The Unlucky Man (16 page)

The first of our pursuers had made it level with the doors. With a curse, Corg smashed a fist with all his strength straight into his face and he went down, blood coursing from a ruined nose in the centre of an entirely impassive face. The others simply flowed around him, blithely ignoring their fallen companion as he passed beneath their booted, shiny feet.

They were upon us, reaching unseeing hands zombie-like into our cage. We lashed out at them but they were relentless. I took one down but, as he fell back, another immediately took his place. I managed to snap another one’s grasping fingers but shear weight of numbers pressed their advantage and we were forced down under their greater groping mass, flailing and kicking against them. It was like fighting mannequins made flesh for all the reaction they showed, like fighting the swell of the ocean for all the difference we made.

We were dragged from the elevator, back into the tunnel by impossibly strong hands, and forced down under Wychelo’s cold gaze. He smiled at me.

"A purpose made army of willing slaves," he said, though it was hard to say what he thought of the notion. "An unimaginative bunch I grant you," he continued, "But marvelous at taking orders, and obedient to the last - as long as they get their medicine."

The words hung in the air. "Would you like a demonstration?"

"No," I said, and can honestly say that I meant it.

A wolf like grin spread across Wychelo’s face. "That’s a shame," he said, and then, addressing the unmoving mass of bodies behind him, "Discipline them."

And they did, if not with enthusiasm I thought, as consciousness was beaten from me, then at least with grim efficiency.

***

I surged into waking and into a low featureless room, dimly lit by a row of tannin coloured strip lighting. I was sat in a generic plastic chair, hands tied to the armrest with white packaging zip-locks. Across the length of a long steel table Corg was similarly trussed, slowly clawing his way back into the land of the waking too. A deep purple bruise blossomed over the left of his jaw and his eye on the same side looked swollen and puffy. From the ache in my limbs, I could guess that I probably looked similar.

"Welcome back," Wychelo said blandly from somewhere behind me.

The only door to the room opened and someone else slipped inside.

"Chelo," the newcomer said, nodding curtly past me. He was expensively dressed in pinstripe pants and an immaculate white shirt, hair cut just so. He looked every inch the businessman but there was something soft around his edges. He was in good shape but you could tell he ate just a bit too well, maybe whitened his teeth, was just a bit too glossy.

Wychelo said nothing, but I could tell from the sudden frostiness emanating over my shoulder that he was displeased by this interruption.

"So these are our guests," the newcomer observed, with an air of proprietary smugness. "Times were I heard you could kill a man the first time," he shot past me, a cocky smile dimpling up his smooth face.

"Good afternoon gentlemen," he said switching his attention to the two of us, "And welcome to my offices - not the most dynamic of floors you’ll appreciate but we can’t have the two of you scaring the public now can we?" He ended this introduction with a small chuckle that hung in the air before dying pitifully.

Across from me, Corg rolled his eyes dramatically. "Who’s this self satisfied prick?" he directed at me across the length of table. Despite myself I caught a grin on my face in the reflective surface. Just like Corg to pick a fight whilst tied to a chair.

"But of course, where are my manners?" the businessman continued, though from the look on his face you would think he’d been slapped; clearly he wasn’t used to people answering him back.

"Allow me to introduce myself: Allman Perry. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?" He thrust out his hand, his slightly round, smug face crinkling into a smile once more. Gold glinted on his fingers and at his wrist. "Oh, of course," he said in mock surprise when neither could meet his proffered shake.

"You know I think I have heard of him," Corg continued blithely, still addressing himself to me, "Wasn’t he in the news for beating up his pool-boy or something?"

"I think it was a parking attendant, but yeah, I think so," I said.

"Yeah," Corg said reflectively, "I’m starting to miss that guy." This with a nod towards the brooding presence of Wychelo, "At least he was good at menacing us." His face split into a painful grin, exposing teeth rouged with blood, but it felt good to be doing something even if it was the questionably sensible provocation of our captors.

Perry’s face had curdled like soured milk. I got the sense that Allman Perry was a bully but also a coward who now seemed on the verge of a petulant rampage.

"Enough," Wychelo intoned darkly. "Let’s get this done." There was a distinct note of distaste in his voice, something which surprised me coming from the passionless statue.

"What’s the matter?" Perry said acidly, still smarting from Corg’s dismissal. "Lost your taste for the work?"

Wychelo stepped forwards and into my field of vision for the first time. "I can kill without thought," he said coldly, "With knife or gun or even my hands. It’s clean, efficient." There was something odd about his features as he withdrew two syringes from his pocket and flipped off their caps. In their depths, blackness roiled nebulously. At the sight of it my pulse began to race.

"This, however, leaves a sour taste in my mouth."

"Shit," Corg whispered, eyes gone big and glued to the needles.

Wychelo tapped a syringe contemplatively with a nail, his washed out eyes fixed on their unknowable depth. I wondered if he felt it shifting the way I did.

Perry reached out a greedy paw. "I’ll do the fat one," he said, eyes gleaming with a nasty light - we’ll see who’s laughing now, they said - empty of empathy or compassion. For a moment I thought Wychelo might refuse, certainly he seemed reluctant to pander to Perry’s petulance.

I think Perry must have seen it too, for his next words were loaded. "Careful Wychelo, remember you’re just Control’s pet dog."

"And you remember," Wychelo countered evenly, "That I could slit your throat in that big office of yours while you contemplate your expensive penthouse view and you wouldn’t even know until your next meal." But he handed over the needle all the same.

"Perhaps this time," Wychelo said, advancing on me, deadly needle held dangerously between his fingers, "You might have the decency to stay dead."

Strong hands clamped down on the back of my neck, forcing down my head until my bruised face was pressed hard against the table. It felt icy cold against my tender face. I shifted my weight, tried to find purchase against the floor but it was polished plastic, my shoes sliding helplessly against it. I strained against the plastic wrist restraints but they just bit deeper into my flesh.

There was nothing I could do.

With an effort I twisted my head and locked on to Corg’s eyes, blue and scared yet defiant to the last, on the other side of the gulf of smooth, cold steel.

"Just my luck to get whacked by this pussy," he grunted to me through his struggles. I saw the needle at his neck, the plunger depressing, the rush of shadow as the chamber emptied.

"Hold on!" I gasped, "I’ve been here before… I’ve lived through this." But Corg’s eyes were already displacing, losing focus. He was swimming away on a noxious tide of toxins.

"Not like this you haven’t," Allman Perry said smugly from somewhere I couldn’t see and I swallowed the words and knew hate.

Then I felt the stab of pain in my own neck and the burning grind of the chemicals entering into my bloodstream. Fight it, I told myself. Fight it to stay alive. But it was too late. The sky was falling all over again. The world was collapsing around me, coming apart at the seams, devolving into particulate entropy.

The last thing I knew was the chill surface against my cheek and Corg’s empty stare. Then, as my last vestiges of lucidity melted away, I heard the door open once again.

"You two can go," a voice said.

And I succumbed.

***

For the longest time there was nothing, then slowly nothing turned into darkness, which is different, deep and unfathomable. Then that too eased and bubbled into a new kind of pitch, like deep, deep water, think as honey, at once stupefying and smothering.

No sense of me.

Gradually - and yet timelessly - this too changed, flowing like liquid, at first complete in its blackness, then melting into random colour. They sparked and blossomed like sunspots, the eyelid memory of staring onto the sun. Neon over the empty landscape of a night-dark desert.

Then all at once that was done and I was spewed, whole and myself, a person once more, individual, onto the shore.

For a long while I lay pressed into the wet sand, the sea lapping against my inert form, pulling at me with each withdrawing wave. I knew that if I chose to I could lose myself once more, slip back into that dark ocean and be claimed by its fathomless depths.

Slowly, agonizingly, I began pulling myself to my feet. The sand, unwilling to let me go, caught at my heels, tried to swallow my outstretched hands. I shuddered at the thought of being lost in that endless clutching void and pushed on.

Seaweed snared at my legs, thick chains biting into the flesh of my calves so that I was forced to strain against the pull. And suddenly it too was gone. Free of the weight I tumbled forwards onto my knees, grazing them on hard packed concrete - a city street, grey and unforgiving under a familiar early morning sun.

But that wasn’t quite right, the light was pulsing gently, keeping a rhythm with my thumping heart - every second pulse met with a brightening of the light, each between beat a dimming. The shifting pallor brought a stab of nausea to my stomach and I retched tasting bile and - maybe - blood.

Something smashed into my shoulder, sprawling me back onto the hard pavement. Stunned and exhausted, I lay still for a moment until a heavy foot descended on my outstretched hand, crunching knuckles under its weight.

Crying out, I went fetal, folding in on myself as more and more people hurried past, some missing me, others connecting - casual callous blows. I was going to be unintentionally trampled to death.

Through a cage of my fingers, I saw that every one of the people thronging the street, all of them dressed and hurrying like they were late for a formal ball, was topped off without the addition a face, like someone had been drawing them in and just got bored halfway to finishing. Each visage was a simple flat surface - an artist’s blank canvas. It was at once terrifying and mesmerizing, an echo from somewhere.

This was just one more test I realised, just like the beach and, armed with this knowledge, I rose smoothly to my feet, the faceless pedestrians sliding easily around me like ice round a heated knife.

And then they too were gone. For a few moments the street lay empty, then the pulsing, beating sun began to swell. It doubled in size, then trebled, turning round in a clear blue sky and as it rotated it cooled and hardened like ash forming on metal, until the whole thing had become a great, bulbous moon that filled the heavens.

It started to burn from within, fire eating it from the inside out - blue-green flames writhing and consuming the celestial body until the whole thing was aflame and capsizing in on itself.

Melting in complete eerie silence, it broke apart, the sky dissolving into birds once again, drowning me in the brightest of white, amazing light that left me awed and blind.

When my vision cleared the street was no more, replaced by a study, wood panelled and opulent, the tick of a clock sounding loud over the far off howling of a phantom wind. Everything in this room was a dark cherry maple polished wood or patent green leather. A great winged armchair - facing away - stood in front of a desk at one wall, on another an unusually large grandfather clock proved a source for the ticking - though it was irregular, a tick only with no balancing tock.

Tick. Tick. It set my teeth on edge.

With a sound like tearing velvet the chair slowly rotated to face into the room, a shape unfolding from its shadowed depths to fill it, long legs and long arms ending in hands with longer fingers, the figure draped in an ill fitting suit of black cloth. A gas lamp sprang in a moment to life, bathing the room in a soft amber light and casting long shadows over the occupant.

Tick.

I climbed slowly to my feet, shoes clumping heavily on the floorboards.

Tick.

The figure shifted in his chair, leaning forwards, eyes flashing yellow in the burning lamplight.

Tick.

There was a knife jutting handle up from one of the boards, softly vibrating as if it had been just that minute dropped there. Shadows were spreading where its tip bit into the wooden boards - the memory of pooling blood.

Tick.

The figure’s face cleared the swirling shadows, mouth stretching into a too big, too curved, wolf’s grin. His teeth glinted in the dirty light, his eyes swirled oddly. At the back of my mind something clicked with familiarity. The wind whispered, pulling through the cracks in the wooden walls, wailing throughout the stretching room.