Something Dismembered

  “Inside that house is a little girl, her parents murdered by you, you cost me and my kid sister our parent’s lives!” shouted Abigail as she strode towards Ian.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” asked Ian.

  “Six years ago you murdered my parents in their homes in front of my sister!” Abigail was still shouting though she only stood a few meters from Ian.

  “You fucking naive bitch,” said Ian as he adopted a calm demeanour, “Tell me, did the Council feed you this lie before or after they sent you after me?”

  “They told me everything the day I joined! They told me that you murdered my parent! In cold blood!”

  “There was no murder, the Council lied to you,”

  “My sister saw you! Why would she lie!”

  “I do not deny that she saw me, but she never saw me kill your parents, though I do not deny doing that either,” that seemed to take some wind out of her sails, so Ian started to recount the tale. “Your mother and father were good agents, I do not deny that. At the time I had no idea who they were working for, all I knew is that they took me captive and tortured me for a day or two.

  “I’d survived worse in North Africa, they wouldn’t have broken me even if they had a million years. I managed to escape, kill my guard and went upstairs to find them. They were in the study, your mother saw me first and pulled a gun. Before she could fire, I killed her. Quick, clean, one shot to the head.

  “Your father had time to react in the instant I killed his wife. He overturned a desk and dove behind it. The desk was paper thin though and three well placed shots passed right through and into his chest. He didn’t suffer long. That’s when I heard footsteps. I turned around as your little sister came around the corner.

  “She saw me, she saw the gun, she saw her mom and dad, both dead. And she screamed. Guards came running to find out what was happening, so I bailed out the closest window. I had no need for a fire fight. My intention was never to kill your parents, but they forced my hand. I can promise you is that your sister never saw me do it,”

  “Stop lying!”

  “What possible reason would I have to lie to you! You know what, I don’t have time for this shit. Believe what you will. You see the smoke over there, look at it. I said look! You see it. That was your doing,” he said and rounded on JR “And yours. But I will deal with you later. One rule, JR, one simple fucking rule,” Ian concluded, he got into his car and drove off leaving JR and Abigail behind.

            Their plan had gone down without a hitch. The other two agents impersonated their target’s guards while Devon and Evelyn went to capture the limousine. By midnight they had captured the target and were well on their way to a safe house.

  “Take off the hood,” Devon ordered.

            Their target was Hispanic, an old man with greying jaw length hair. Evelyn was driving while the two agents that had captured him were sitting on either side of the target. Devon sat across from the man.

  “You’ll never get away with this,” said the Council member.

  “That’s what they all say,” Devon replied.

  “My people will find you, string you up like a piñata and beat you till your eyes drop out of your head!”

  “Not all of them say that,” said Stone. “You’ll be answering a few of our question before your people find us, though,”

  “I won’t tell you anything!” spat the man.

  “We’ll see,” said the other agent.

  “Who gave the order?” asked Devon.

  “What order?” the Council member asked.

  “To kill Melisa, who gave it?”

  “Devon, that’s not one of the questions,” objected Evelyn as she drove.

  “I don’t care, now answer me!”

  “So you’re the one they call Caboose,” the Council member said and smiled, “I should have known by the scruff,”

            Devon hadn’t shaved in days, so he had a good full beard by this time. It wasn’t the first time he had done this, North Africa was among the missions where he had let his beard grow out without shaving or trimming it. Unfortunately for the man, Devon was in no mood for games so he drew his sidearm and pointed it at the man’s head.

  “I’ll ask you again, who gave the order?”

  “Devon, what the hell!” shouted Stone and Evelyn nearly rolled the car.

  “Does it matter?” asked the man, “In the end we all gave the order. In the end we all killed her. In the end, you will kill me,”

  “No!” said Evelyn from the front. “We need him alive,”

  “Like hell we do,”

  “Even if you don’t kill me, it won’t make a difference. I could tell you all I know and it would not change a thing. War is coming, the rivers will run red with blood, land will be scorched and gardens of bones will dot the earth. We will cleanse this planet one way or the other,” said the Council member.

  “Cleanse the planet? Of what?” asked Stone.

  “The corrupt, the unjust, murderers, rapists, all of them and more. Anyone that will not adhere to our laws will perish in the cleansing fire,”

  “You’re insane,” said Devon.

  “Insanity is a matter of perspective. They thought Einstein insane, yet he was a mathematical genius. De Vinci, Picaso, all of them insane to the eyes of those that did not understand them.

  “It’s a shame, really. I would have like to pull the trigger myself. Of course before I killed Melisa I would have-”

            The man had no time to finish his sentence. Devon pulled the trigger, casually, unblinking. Evelyn stopped the car with such hast that the other two agents nearly fell forwards. The corps did. The bullet had passed right through his head and the blood stained window behind him.

  “Do you feel better now?” asked Evelyn suddenly extremely furious.

  “No,” said Devon in a flat tone, void of emotion. The pistol still pointed ahead of him.

            There were thick columns of smoke drifting up into the air, numerous fires and the night was alive with the sound of gunfire. Ian managed to drive past the highway onramp but could go no further as the road was blocked by abandoned vehicles. A few of the vehicles had bullet holes in them. Some were still inhabited, by the dead.

            Ian armed himself with his two swords, his two pistols and tactical sunglasses. He closed the trunk of his car and started sprinting towards the mall.

            It had grown by two levels in the years since he had moved to Benoni. He was still in primary school back then and the new town had been a new adventure. It was where he met those that he would later call family in all but blood.

            Ian knew that Jacks and De Beer had entered through the rooftop so he made his way to the top floor to rendezvous with them there. He had tried contacting them while he drove but their communications were being jammed. Even CNet had trouble tracking them.

            As Ian entered the mall, he was forced to take cover behind a wall as a spray of bullets was fired in his direction. He drew his pistols and returned fire blindly, more or less aiming in the direction he thought the bullets had come from.

            There was a break in fire and Ian peaked out of his cover. They were near the escalators on the other side of the hallway and when they saw him they opened fire. Ian waited until they stopped firing before he broke cover. As he ran he fired twice and dove behind a planter, waiting for the unmistaken sounds of bodies falling to the floor a second later. Carefully he peered out of his new cover, saw that the coast was clear and made his way towards the escalators.

            Although this set of escalators would take him to the third floor where he would find another set to take him to the fourth, Ian knew it would not be that easy.

            The first two floors of the mall were dedicated to stores of all kinds and were generally deserted after hours. The third and fourth floors, however, were dedicated to entertainment.

            As Ian made it up the escalators and the third floor opened up before him, he saw the true destruction that had been wreaked on the mall. The whole level was thick with smoke. People lay everywhere, some dead, most dying.

            Ahead of him, looting a few people who weren’t even dead yet, was a small group of agents. They had no markings and carried only fire arms, so Ian suspected that they were working for the Council, all the more reason to kill them quickly.

            He charged at them and opened fire, shooting with perfect control. One bullet for each agent. He quickly ran back to the escalators though a pang of guilt nagged at him as he ascended to the fourth level.

  “You cannot help them, not alone,” Ian told himself.

            The fourth level was even worse than the third. Here almost everyone was dead. There was a massive amount of gunfire ahead of Ian, so he set course and ran as fast as he could over the blood soaked tile floors.

            Ian came to a large open area with numerous restaurants around it and in the centre was a huge man with a heavy two handed battle axe and a group of agents armed with maces. The latter were clearly Others agents but the brute was cutting them to pieces with ease.

            The man was abnormally huge, towering over everyone and almost as wide as a small elephant. The axe was starting to dull, Ian could see. Most of the bodies around the man were dismembered or cut in half, but the newly fallen were not as lucky.

            The axe could no longer saw through flesh, bone and sinew so corpses flew of the edge only partially slit in half. It took seconds, though to Ian it felt like minutes, for all the agents to fall. That’s when Ian saw Jacks on the other side of the area. At his feet lay De Beer in a pool of blood, an ugly gash split his chest to the ribcage and through a few of them.

            Jacks charged at the man and started cutting at him with his two swords. Ian could almost not believe it. Jacks was cutting deep, right to the bone, but the man did not seem to notice. He swung at Jacks, who dodged the blow and continued his onslaught.

            Ian holstered his pistols and unsheathed his swords, joining Jacks in the attack on this mountain of a man. There was scarcely a piece of the man’s lower body that was not cut, yet he did not falter and soon he managed to strike Jacks with the shaft of the axe, knocking him down.

            The man raised the axe, readying to decapitate the young agent but Ian intervened. He drove the two swords into the man’s chest as high up as he could reach and pulled himself up. This time he howled, swatting at Ian was if he was a fly. Unfortunately, Ian was quite a bit bigger than I fly and the man was able to hit him, sending him flying towards the far side of the room.

            Jacks had gotten to his feet in the meantime and attempted the same thing. Only this time the brute was it coming. As Jacks pulled himself up, the brute caught him in one huge hand and started squeezing him.

            Ian noticed a red blinking light on the end of one of Jacks’ swords, and the brute noticed it at the same time. He threw Jacks towards Ian, only much further and struggled to remove the C4 from his chest.

            Jacks fell a few meters behind Ian, unconscious and the brute managed to detach the C4. He stared at it blankly, then at Ian who had gotten to his feet.

            He knew what the brute had in mind and started running, only too late. The brute threw the C4 and it exploded in mid-air sending Ian flying towards the windows on the far side, as well as Jacks who was still unconscious.

            The shockwave was intense and Ian only took ground for a second in which time he was able to position himself in such a way that he might grab Jacks, only Jacks went out of the window before he could reach him. Ian followed shortly after.

            How he had managed it, Ian did not know, but he was holding on for dear life with his left hand and holding Jacks by his leg with his right. Pieced of glass fell down past them for a few seconds then all was silent. Until the brute roared.

            His voice was so deep that the few shards of glass that remained in the windows rattled and Ian heard the sickening sound long before the felt the blood run down his wrist, or saw the pieces of his left pinkie and ring finger fall past Jacks.

            Ian heard the heavy footfalls of the brute as he approached, no doubt to make sure they were dead. Closer and closer he came and the more frantically Ian grasped at an exit strategy. Footfall after footfall until suddenly the footfalls were drowned out by a thundering crash and Ian tasted cement and dust.

            The brute roared again and Ian heard the axe whistle and strike something metallic. Ian heard what he thought was a chainsaw spin up and moments later the brute howled as he was disembowelled.

            A dull thud echoed through the night as the brute fell. Ian listened intently wondering who had managed to dispose of the brute. He heard the chainsaw stop, he heard soft steel footsteps and the sound of servos, then he saw the familiar face of CNet’s robotic body.

  “Hello, Commander, good to see you’re hanging out with an old friend,” said AI sarcastically.

  “Just help me up, would you,”

            CNet grabbed Ian by the wrist and hoisted him and Jacks up with one arm. Ian noticed that this model of his mobile platform was much more humanoid, though still encased in the same fiberglass shell as the previous one. This one had legs, though, but still no facial features other than the glowing red eyes.

  “De Beer is in terrible shape,” said CNet, then he looked at Jacks who was sprawled behind Ian. “And the young master does not seem any better,”

  “I know,” said Ian, get them to the hospital, I’ll deal with the rest of the agents and start moving survivors,”

  “You will do no such thing, not with your hand in that condition. I will deal with the agents and survivors, you get yourself to the Doctor,”

            It was only then that Ian noticed the right arm of the robot was in fact a chainsaw and his left shoulder had a broad gash in it from where the axe had struck him.

  “I guess we’re calling you Half-Claw now, hey old man?” said Jacks as he finally awakened.

            He hadn’t been in as bad a shape as Ian had thought, though De Beer was still in surgery. Danny was overseeing it personally.

            When Ian had arrived, she had asked if he had retrieved the fingers he had lost, but he had had no time to search for them so the stubs were cleaned and sealed and now Ian had bandages around them. She had not done it herself as they needed to get De Beer into surgery, but Ian didn’t mind. She was his doctor, yes, but he wasn’t the one fighting for his life.

  “I’ll still whip you like a child, boy,” Ian said with a smile.

  “Heard anything from Ed or Connor yet?”

  “No,” said Ian, and he wondered what had happened with the others. He would have gone looking for them, but he wasn’t really in any condition to join a battle. I hope they fared better than we did, he though.