Payback - Graham McNeill Read online

  PAYBACK

  Graham McNeill

  GUNSMOKE AND BRICK dust filled the stinking bedroom, blasted clear by the gunfire from outside. Cornelius sat below the window with his back to the wall, holding his stubber between his knees as he thumbed more cartridges into the breech. Shouted commands and the sound of running feet told him he didn’t have much time before Constantine’s men came for him. As he loaded the weapon he kept his laspistol trained through the broken mirror door. Low moans and anguished cries drifted from the landing outside, and the mutant whore’s shrill screaming from the bed grated on his already taut nerves.

  He snapped the stubber’s breech shut and aimed the gun at the shrieking mutant.

  ‘You’d better shut up unless you want to be next,’ he growled, nodding towards the bullet-riddled body of Trask, his naked body lying on top of the bloody bedsheets.

  Trask’s heavy boots hung over the end of the bed, the laces dangling to the floor. Cornelius shook his head at his former partner’s lack of class. Only a low-life like Trask would pay for one of Mama Pollyanna’s girls and take her to bed with his boots on.

  The girl in question clutched a spattered blanket around her, her black eyes wide and her whipping tongue stretched fully a foot from her mouth as she screamed the place down. A thick mane of fiery orange hair spilled around her feline face, running in a mohawked trail down her spine. Her skin was bronzed and smooth, like honey, and he could well understand why Trask had picked her. What other talents her mutations had granted her in her profession he could only guess at.

  He heard heavy footfalls and whispered conversation from outside the room as a spray of bullets and lasbolts ripped through the window, splintering the frame and raining broken glass to the floor. The girl screamed again and pounced from the bed, clawing at him with her nails as two of Constantine’s thugs burst into the room, shotguns at the ready.

  Cornelius fired twice, both shots going wild as the naked girl kicked and punched, dragging her long, painted nails down his face while shrieking like a banshee. He rolled and hammered his elbow into her face, snapping her head back. The first thug opened up with his shotgun, blasting a plate-sized chunk of brickwork from the wall.

  Cornelius swung the unconscious girl around in front of him, using her body as a shield, and blew the back of the shooter’s head clear with a single lasbolt. The second gunman hesitated, trying to draw a bead on Cornelius without hitting Mama’s most requested girl. Cornelius didn’t give him a chance to regret his mistake and shot him in the belly with his stubber. The man screamed and crumpled, clutching his bloody midriff.

  Cornelius threw the mutant girl onto the bed as an explosion above him rained timber and plaster from a hole blasted in the ceiling. He saw shapes through the pall of smoke and dived forwards, scooping up a fallen shotgun and rolling onto his back below the hole.

  Pain tore at him as the synth-flesh bandage Monque had applied ripped free and blood ran down his side. He racked the shotgun’s slide and fired upwards three times, hearing the screams of wounded men and the thump of bodies on the floor above him.

  Keeping the shotgun aimed through the hole in the ceiling, Cornelius scrambled to his knees, turning and putting a lasbolt through the skull of the second man who’d come through the door as he weakly reached for his fallen weapon.

  He crawled back to his position beneath the window, sweat pouring from his face as he heard the wailing sirens of approaching Special Security Agent Rhinos.

  Cornelius swore silently to himself.

  How had he allowed things to get messed up?

  ‘CORNELIUS BARDEN?’ SAID the girl. ‘I’ve not heard of you before.’

  ‘No reason you should have,’ replied Cornelius. ‘I’m new on Karis Cephalon.’

  The girl nodded, cocking her head to one side. ‘Trask says you killed six men at the spaceport when you jacked these weapons.’

  ‘Trask talks too much,’ said Cornelius.

  The girl smiled in agreement and he was again struck by how young she was. Trask’s contacts had set this meeting up, but he’d had trouble believing that this girl, Lathesia, could actually be the leader of the mutant resistance here in Cephalon. But she knew her stuff and he was impressed by her easy confidence.

  ‘Hey, easy, Con! I’m standin’ right here,’ whined Cornelius’s partner, Milos Trask.

  Both Cornelius and Lathesia ignored him.

  ‘Is it true though? Did you kill them?’ she pressed.

  ‘Yes, I killed them. So what?’ shrugged Cornelius.

  ‘So what indeed,’ agreed Lathesia. Her black eyes glittered in the dim light cast by the hooded glowlamps as she knelt and lifted a blue-steel plasma gun from one of the packing crates sitting on the ground between them.

  ‘Who did these belong to?’ she asked, tapping her fingers against the scorched side of the crate where a shipping marking had once been stamped.

  ‘What do you care?’ replied Cornelius.

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Then why ask?’

  ‘I just wanted to see if you’d tell me,’ shrugged Lathesia, handing the plasma gun to one of the two heavily-built men flanking her. Both were mutants, their skin a mottled purple and their limbs grossly swollen. Cornelius could tell they were just itching for an excuse to use the battered rifles - antique PDF surplus - they carried. Though if this deal went through, the mutant resistance would suddenly become a whole lot better armed and he’d be a whole lot richer.

  There was just one catch.

  ‘‘Red’’ Ivan Constantine.

  Selling weapons to mutants was treading on Constantine’s toes and if the arms dealer knew about this deal, he’d be lethally opposed to it.

  Cornelius knew this deal was dangerous and his senses were electric. Everyone was nervous. Everyone but him and Lathesia.

  The deal vibed strange. The deal vibed wrong.

  Trask was tight as a drum. Sweat stink and nervous energy poured from him in waves. Cornelius didn’t like it. It smelled of set-up. But of who?

  He shook his head with a smile. ‘You want to go direct to source next time. Cut out the middle man.’

  ‘Something like that,’ nodded the teenage girl, running a hand through her dark hair, and even in the dim light, Cornelius could make out the scabbing flesh on her arms. Aside from her eyes, it was one of the few visible signs of her mutant heritage.

  Anyplace else, she’d be ostracised, but here in the mutant ghetto, he was the outsider.

  She caught his gaze and smiled humourlessly.

  ‘Do you have a problem that I’m a mutant?’

  ‘Not so long as you pay us, little girl,’ said Trask, unashamedly ogling her curves.

  The largest of Lathesia’s mutant guards stepped forward, lips pursed together.

  ‘Call her that again and I’ll put bullets in you, Trask,’ he snapped.

  Trask raised his hands in mock terror and laughed, ‘Ooooh, the mutants are mad at me! I’m so scared.’

  The mutant raised his rifle, but Lathesia stopped him with a curt gesture.

  Cornelius masked his annoyance at Trask, again regretting his decision to hook up with the man on this venture. It had seemed like an easy score; selling arms at inflated prices to the mutant population of Karis Cephalon, who were too dumb to realise they were being ripped off. Ever since they had heisted the guns from the spaceport, Trask had been nothing but a liability, his loose mouth and lack of personal hygiene at odds with Cornelius’s stoicism and careful grooming. But for his contacts within the mutant underground, Cornelius would have killed him the moment they’d made their escape from the heist.

  ‘I don’t give a damn if you’re a mutant, xeno or pureblood,’ said Cornelius. ‘Your cash
is as good as anyone else’s.’

  Lathesia locked eyes with him, holding his gaze for long seconds until, at last, she nodded, apparently satisfied with his answer. She waved her hand to the less aggressive of her companions, who stepped forwards with a burlap sack, secured at the neck with a rope drawstring. He tossed it at Cornelius’s feet, where Trask seized upon it with a whooping laugh. Cornelius kept his eyes on Lathesia as Trask lifted out bundles of tied bills and fed them into an auto-counter. The machine flickered quickly through the money, its tiny machine spirit checking denominations and for counterfeit bills.

  At a shade over two metres, Cornelius Barden was of above average height, and his build was that of a pit-fighter. His shoulders were wide and powerful, his waist narrow and his chest slabbed with thick muscle. He wore a long greatcoat, hiked over the butt of his stubber and his silver hair and beard reflected the torchlight. Every movement spoke of control.

  Over the mumbled counting of Trask, Cornelius heard a scrape of metal. He made sure not to move, but his senses cranked up a notch. Someone was out there. Not SSA. Not this deep in the mutant ghetto; the alarm would have been sounded long ago and they’d be roaring in with bullhorns and searchlights. No, this was something else. Constantine? Log that as a possible.

  Trask finished counting the money and pulled the bag’s drawstring tight.

  ‘We happy?’ asked Cornelius.

  ‘Damn straight we happy, Con,’ said Trask, dropping the auto-counter into the sack, slinging it over his shoulder and backing away from the mutants. Cornelius lost sight of Trask as he moved beyond his peripheral vision. He heard another scrape. Boots on gravel. Upgrade the Constantine possibility to a probability.

  Closer now, more steps. Lathesia noticed it now, eyes narrowing, unable to see much beyond the torchlight. She shot a hurried glance at Cornelius. He shook his head and reached for his stubber. She whipped out a heavy revolver and sprinted for cover.

  Gunshots split the night, pistols and lasguns. Cornelius felt a whipcrack sting of bullet fragments against his cheek. Something snatched at the hem of his greatcoat as he dived towards a built-up pile of debris.

  One of the mutants was down, his guts burned open by twin lasblasts. The other returned fire into the darkness, screaming in defiance.

  Very dumb, thought Cornelius as a flurry of bullet impacts cratered his chest. A final shot took off the top of his head. Cornelius heard the boom of Lathesia’s gun and low crawled back the way he’d come, trying to spot the attackers and, more importantly, Trask and the money. Lathesia was on her own. He owed her nothing.

  He heard scrabbling feet, ten metres west, and made his way through the rubble towards it as a voice echoed through the night.

  ‘Barden! I know you can hear me, so you listen good eh? I only want my money. This turf, it mine, and you know it. Just hand over the money and I call it even! What you say to that, huh?’

  Cornelius had seen Ivan Constantine, though had never spoken to him. But he knew instinctively that the thickly accented voice was his. He silently backed away from the source of the shout. If Constantine thought he was dumb enough to answer, then they had a lot to learn about Cornelius Barden.

  He ghosted through the detritus of the mutant ghetto, putting as much distance between him and Constantine. The deal was done and he wanted to get out of here before the arms dealer’s men realised he was gone. He had to find Trask. Quickly. Give the man ten minutes and he’d blow the score in dice games or on a girl. His partner would have no compunction about ditching Cornelius the moment it looked like he was in trouble, but Cornelius didn’t blame him. He’d do the same.

  The noise he’d been circling towards resolved itself as a man, crouched low with a long barrelled lasrifle. Cornelius drew a power knife and thumbed the activation rune, the blade glowing faintly with lethal energy.

  Two steps and he closed the gap, wrapping his thick arms around the man’s neck. His victim’s arms came up, clawing. Cornelius hammered the full length of the power knife through the man’s armpit and into his heart. The man’s struggles ceased instantly. Cornelius eased the corpse to the ground, too late catching the click of a hammer easing back behind him.

  He spun. He caught a muzzle flash and a silhouette. Fiery red pain flared in his side. He fell, blood pumped, hot and fast. He snapped off a couple of shots - wide. His vision blurred as he hit the ground hard. Fireflies spun before his eyes. More shouts sounded behind him. Constantine’s men coming for him.

  The one who’d shot him turned and ran from the shouts. His direction and his sweat stink told Cornelius who it was.

  Trask.

  HE RAN. HE stumbled. He fell. But he kept going. Gritting his teeth and pressing his hand hard into the wound, he kept going. Several times his pursuers came close, but each time he hunkered down, fighting to keep his breathing quiet and even. He almost blacked out twice, biting his lip till it bled to keep from slipping into unconsciousness. His body was running on pure adrenaline, but he could feel his strength fading fast. He had to keep moving, to stop was to die.

  He pulled a stimm inhaler from his coat and took a huge breath. Fresh vigour poured through his limbs as the Spur took effect. It was risky taking a stimm when he’d lost so much blood, but what choice did he have?

  Blood soaked his fatigues and filled his boot, leaving bloody prints in his wake. He needed help badly and there was only one place in Cephalon where he could get it.

  It was nearly a kilometre away in the old royal quarter, but he had no choice.

  CHIRURGEON MONQUE PULLED back the bolt on his door, unlocking the six padlocks that secured the steel door to his ad-hoc surgery. He was no stranger to midnight callers and was therefore not surprised to see the slumped form of a man gripping the metal frame of his door. There had been gunshots earlier, but with increased SSA crackdowns and riots breaking out almost daily, that wasn’t unusual.

  He knelt beside the man, pressing his fingers against his neck. There was a pulse; erratic, but strong.

  Monque checked the street in both directions to see if this man had brought trouble to his door, but there was nothing to be seen other than the usual collection of vicious night-owls that prowled the streets of Cephalon in this unsavoury district.

  He lifted the man’s blood-soaked coat, grimacing as he saw the bullet wound in his side. He rolled the man over onto his side, shaking his head as he saw there was no exit wound. Which meant the bullet was probably lodged deep in a vital organ or had fragmented on a bone, shredding his intestines.

  Monque sighed and replaced the man’s coat over his wound.

  He said, ‘I think you might be out of luck, my friend.’

  As he made to stand, the man’s hand reached up, gripping him tightly and Monque was amazed at his strength.

  ‘I have money,’ he hissed, thrusting a handful of bills towards Monque.

  Monque snatched them from the man’s hand and smiled.

  ‘Well why didn’t you say so?’ said Monque and dragged Cornelius inside.

  CORNELIUS TOOK ANOTHER swig from the bottle, feeling the cheep rotgut sear its way down his gullet. As filthy a concoction as it surely was, it dulled his senses to the agony in his side. He drank again and laid his head back on the table.

  ‘I’ll add that to your bill,’ said Monque, wheeling over a rusted gurney laden with surgical instruments.

  ‘Whatever. Just get on with it, damn you,’ said Cornelius as Monque snapped on a pair of surgical gloves.

  The chirurgeon took the bottle from Cornelius’s fingers, placing it on a nearby cabinet filled with vials of coloured solutions. A gurgling medicae transfuser pumped fresh blood into his body, and he experienced a moment of panic as he suddenly wondered where it came from. Was it mutant blood? Might it be infected with the plague that had swept through the mutant population in the last few weeks? Would it make him like the twisted wretches he’d seen eking out a slave’s existence in the mutant ghetto?

  Monque saw his concern and chuckled.r />
  ‘Don’t worry; it’s clean. And anyway, despite what the priests will tell you, mutant blood is just like yours and mine. Their corruption is of the soul, not the blood.’

  The chirurgeon selected a plastic hypo-syringe from the tray before him and stabbed the needle into a bottle filled with murky liquid. He half-filled the injector and tapped it before squirting a few droplets from the needle to release any remaining air bubbles.

  ‘Is that sterile?’

  ‘Probably not,’ admitted Monque, ‘But it will help the pain. It’s a little concoction of my own actually. I call it Ease… you know, because it helps—’

  ‘Ease the pain, yeah, I get it,’ groaned Cornelius.

  Monque sniffed, piqued at having his witticism ruined and jabbed the needle into Cornelius’s arm with rather more force than was necessary. Cornelius winced, but smiled dreamily as the pain suppressant went to work almost instantaneously. Whatever other flaws Monque had, he brewed some damn fine chemicals.

  Cornelius watched as Monque replaced the hypo on the tray and lifted a set of thin-legged forceps. The pain from his wound was still there, burning like a hot coal in his belly, but he felt strangely removed from it, as though it belonged to another person.

  His thoughts, normally so quick and sharp, flowed like syrup, meandering their way towards a conclusion whose point was forgotten by the time his numbed brain even remembered that there was one. It wasn’t a sensation he particularly liked.

  Monque lifted clear the bloody leather of his coat and shook his head again.

  ‘The bullet has pushed dirt and burnt leather into the wound. You’ll be lucky if you don’t get an infection from this.’

  Cornelius tried to answer, but his tongue felt too heavy to form the words. Monque smiled.

  ‘Don’t try and speak, the Ease will make that next to impossible.’

  ‘Right,’ slurred Cornelius and Monque’s eyebrow rose a fraction.

  Monque returned his attention to the wound and wiped it clear with a sodden rag. Blood pulsed weakly from the hole.