughing, and he was still stronger than me.

With all the time in the world, he picked up my own rifle in his spare hand - fat fist wrapped round the muzzle - and hit me so hard on the head that my teeth rattled, my lips went cold, my eyes burned with a sudden whiteness then faded back to an awful half-gloom, and the sound that reached my ears s.h.i.+vered around inside my empty skull like an endless echo.

Still laughing. Standing over me, gun in hand.

Still laughing in between telling me he's going to shoot off my kneecaps and let the Abbot have his fun. Spitting on my forehead. Warm rain.

Still laughing when he aimed the pistol and took a breath.

Still laughing when the blurred shape that had been creeping up behind him for the past thirty seconds - tall and dark, dappled with stripes and patches in blue and red - swatted his wrist to one side, ignored the spastic misfire of the pistol, and jabbed a hunting knife so hard into his skull that it slid inside with a crack and stayed there.

And then he stopped laughing, the s.h.i.+t.

Which is about when I lost consciousness, and went skidding off into my own head.

From somewhere, the sounds of engines. Big engines. A lot of engines.

People were shouting ("They're going! They're getting out! Stop them!"), guns were chattering like woodp.e.c.k.e.rs in a distant forest, and two voices were arguing.

"f.u.c.k were you doing?"

"You mind your business, man! The h.e.l.l are you, anyways?"

"What's in the pack? Hey! Hey, I'm talking to you!"

"You back off, Tonto!"

"What did you call m..."

And so on.

Oh, and an ugly throb of motorised something, slinking off into silence.

...thrpthrpthrpthrp...

I didn't even bother opening my eyes. It was all too much trouble.

"I had a kid." She said. "That's all."

She was beautiful, I suppose, in a stretched-out way. Gangly almost, but not clumsy. Not my type, but I could appreciate her. With little beads of sweat catching the fire on her compact little b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and her legs sort of wrapped over-then-under mine, any man could.

The s.e.x had been... okay. Nice.

A little awkward, maybe. Heart-not-quite-in-it, but...yeah. Nice.

"They took her last year. Just turned five. I hid out for months, moving about. Eventually some small-town f.u.c.kwit sold me out for a bottle of meths and a new s.h.i.+rt. I kicked his b.l.o.o.d.y teeth in, when I could walk again."

I pressed my nose against her hair. It smelt of dirt and damp and woman.

Oho, the guilt...

"You're lucky they didn't kill you," I said. "The Clergy. Not big fans of t.i.the-dodgers."

"Nah." Her shoulders shrugged against my chest. "Why bother? Another woman left alive, another baby-machine to spit out more brain-dead bible-thumpers."

Then quiet. She was a deep-breather and didn't fidget quite as much as- As some people do.

"Who was the father?" I said, trying to sound interested. In truth the guilt was eating me up, chewing on my stupid p.r.i.c.k-controlled-brain and cursing the nettle brandy (or whatever the h.e.l.l it was) I'd been drinking all night.

Not that I wasn't interested in what she had to say, exactly. Just that I'd heard it - or something like it - a hundred times before. Just that I had my own worries.

s.h.i.+t, five years since The Cull it was still a selfish motherf.u.c.king world.

"No one," she said, and her voice said otherwise. "Just some... guy."

"Before The Cull, right?"

"Yeah. Year or so. p.r.i.c.k." She sighed and nuzzled her way backwards until her b.u.m was squidged up against my groin, and pulled the blanket we'd found tighter round herself "Seemed like he knew everything, at the start. Smart guy, capable. Knew everyone.

"You get to feel like you're safe with someone like that. You know? I mean, Jesus... I was only... what? Twenty one? Living on the street. Spoilt rotten as a kid, I was. Ponies, swimming pools, four-by-fours, you name it. Thus the flying lessons. Got bored of that too. Same as anything."

I was already tuning out. I know, I know. I'm sc.u.m. "I only got halfway through uni," she said, building up momentum for an entire b.l.o.o.d.y life-story. "Had a bit of a... hiccup. Took a look at myself. All the money, the materials. Probably got a bit too far into the whole student thing, if I'm honest. Just kind of... backflipped. Dropped off the radar. Wound up on the streets, getting by. That's where I met Claystone."

"That's the father?"