Chapter 9
The sun was fading away over the lawn behind Razmik’s house. Stryker and Slayer stood shoulder to shoulder, watching the glow recede over the horizon. As the sun crept away, a cool, but not entirely unpleasant, dew began to descend on them. The air had a faint dampness about it and the grass smelled very sweet.
Stryker held a mostly consumed bottle of whiskey in one hand. There was a very slight waver to his stance that Slayer could just about detect. This was not unusual for Stryker. He seemed to pass most of his evenings by benignly chipping away at his sobriety until he ended the day in a mellowed and mostly functional heap somewhere around the property. Slayer had also noticed that the pattern was decaying slightly and that Stryker was a little less functional at the end of each passing day.
‘It’s the waiting’, Stryker said.
‘What?’ Slayer said, startled by the break in the silence.
‘My drinking,’ Stryker said. ‘It gets worse with all the waiting.’
Slayer turned to look at the other man. Slayer was no fleck of a man himself, but Stryker loomed above him. If not for the constant presence of Homer, Stryker would seem immense.
Slayer smiled slightly, ‘You read minds as well?’
Stryker cleared his throat and spat. ‘I don’t need to. I know what I do. I know you all notice it. It’s no big deal, I’ve been doing it longer’n you’ve been on this rock. I know how to get by. But, if you’re worried about it then you shouldn’t be. I’ll keep on drinkin’ a little more each day that goes by and pretty soon I’ll be ending the days in a proper drunk. But it’s the waiting.’
Stryker unscrewed the top of the whiskey bottle. In the quiet of the evening the sound of the metal cap grating against the glass threads was penetratingly loud.
Slayer said nothing while Stryker tipped the bottle back and swallowed again. Stryker put the cap back on the bottle and said, ‘We’ll get back to action sooner or later and then I’ll be okay.’
Slayer smiled. He said, ‘I’ll be getting back to action sooner than later.’
It was Stryker’s turn to wait for the other continue. He stood there, still watching the horizon, tapping the bottle gently against his massive thigh.
‘One of my contacts has reached out to me,’ Slayer said. ‘He wants to talk to me. He says he knows something.’
‘About what?’
Styker smiled. He said, ‘I don’t know. A lot of these guys, the ones who know nothing as well as the ones who know something, are always shy about letting you know what they want to talk about. I think that it’s maybe their moment in the sun and that they want the spotlight for a moment. They don’t want to give up all of their secrets too easily. Of course, most of them are just crazies.’
Styker said, ‘How do you find ‘em?’
‘It’s not hard to find crazies. I think we might have a couple right here tonight.’
Stryker gave him a withering, if good-natured, sideways glance. He said, ‘The fellas that know stuff. How do you find them? We’re playing with one of the great conspiracy/mysteries of our time. I used to have a whole secret organization feeding me the info I needed to keep ploddin’ from point A to point B. How do you do it?’
Slayer shrugged. ‘Persistence? I don’t know. The internet makes it a lot easier. When I started out at this kind of thing it was a lot harder. It was a lot harder to weed the crazies out then as well. But I’ve had a lot of practice. A lot. Metis helped as well when I found her. At this point I just have enough threads pulled out of the mess that there’s always something to pluck away at.’
Stryker drank again, more deeply this time. Then he said, ‘And what’s this new loony? Where’s he at?’
Slayer said, ‘He’s back in States. He’s actually not far from my home town. He’s reached out before but…’
Stryker said, ‘But ya couldn’t go back.’
Slayer nodded. ‘It was too dangerous. The whole of the USA is deadly for me now, with face recognition software. With the simple fact of my infamy. Washington is the worst of all. The state, not the city. Going back there is really hard. To a lot of people up there I am the boogey man.’
‘Fucked up,’ Styker said, slurring his speech ever so slightly.
‘Yup.’
‘So how come you can go back now?’ Stryker said.
Slayer said, ‘Because of Razmik. With his network of resources I don’t think any distance or border is going to be a problem for me again.
Stryker seemed to think about this for a moment. He said, ‘I guess I really just don’t appreciate that. I had the Order backin’ me, now I’ve got ol’ Raz. It must have been real hard goin’ it all alone like you did.’
Slayer nodded. He eyes glazed slightly with emotion and when he spoke his voice creaked slightly, but it didn’t crack. ‘It makes a big difference… not being alone.’
Stryker didn’t react to Slayer’s sudden feelings. Instead he said, ‘Who are you goin’ to see?’
Slayer did not respond at all. He opened his mouth once to answer but seemed to fail to come up with satisfactory words.
Stryker squinted and turned his head to look down at Slayer. Narrowing his eyes he asked again. ‘Who you goin’ to see?’
Slayer met his gaze but didn’t answer.
‘Damien,’ Stryker tone was firm, insistent, but not aggressive.
Slayer’s shoulders sagged slightly. He said, ‘I’m going to see a member of The Secret Order of St. Jean Chastel.’
Chapter 10
Hyperion did nothing.
He stood among the trees watching. His hands curled into tightly bout fists. He clenched his hands so hard together that he felt like they might explode. Like grenades, they might just erupt and burst, splaying bones and flesh everywhere.
Hyperion watched. He did nothing. But he felt ashamed.
He could not exactly explain why he felt ashamed. He had not exactly been raised to a high moral standard by his maker. They had not spoken much of ethics. Well, that wasn’t true. His Maker loved to pontificate on the ethics of global issues. He would talk for hours about war, economics, genocide. He would talk endlessly about power and the rights and the wrongs of obtaining and using that power. And he would listen as well. His maker at the very least played the part of respecting the opinions of the children. His creatures.
Hyperion watched. He did nothing. He felt futile.
Where did he get this revulsion? Where did it come from? He struggled to understand why he had this boiling feeling in his gut. Why was this wrong?
Before him was a little hut. It was constructed of the materials of the forest and was woven in among the trees such that it was almost nothing but a part of the foliage. Most of the hybrids on the island lived in the caves at the centre of the island. Some of them seemed to prefer the solitude.
This hut was the home of a female and her child. Hyperion was aware of no male being a part of this family. In his time on the island he had not observed much evidence of family units and had no idea how paternity was recorded, if it was observed at all.
He had been walking back from the beach after another long conversation with Hercules. The two of them had been moving back towards the caves at the centre of the island. Hercules’ ridiculous dimensions seemed to do nothing to dull his natural stealth.
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He had had many long conversations with Hercules. They spoke of the same things, going round and around the subjects of ethics, of their place in the universe. He still could not decide if he enjoyed these discussions. Much of the time he thought that he did. Much of the time he thought that he was experiencing true companionship for the first time in a very long time. There were long stretches when he felt that Hercules was his friend and that they were too equals expanding each other’s minds with debate.
The problem was that it seemed to be a one-way system.
Hercules would listen with great patience to each of Hyperion’s thoughts and arguments. He would give every outward appearance of giving them proper thought and consideration. But he never seemed to assimilate any of them. Hyperion found himself giving ground on some positions. He found himself acknowledging some of the unpleasant truths that Hercules spoke of. He never found Hercules doing the same. It was exhausting.
As they had been walking back through the jungle, Hyperion had been feeling deflated. He had been feeling unsure of himself and of the decision he had made in coming here. He had passed the point where he could be happy in the company of his maker but now he was beginning to doubt the wisdom in choosing this new home. He had been doubting even if there was a home for him anywhere.
Then he had heard the young hybrid laughing. The sound drew him through the trees and he had glided towards it, a ghost that made no sound. In the little clearing he had found them and he watched, safely concealed in the trees.
The female and the youngster. The same two he had watched more than once playing at the beach. He didn’t know why she had chosen to live here at a slight remove from from the others.
It filled his heart with warm feelings as he watched her. It buoyed him up. Watching them both play together, hearing the laughter of the youngster, he did suddenly feel like there might be a home for him somewhere. A home just like this.
Then the males had come. Five of them. They came swinging through the trees. Two big adult males and three slightly younger males. Distracted by the game, the female did not notice them until they landed in the clearing. Then she could do nothing but notice them.
Now he stood, his body rigid and shaking with outrage. His inaction filled him with shame and he wondered if he would regret his not acting more that he would regret acting. Hercule’s hand was strong and insistent on his shoulder, restraining him without any question.
‘They would kill you,’ Hercules said. ‘They would be within their rights to do it. I would be obliged to help. I don’t want that to happen.’
It was the cold logic of reality that forced Hyperion into immobility. There was not doubting, not in the slightest, that the five males could overpower him. Especially if Hercule’s added his power to theirs. He wished he could look away but it wasn’t an option for him. This might be his penance for allowing cold logic to defeat futile valor.
The males dragged her into her hut. Her feet kicked and threw earth and sand into the air. She left gouging scores in the ground as they dragged her. God, but she fought hard. She pounded her fists at the males. But they didn’t notice. She wasn’t panicked, she was outraged, Indignant was too soft a word, but it was a cousin to what she was expressing. This was nothing alien to her. This was not a new trauma for her. And, all the time, she didn’t scream, she didn’t make any sounds of panic. She spoke calmly to her child, instructing him to go away, to go away and come back later. But the child was hypnotized by what was happening.
Hercules tried to explain to Hyperion. ‘A female has no right to refuse. We must multiply, Hyperion. It is the female’s duty as much as the males. She has no right.’
Hyperion watched the five males descend on the one struggling figure and once again felt like there might be no home in the universe for him.
Chapter 11
Homer’s face displayed a mixture of child-like enthusiasm and mature apprehension. In his hands was a device that appeared to more closely resemble a medieval artillery piece than anything that could be described as a modern firearm.
Ardia, standing beside him, looked doubtful. She said, ‘What is it?’
They were gathered outside on the grounds. It was a part of the grounds that was less manicured than the rest of the impressive property. Groundskeepers sheds, a small tractor, various pieces of decaying lawn furniture were scattered around. The ground was not well manicured lawn but compacted stone. This yard area had been commandeered to act as a firing range for the day.
Razmik and O’Connor stood with them. Stryker was pacing in the background.
Razmik said, ‘It’s custom made, just for our friend here.’
Homer turned the giant weapon over in his hands. In reality it was a monstrously oversized double-barrel shotgun. The barrels were massively thick and reinforced. The stock and grips were oversized and crude, fitting his hands better than any human firearm could possibly attempt to.
Homer’s fingers moved across the weapon and pulled a small lever aside, opening the breach and folding the gun open like a traditional break-barrel shotgun.
Ardia looked into the twin spaces where the cartridges could be inserted. Even more dubious, she said, ‘Razmik… what gauge is this?’
Razmik smiled sheepishly. He didn’t meet her eyes when he answered, instead he kept his gaze fixed, lovingly, on the weapon in Homer’s hands. He said, ‘Uh… It’s… I suppose you would call it a one gauge.’
O’Connor whistled in admiration.
Homer looked around at them and said, ‘Is that good?’
Ardia hesitated, ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Of course it’s good!’ Razmik said. ‘It’s beautiful.’
Ardia continued to speak, very slowly and carefully, ‘You can’t really be expecting him to carry this into a fight with him.’
‘No! No, of course not,’ Razmik said. Then after another moment’s pause he added, ‘Not yet.’
Ardia raised her eyebrows and looked at Razmik with something akin to disbelief. She then passed her eyes to O’Connor, seeking greater sense, finding a surprising amount of enthusiasm.
O’Connor said, ‘It makes a lot of sense. Homer doesn’t exactly have an aptitude for marksmanship. What he does have is a lot of strength and mass. A blast of scattershot from that should be unable to miss. It does come with scattershot, doesn’t it?’
Razmik smiled more broadly now, encouraged, and produced four gigantic shells from his jacket pocket. Each was about two inches in diameter and looked more like a short piece of pipe than a conventional piece of ammunition. He said, ‘Scattershot and slugs.’
‘Jesus, those look like artillery shells,’ Ardia said.
Razmik said, ‘There are cannons out there with smaller bores.’
Ardia shook her head. She said, ‘What’s the point in this?’
Razmik said, ‘It’s good to have an option. Something like this would probably be much more effective against the big creatures we’ve met so far. The slugs should be able to put just about anything down, including the hybrids. The scattershot should be able to clear a room of bodies with one barrel. And the slugs could stop other things as well, machines, armored targets.’
O’Connor said, ‘It will be some time before we’d be really ready to consider having Homer carry this into a fight though.’
Razmik nodded. He said, ‘It will take a lot of practice.’
Ardia looked at the weapon with new interest. She said, ‘I bet I could operate one of those.’
Razmik shrugged. He said, ‘I’m sure you would be strong enough. I’m just not sure you have the weight to be able to handle the recoil. I doubt Stryker even would have the weight to bear the recoil properly.’
Hearing his name, Stryker turned around. He had been pacing around between the shed and the tractor, paying little attention to the others.
Stryker said, ‘I’m not sure what we’re playing at here. Damien has gone out there, back to the States, to meet a member of the fucking Order. What the hell are we doin’ playing army for?’
O’Connor was impassive. He said, ‘He can handle himself, Stryker. He managed it for long years before he ever met the rest of us.’
‘Order is fucking sneaky,’ said Stryker.
Ardia was holding one of the huge cartridges. Without turning her attention to Stryker she said, ‘He managed to avoid trouble for years as one of the most wanted men in America. And he did that before he ever had Raz’s resources. You need to trust that he’s taken the necessary precautions in protecting himself from The Order.’
Stryker just stood and stared at them, hands on hips. He said nothing and there was brief, unpleasant silence.
Ramzik spoke. ‘Will we fire it?’
Homer was the first to nod, overflowing with enthusiasm.
Ardia and Razmik stood on either side of Homer, talking him through the motions of what was to happen, cautioning him on how not to accidentally kill the rest of them.
O’Connor looked at Stryker while the others were talking. He said, ‘Slayer will be fine.’
Stryker shook his head. ‘It’s The Order.’
O’Connor smiled, understanding. He said, ‘They were able to catch you unawares? So what hope does he have?’
‘Aw, I didn’t mean it like that.’
O’Connor said, ‘He might not be able to bend steel with his bare hands or recover from gunshot wounds at the rate normal people recover from splinters, but he’s got his own skills. This is exactly what he’s good at. He needed our help before because of Prometheus. He won’t be dealing with the superhuman this time. When it comes to playing the intelligence game with humans, I think Slayer might be better equipped than any of the rest of us.’
Stryker didn’t say anything. He just stood there and thought.
‘Okay,’ said Razmik, stepping away from Homer. He produced earplugs and ear muffs and passed them around.
The group gathered a few paces behind Homer. The big creature hefted the gun and shouldered it in a completely unfamiliar and unpracticed manner. Twenty yards in front of him was an empty steel barrel. Homer took aim, as best as he could.
The sound of the explosion was massive, even through the ear protection. The spectators could feel the shockwave of the shot. Homer’s body barely moved in reaction to the recoil. The empty steel barrel shattered to pieces, the larger parts tumbling away in tattered shreds. A stream of smoke, like the exhaust of a jetliner, reached from the end of the shotgun to the wreckage on the ground.
Homer turned to them and smiled. In his excitement he brought the barrel of the gun across the group, not even considering that he could accidentally delete all of his companions with one misfire.
‘Homer, point that thing the other way!’ Ardia said.
Homer reacted after a confused hesitation and pointed the barrel of the gun back towards his target.
‘I like this better than the armor,’ he said.